Detective pulled off case after crowdfunding DNA test

Jill Disis | The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS — When an Indianapolis police detective asked the city's crime lab to send DNA to a Utah testing facility last fall, he hoped it would lead him to the man who raped and killed 19-year-old Carmen Hope Van Huss more than two decades ago.

Though not a cold case investigator, Detective Sgt. William Carter of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department had been dogging the case in his spare time since 2013. He already had success cracking one cold case, and thought the new test would bring him closer to another.

The city picked up the cost – about $1,600 – but the crime lab sent the wrong DNA. When Carter asked for another test, officials said they lacked the money.

So Carter took a novel approach. He asked the public for help. On Tuesday, he set up an online crowdfunding page and asked for donations.

Whether he should have had to depends on who you ask. Van Huss' family was disappointed the city wouldn't pay for the test. However, Maj. Chris Bailey, IMPD's assistant criminal investigations commander, said the department doesn't pay for this particular type of DNA test, which is not always useful.

That debate aside, Carter's strategy worked. Seven hours after he began asking for donations he had exceeded his goal.

It's unclear, though, what will come of the public support. Just hours after a story was published on indystar.com about the crowdfunding site, IMPD pulled Carter off the case and Bailey said he was unsure if officials will authorize the DNA test.

Van Huss' family members are infuriated.

"This is insane," said Jimmy Van Huss, who was 15 when his sister was killed. "This is ridiculous. Something has to be changed if this is how the police department is going to be run. It just makes no sense."

IMPD officials said the fundraising effort had nothing to do with Carter's removal. Instead, Bailey said Carter was moved after a review of assignments and procedures.

"We just want to make sure that people stay in their lanes," Bailey said. "We have cold case investigators, and we want to let them do their job."

Van Huss isn't buying that story. He said he had never before talked to Sgt. David Ellison, the Cold Case Unit Supervisor assigned to handle his sister's killing.

"If Carter's off the case, the case is over," Van Huss said. "She's been dead for 22 years."

A BRUTAL DEATH

Carmen Hope Van Huss was last seen March 22, 1993. That night, the Pizza Hut waitress went to Community Hospital South to visit her sick grandmother. She gave her father and her youngest brother a ride to their Southside home, dropping them off about 10:30 p.m.

About 11 p.m., Van Huss returned to her apartment on the Far Northside, near St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital. Neighbors said they heard her walk up the hall with a man. They said the two were talking and laughing.

Between 1 and 1:30 a.m. March 23, neighbors heard noise from the apartment. One person heard Van Huss yell, "Get off me! Get off me!" About 1:30 a.m., someone heard footsteps leaving the apartment.

No one called police, but someone complained to the apartment complex management. A noise complaint was left on Van Huss' door the next morning. On March 24, Van Huss' father went to the apartment and found his daughter dead. She had been raped and stabbed several times.

The case remains unsolved.

REOPENING THE CASE

Carter's foray into cold cases came in 2011, when a detective asked him for help investigating the death of Amy Weidner. The 16 year old was killed in November 1989 by a burglar.

Carter, who works in nuisance and abatement, was hooked. A year later, he found Weidner's killer by matching a blood palm print left at the crime scene to prints from an old misdemeanor arrest.

Rodney Denk later confessed. In June 2013, he was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Carter was named IMPD's investigator of the year, and he also appeared on the CBS crime program 48 Hours in a segment that highlighted the case.

Around the time Denk was sentenced, Carter began looking at the Van Huss case. Forensic analyses show her killer was a man, because blood and semen were collected at the crime scene.

But Carter said local crime lab tests can take him only so far. He said he hoped the new test done by the Sorenson Forensics lab in Utah will help narrow a field of more than 100 persons of interest by telling him about the suspect's genetic descent.

After he was denied funding for the second test, Carter said he was inspired to ask the public for money after police asked for donations this week for surgery needed to treat a department horse that has skin cancer.

"We ran an article about donating money to a horse," Carter said, "and I guess it just kind of moved me to say, 'Hey, if we can ask for that, then why can't we ask for money to donate to get this DNA test done?' "

The donations quickly poured in.

Thirty-two people — many who never knew Van Huss — donated more than $1,200 to the cause, even though he needed $996. Carter said he wanted the extra money to go toward CrimeStoppers.

Jimmy Van Huss donated $300 toward the cause.

"You would think something like that could be, you know, covered by the crime lab or the city. I don't know. But I mean it's fine, as long as it gets taken care of," he told The Star on Wednesday.

Bailey said the test Carter wants isn't one typically covered by city funds, and that the city mistakenly paid for the first test after a miscommunication between IMPD and the crime lab.

"It's not a test that has been proven to be useful in a lot of cases, according to the crime lab," Bailey said.

What happens next is unclear. Ellison did not return phone calls Thursday. Carter declined to comment.

Van Huss, however, said he is unconvinced that anyone other than Carter will find his sister's killer.

"The only person that's made any progress is Bill Carter," Van Huss said, "and here they are taking him off of it."