Category: confession

January 1975: Thrill Killer Records A Murder

Roger Lynn had a bit of a reputation as a young teen. He was a well-known “chronic truant” with some very strange hobbies. Rather than obsess over cars, sports, or any number of the other, more socially-acceptable hobbies available to boys in the late 1960s, Roger preferred over-indulging in pornography, guns, and the macabre stories of Edgar Allen Poe. He played cruel jokes on his family, like putting mineral oil in his grandfather’s liquor bottles. Then there was his disturbing habit of killing pets… a couple of dogs here, a cat or duck there.

Neighbors, acquaintances, and even his own mother believed there was something was strange – and possibly even dangerous – about the boy.

Time passed. Lynn grew up, but he didn’t move on. At nineteen, his life remained roughly the same as it had been as an adolescent. Although he managed to marry, he continued living with his mother. He briefly held a job but quit within six months. He still fetishized porn, guns, and Poe. Even his best friend was the same. Lynn and Orval Lee Baker had been buddies ever since elementary school. They remained close right up until the moment Lynn shot him, making sure to get it all on tape.

According to the audio diary he kept at the time, Lynn became fixated on assassination following the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. In a rambling, unfocused entry the day before the murder, he recited bible verses then discussed his “urge to kill.”

I will now describe a little of my plan. I will bring Lee Baker up here and have him look at these books I’ve got up here – pornographic books, magazines – then while he is looking (at them) I will shoot him once in the chest area and once in the head.

Later, he continued:

Report, it is 10 minutes after two. Lee doesn’t have to be at work until 4:30. I called up and he is supposed to come down in a few minutes. I will record the entire incident today, and there will be music in the bacground to hopefully cover up some of the noise, the two shots, so I will leave off now until I resume with the recording of the assassination.

Because he planned to kill himself after the murder, Lynn recorded a goodbye message for his wife. Then ELO’s song “Evil Woman” abruptly began playing into the tape. There was a roar of a rifle and the sound of a shell casing hitting the ground. A few seconds later, another shot.

Reluctant to relinquish what he no doubt saw as his moment in the spotlight, Lynn recorded another message for his wife. “This is it,” he vowed. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this Linda. Goodbye, Linda.”

However, that wasn’t “it” for Roger Lynn. Upon closer review, the would-be wordsmith decided not to kill himself but to call the police and confess instead. When officers arrived at the crime scene, he turned over his weapon and surrendered without incident. Scratched into the rifle’s stock was a single word: Nevermore.

Despite an insanity plea, a jury found Lynn guilty of first degree murder 0n September 29, 1976. He died in prison while serving a life sentence.

Man Murders, Mutilates Father after Mistaking Him for Robot

“I need to know for sure that that is a robot that looks like my dad before I shoot at it,”
Shawn Hays wrote on Faebook.

A Lawrence County man has been arrested and charged with nine felonies in connection with his father’s murder.

According to a probable cause affidavit, on the evening of December 20th, Lawrence County Central Dispatch received a call requesting a welfare check on 73-year-old Mitchell man Rodney Hays. The caller told police Rodney’s son Shawn, 53, had made some troubling Facebook posts over the past week, including at least one in which he claimed someone had abducted his father and replaced him with an identical robot. The caller then went on to explain that, in a private phone conversation, Shawn said he had shot and mutilated the impersonating automoton.

Deputies went to the home the father and son shared, arriving just as a Chevy pickup pulled away from the house. Due to the nature of their visit, deputies intercepted the truck, preventing it from leaving the scene.

Behind the wheel sat Shawn Hays. A shotgun rested beside him in the passenger seat.

Confronted by police, Shawn became combative and refused to exit the vehicle. When questioned about his father’s whereabouts, he said Rodney was “over there” and made a vague motion toward their residence. “It’s a robot that looks like a human… laying over there,” he said at one point during the exchange. “I had to shoot at it to destroy it.”

While one of the deputies talked to the obviously-disturbed man, distracting him, the other deputy was able to grab the gun out of the truck. A brief struggled ensued before the two officers removed Hays from the pickup then placed him in handcuffs.

A search of the property quickly led to the discovery of Rodney Hays’s lifeless body laid out in his own front yard. He had been shot in the head and chest, his corpse mutilated.

Shawn allegedly admitted to the murder and dismemberment in a later interview. However, he continued to insist he had not harmed his father but, rather, a robotic replica. Police charged him with nine felonies, including murder, aggravated battery, reckless homicide, domestic battery, battery, abuse of a corpse, criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, pointing a loaded firearm and obstruction of justice, as well as a misdemeanor of resisting law enforcement. 

He is currently in custody at the Lawrence County Jail in Bedford.

This Day in Infamy: The Murder of Terry Lee Chasteen and Her Children

Young mother of three, Terry Lee Chasteen

April 28, 1978 – Divorced mother Terry Lee Chasteen was taking her three small children – Misty (5), Stephen (4), and Mark (2) – to the babysitter when another driver motioned for her to pull over. Terry pulled to the side of I-465, and the man pulled in behind her, explaining something was wrong with one of her rear tires. He offered to look at it for her, and the young mother gratefully accepted.

Tragically for Terry and her children, their supposed Good Samaritan was actually a conniving, violent criminal named Steven Timothy Judy. Once he had access to Terry’s car, Judy disabled it under the guise of fixing the nonexistant problem with her tire. Then, when she was unable to drive away, he convinced her to accept a ride.

Within an hour, Terry and all three children were dead.

After initially proclaiming his innocence, Judy later confessed to raping Terry before strangling her to death in full view of her children. Then the remorseless killer threw each of the kids, one by one, as far as he could into the cold water of White Lick Creek and watched as they drowned.

Steven Timothy Judy was executed in Indiana’s electric chair on March 9, 1981.

This Day in Infamy: The Death of A Serial Killer

March 6, 1994 – Convicted killer and Indiana native Larry William Eyler (41) died of complications related to AIDS in the infirmary of the Pontiac Correctional Center (IL). Two days after his death, Eyler’s defense attorney released a posthumous statement in which Eyler confessed to the murders of at least 21 young men. In the confession, he also alleged Robert David Little (52) of Terre Haute had been his accomplice in some of the killings, and was the sole person responsible for the death of Daniel Bridges. Little, an Indiana State University professor with whom Eyler had lived for seven years, was brought up on charges in connection with one of the murders but later acquitted. He then returned to teaching.