Indiana Unsolved: Mary and Vicki McCarty were slain in 1987





This is an occasional series highlighting some of the area's unsolved crimes. Longtime Star reporter

Diana Penner

recounts details of the crime, the victim and where the case stands with hopes of generating new information.

The crime:

On Friday, Sept. 25, 1987, after relatives had tried all day to reach them by telephone, one relative went to the home of Mary McCarty, 56, and her 21-year-old daughter, Vicki. Through a window of the single-story home in the 3200 block of Radford Drive, he saw legs, sprawled on the floor. He called police.

Mother and daughter had been brutally beaten to death with an object. There was no sign anyone had broke into the home. Nothing, including their purses with money inside, was missing. They had not been sexually assaulted.

The day before, an on-again, off-again boyfriend of Vicki's, who had done prison time for bank robbery and had no clear source of income, had come to the Central Hardware store on Shadeland Avenue where Vicki worked. Witnesses later told police he had gotten down on one knee, gave her a flower and asked her to marry him. She turned him down, flat, and might have appeared to scoff at the prospect. He was furious, stormed out and said something like, "You'll see me again soon," witnesses told police.

He was named as a suspect not long after the murders, but was never charged so The Star is not identifying him now. A few years after the murders, he was again arrested for bank robberies, in western states, and sentenced to prison, but has since been released.





The victims:

Mary McCarty and her husband divorced when their oldest daughter, Valerie, was 14. Vicki was six years younger. The three lived together in the house on Radford Drive. A year before her mother and sister were killed, Valerie got married and moved across town.

Mary and Vicki were in the process of moving to an apartment — a smaller, more economical space — and the house had been sold. Valerie, however, had to handle the closing after the murders.

Vicky McCarty and Deneen Hert met in kindergarten at Sunny Heights Elementary School and stayed best friends through graduation from Lawrence Central High School in 1984. Vicki got good grades, but also enjoyed hanging out and having fun, Hert recalled. After graduation, Vicki had a couple of jobs and was taking classes, at Ivy Tech Community College or ITT Technical Institute, or both. That's also where she might have met the boyfriend.

Hert said her friend was witty — she'd inherited a sense of humor and joking from her mother — and loved animals, Corvettes and the Bee Gees. The night before she was found bludgeoned to death, Vicki had sat with her lifelong friend, in Hert's car, listening to the Bee Gees' latest album on a cassette tape. Hert said she left at 8:30 p.m. or 8:45 p.m. That was the last time she saw her friend.

Valerie Kern said her little sister likely responded to the generous attentions of the boyfriend, who was a few years older, good-looking and well-dressed, and always seemed to have the money to take her to nice restaurants. But the relationship was not exclusive and Vicki went out with other men, too, when the boyfriend was at his official home in Florida.

Mary McCarty, a longtime bookkeeper at a nursing home near Community East Hospital, tended to be a homebody, Valerie recalled. She was hard-working, was there for her daughters and did not socialize much outside the home.

Some years before she died, her mother had decided to learn to play a musical instrument and inexplicably chose the mandolin, Valerie recalled. She never got very good at it, but she enjoyed music, particularly Kenny Rogers. Mary also enjoyed painting and watch TV — her favorite shows were "The Love Boat" and "Magnum, PI."

The detective:

The homicides originally were investigated by the Marion County Sheriff's Department. After the department merged in January 2007 with the Indianapolis Police Department, the case moved to the new Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's Cold Case Unit. Detective Bill Rogers is reviewing the case, retesting evidence and tracking down old and new leads.

Where does the case stand?

Vicki's boyfriend remains the primary suspect, Rogers said. He would like to hear from anyone who knew the man, who was 26 at the time of the slayings, and might have seen him with Vicki McCarty. The man might have been making regular trips to Indianapolis in connection with stolen cars and drugs, Rogers said. He always arrived in a new, and different, car in the mid- to late 1980s.

Associates and acquaintances of his in those days might still be in Indianapolis and be able to recall key details, Rogers hopes.

If you know something:

Call Rogers at (317) 327-8386.

Star researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this story.

You can reach me at (317) 444-6249, by email at diana.penner@indystar.com com or on Twitter, @dianapenner.