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The Timber Lake Murder: Who Killed Arthur Denton? · River City Mystery - Investigating mysteries in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky

• 0:01
  Speaker: Two hours.
• 0:03
  Speaker: That's the amount of time Wilma
• 0:04
  Speaker: Denton says she spent trapped in
• 0:06
  Speaker: the basement of her home on
• 0:07
  Speaker: Timber Lake in Posey County,
• 0:08
  Speaker: Indiana.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Duct taped to a chair alone in the dark, listening to what she
• 0:13
  Speaker: believed were the final moments of her husband's life unfolding
• 0:16
  Speaker: somewhere above her.
• 0:18
  Speaker: She says she fought to break
• 0:19
  Speaker: free from the tape for nearly
• 0:20
  Speaker: two hours.
• 0:21
  Speaker: Eventually, one arm came free, just enough to grab a phone and
• 0:24
  Speaker: call 9-1-1.
• 0:26
  Speaker: It's August 18, 1991, when police arrived.
• 0:29
  Speaker: Just after 2 AM, they find
• 0:31
  Speaker: 78-year-old Arthur
• 0:32
  Speaker: Denton dead on the main floor of
• 0:34
  Speaker: the home.
• 0:35
  Speaker: Arthur was a respected retired
• 0:36
  Speaker: Evansville attorney, former
• 0:38
  Speaker: state legislator and deputy
• 0:39
  Speaker: prosecutor for Vanderburgh
• 0:40
  Speaker: County.
• 0:42
  Speaker: He had been beaten and stabbed to death inside his own house.
• 0:45
  Speaker: Wilma told police that a masked
• 0:46
  Speaker: man wearing long black gloves
• 0:48
  Speaker: found her in the basement,
• 0:49
  Speaker: slapped her and bound her with
• 0:51
  Speaker: duct tape.
• 0:52
  Speaker: She then claimed that she heard
• 0:53
  Speaker: other men in the house, likely
• 0:54
  Speaker: stealing $12,000 dollars
• 0:56
  Speaker: in cash.
• 0:57
  Speaker: Even though Arthur's friends insisted he never kept large
• 0:59
  Speaker: amounts of cash on hand.
• 1:01
  Speaker: Police never found a murder weapon, and no one was ever
• 1:04
  Speaker: charged in Arthur's death.
• 1:06
  Speaker: So what really happened inside the Dentons' Timberlake house in
• 1:09
  Speaker: the middle of the night?
• 1:10
  Speaker: Was it a violent home invasion
• 1:12
  Speaker: gone wrong or the perfect
• 1:14
  Speaker: murder?
• 1:17
  Speaker: Every time we're together, it's overshadowed by the fact that
• 1:22
  Speaker: someone's missing someone.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Very important.
• 1:26
  Speaker: I went to pry it open.
• 1:27
  Speaker: And when I kicked the door in, next thing you know was all you
• 1:30
  Speaker: seen was my brother, and he was slumped over on the couch.
• 1:33
  Speaker: And.
• 1:34
  Speaker: I mean, blood just coming from everywhere.
• 1:37
  Speaker: I offered the cops to go and take them to the exact spot I
• 1:42
  Speaker: pulled over in.
• 1:43
  Speaker: When I turned around, I pulled
• 1:45
  Speaker: over and I called my wife and
• 1:47
  Speaker: I'm walking him out my rear view
• 1:49
  Speaker: mirror, and he's walking towards
• 1:50
  Speaker: the tracks where he went from
• 1:53
  Speaker: there after I left from that
• 1:55
  Speaker: spot.
• 1:55
  Speaker: Don't know.
• 1:57
  Speaker: I was there at Saint Joe and
• 1:59
  Speaker: Diamond working, you know,
• 2:00
  Speaker: mid-morning.
• 2:02
  Speaker: You know, my cell phone rings.
• 2:04
  Speaker: I don't recognize the number.
• 2:07
  Speaker: So this woman, I didn't
• 2:09
  Speaker: recognize her because she was
• 2:10
  Speaker: distressed.
• 2:12
  Speaker: She.
• 2:12
  Speaker: She says this man come in and shot me.
• 2:20
  Speaker: Thank you for joining me for
• 2:21
  Speaker: another episode of River City
• 2:22
  Speaker: Mystery.
• 2:23
  Speaker: I am your host, Matt Deig.
• 2:25
  Speaker: In this episode, we're going to
• 2:26
  Speaker: be looking into the murder of
• 2:27
  Speaker: Arthur Denton in Posey County,
• 2:29
  Speaker: Indiana.
• 2:31
  Speaker: And this is a really strange case with some twists and turns.
• 2:34
  Speaker: And I had actually never heard of this particular case.
• 2:36
  Speaker: I did have it on my radar
• 2:38
  Speaker: because I have a database on my
• 2:40
  Speaker: discord of all of our cold cases
• 2:42
  Speaker: from the region, but I hadn't
• 2:43
  Speaker: really dug into it until I
• 2:45
  Speaker: started doing research for this
• 2:46
  Speaker: episode.
• 2:47
  Speaker: And it's a really strange case.
• 2:49
  Speaker: It's it's an unsolved case.
• 2:51
  Speaker: And as far as I know, the last article I saw on this, it's not
• 2:54
  Speaker: being actively investigated.
• 2:56
  Speaker: So my hope is that maybe somebody will hear this and
• 2:59
  Speaker: it'll trigger something that may kindle some sort of a some a
• 3:03
  Speaker: phone call or something that might help lead to the solution
• 3:06
  Speaker: of this case.
• 3:07
  Speaker: So who was Arthur Denton, exactly?
• 3:10
  Speaker: He wasn't just a lawyer.
• 3:11
  Speaker: I mean, he was a lawyer.
• 3:12
  Speaker: He was a lawyer in the Evansville, Indiana area for
• 3:15
  Speaker: about fifty years.
• 3:16
  Speaker: But he was also a former state
• 3:17
  Speaker: legislator and three time deputy
• 3:20
  Speaker: prosecutor for Vanderburgh
• 3:21
  Speaker: County.
• 3:22
  Speaker: So for many decades, he was a very integral part of the
• 3:24
  Speaker: Evansville legal community.
• 3:26
  Speaker: For more than fifty years, he lived a very quiet and I would
• 3:29
  Speaker: say, predictable life with his wife, Eunice, and they lived in
• 3:32
  Speaker: a very modest home on Taylor Avenue in Evansville.
• 3:35
  Speaker: And they lived very what's been
• 3:37
  Speaker: described as very routine,
• 3:38
  Speaker: predictable lives, like they
• 3:40
  Speaker: would go out with their friends,
• 3:41
  Speaker: Bill and Sherry Forman on
• 3:42
  Speaker: Saturday nights.
• 3:43
  Speaker: They would go play bridge.
• 3:45
  Speaker: Uh, most evenings they would go
• 3:46
  Speaker: out to eat, they would go play
• 3:48
  Speaker: cards at the Civic Center or
• 3:50
  Speaker: they go, you know, he'd go to
• 3:51
  Speaker: shoot pool at the downtown Elks
• 3:53
  Speaker: Club.
• 3:53
  Speaker: They didn't really deviate much from that.
• 3:55
  Speaker: They would they were very close to their friends.
• 3:57
  Speaker: Very communicative, Predictable.
• 3:59
  Speaker: Bill foreman, one of his friends
• 4:01
  Speaker: who met him at IU School of Law
• 4:02
  Speaker: in the thirties, described him
• 4:04
  Speaker: as being very careful and
• 4:05
  Speaker: reserved.
• 4:06
  Speaker: He's a person from the depression era, so very just,
• 4:09
  Speaker: he's kind of shaped by hardship, was the way he worded that.
• 4:13
  Speaker: And he never really showed his wealth.
• 4:14
  Speaker: So neighbors who lived next door never really knew he had any
• 4:18
  Speaker: money at all.
• 4:19
  Speaker: Everything kind of collapsed in June of nineteen ninety, though.
• 4:23
  Speaker: His world kind of came crashing
• 4:24
  Speaker: down on June twenty first,
• 4:26
  Speaker: nineteen ninety.
• 4:27
  Speaker: While out with friends, Eunice
• 4:29
  Speaker: Denton suffered a ruptured colon
• 4:31
  Speaker: and died.
• 4:32
  Speaker: So after fifty years of marriage, Arthur was suddenly
• 4:35
  Speaker: alone and friends said.
• 4:36
  Speaker: From that point on, he was never quite the same.
• 4:40
  Speaker: Just three months later, Arthur Denton shocked nearly everybody
• 4:44
  Speaker: who knew him.
• 4:45
  Speaker: On August fourteen, nineteen
• 4:47
  Speaker: ninety, the seventy seven year
• 4:48
  Speaker: old widower drove to Henderson,
• 4:50
  Speaker: Kentucky, and married Wilma
• 4:52
  Speaker: Scales.
• 4:53
  Speaker: Everyone called her doodle.
• 4:55
  Speaker: That was her nickname.
• 4:56
  Speaker: I'm.
• 4:56
  Speaker: I'm just going to call her
• 4:57
  Speaker: Wilma, just to keep keep
• 4:59
  Speaker: consistent here.
• 5:00
  Speaker: But everyone did call her doodle at that time, and I'm assuming
• 5:03
  Speaker: Arthur did as well.
• 5:04
  Speaker: But the differences between those two were hard to ignore.
• 5:08
  Speaker: Wilma was thirty nine years old, so there's about a forty year
• 5:11
  Speaker: age difference by this point.
• 5:13
  Speaker: This was Wilma's fourth marriage, and it's thought that
• 5:17
  Speaker: they met through Wilma's work because she was a housekeeper or
• 5:22
  Speaker: in the janitorial staff at the courthouse where Arthur
• 5:25
  Speaker: maintained his office.
• 5:27
  Speaker: So at some point they crossed
• 5:29
  Speaker: paths and Wilma ended up as the
• 5:32
  Speaker: personal housekeeper for Arthur
• 5:34
  Speaker: and Eunice at their own home for
• 5:37
  Speaker: six months prior to Eunice
• 5:38
  Speaker: passing away.
• 5:39
  Speaker: So at the time Eunice passed away, Wilma was their
• 5:42
  Speaker: housekeeper, and Arthur's closest friends were blindsided
• 5:46
  Speaker: by the marriage.
• 5:47
  Speaker: Bill foreman, one of his closest friends, said.
• 5:49
  Speaker: He was quoted as saying, I never heard of the second Mrs. Denton.
• 5:52
  Speaker: I never met her.
• 5:54
  Speaker: The marriage kind of sparked a bunch of quick changes.
• 5:57
  Speaker: By October of nineteen ninety,
• 5:59
  Speaker: Arthur had sold the Taylor
• 6:01
  Speaker: Avenue home he lived in for
• 6:02
  Speaker: decades.
• 6:03
  Speaker: He moved Wilma to the house on
• 6:06
  Speaker: Middle Mount Vernon Road in
• 6:07
  Speaker: Posey County, right on Timber
• 6:08
  Speaker: Lake.
• 6:09
  Speaker: There the house is surrounded by
• 6:10
  Speaker: a chain link fence, and four of
• 6:13
  Speaker: Wilma's dogs roamed around this
• 6:15
  Speaker: yard in the chain link fence
• 6:17
  Speaker: area.
• 6:18
  Speaker: There was a beware of dog sign on the fence.
• 6:20
  Speaker: Two of the dogs were German shepherds and two were mixed
• 6:23
  Speaker: breed, so they were pretty much guard dogs and they were.
• 6:26
  Speaker: According to neighbors, those
• 6:27
  Speaker: dogs would bark at anything that
• 6:28
  Speaker: walked by.
• 6:29
  Speaker: They were not quiet, docile dogs.
• 6:32
  Speaker: They were guard dogs.
• 6:33
  Speaker: That comes into play a little bit later on.
• 6:35
  Speaker: In January of nineteen ninety one, Arthur makes a big change.
• 6:38
  Speaker: He revises his will.
• 6:40
  Speaker: He names Wilma Denton as the sole beneficiary of his entire
• 6:43
  Speaker: estate, which was valued at about three hundred and
• 6:45
  Speaker: seventeen thousand dollars at that time, which is about seven
• 6:48
  Speaker: hundred and fifty thousand dollars in today's dollars.
• 6:50
  Speaker: Seven months after he made those changes to his will.
• 6:53
  Speaker: Arthur Denton was dead.
• 6:55
  Speaker: So what exactly happened on the night of August eighteenth,
• 6:58
  Speaker: nineteen ninety one.
• 7:00
  Speaker: Everything we know about that
• 7:02
  Speaker: night, for the most part, is
• 7:04
  Speaker: from Wilma Denton's account
• 7:05
  Speaker: herself.
• 7:06
  Speaker: She's the only witness.
• 7:07
  Speaker: She's the only one who was there.
• 7:09
  Speaker: So there were no other witnesses.
• 7:11
  Speaker: There were no neighbors who saw anything.
• 7:14
  Speaker: Uh, so we have to kind of keep that in mind when we're
• 7:17
  Speaker: listening to the story.
• 7:19
  Speaker: We have no other person.
• 7:21
  Speaker: Obviously, Arthur's voice is not
• 7:22
  Speaker: heard in this because he's
• 7:24
  Speaker: deceased.
• 7:25
  Speaker: What Wilma claims happened was that she was downstairs in the
• 7:29
  Speaker: basement making a phone call or about to make a phone call at
• 7:32
  Speaker: twelve fifteen a m while she was in the basement, she heard
• 7:36
  Speaker: people enter the house upstairs.
• 7:38
  Speaker: She says a man wearing a ski
• 7:40
  Speaker: mask and long black gloves found
• 7:42
  Speaker: her in the basement, slapped her
• 7:43
  Speaker: and bound her to a chair with
• 7:45
  Speaker: duct tape.
• 7:46
  Speaker: She claims that while that was going on, she heard other people
• 7:49
  Speaker: upstairs with her husband.
• 7:51
  Speaker: For the next two hours, she
• 7:52
  Speaker: claims, she sat in the darkness,
• 7:54
  Speaker: listening to movement above her,
• 7:55
  Speaker: trying to break free from the
• 7:56
  Speaker: tape that was tying her to the
• 7:58
  Speaker: chair.
• 7:59
  Speaker: Finally, around two a m, she
• 8:00
  Speaker: broke free from the tape and was
• 8:02
  Speaker: able to call nine hundred eleven
• 8:03
  Speaker: for help, which did arrive
• 8:05
  Speaker: around two fifteen a m. Police
• 8:07
  Speaker: arrived to find Arthur Denton
• 8:09
  Speaker: had been beaten in the head and
• 8:11
  Speaker: stabbed multiple times in the
• 8:12
  Speaker: neck, and he was deceased on the
• 8:14
  Speaker: scene.
• 8:15
  Speaker: As investigators examined the
• 8:17
  Speaker: scene, they started to notice
• 8:18
  Speaker: some inconsistencies, some odd
• 8:20
  Speaker: things starting to pile up a
• 8:22
  Speaker: little bit.
• 8:23
  Speaker: Number one is the dogs.
• 8:25
  Speaker: The Denton's had four dogs.
• 8:27
  Speaker: They had two German shepherds and two mixed breeds.
• 8:30
  Speaker: They would roam around the chain link fence area, which they were
• 8:33
  Speaker: known to bark very aggressively at anyone who walked by so the
• 8:36
  Speaker: neighbors would notice barking often if there were animals in
• 8:41
  Speaker: the area, or maybe people.
• 8:43
  Speaker: That night, the neighbors did not report hearing any
• 8:45
  Speaker: aggressive barking or any barking at all.
• 8:47
  Speaker: As a matter of fact, the Posey
• 8:49
  Speaker: County Prosecutor, Kim Kelley,
• 8:50
  Speaker: more noted, and some of the
• 8:52
  Speaker: articles I've read about this,
• 8:53
  Speaker: that that doesn't necessarily
• 8:54
  Speaker: mean anything.
• 8:55
  Speaker: It just means that the neighbors
• 8:56
  Speaker: may not have heard the barking,
• 8:57
  Speaker: or maybe the intruders avoided
• 9:00
  Speaker: the dogs.
• 9:00
  Speaker: We don't know, but it is an interesting tidbit, I would say.
• 9:04
  Speaker: Another interesting tidbit is
• 9:07
  Speaker: that Wilma claimed that twelve
• 9:08
  Speaker: thousand dollars in cash was
• 9:10
  Speaker: missing.
• 9:10
  Speaker: Now Arthur's friends, they
• 9:12
  Speaker: insist that he was not the type
• 9:14
  Speaker: of person to keep twelve
• 9:16
  Speaker: thousand dollars in cash at the
• 9:17
  Speaker: house.
• 9:18
  Speaker: He was.
• 9:18
  Speaker: He just wasn't.
• 9:19
  Speaker: He. He was the type that would keep that at the bank.
• 9:22
  Speaker: It would be very unusual for him to have kept twelve thousand
• 9:25
  Speaker: dollars in cash at the house.
• 9:26
  Speaker: However, Wilma claims that
• 9:28
  Speaker: twelve thousand dollars is
• 9:29
  Speaker: missing.
• 9:30
  Speaker: Prosecutors could never confirm that anything had been stolen
• 9:33
  Speaker: other than just Wilma's word that there was twelve thousand
• 9:36
  Speaker: dollars and it was missing.
• 9:38
  Speaker: Uh, no murder weapon was ever
• 9:39
  Speaker: found, so the police did an
• 9:41
  Speaker: exhaustive search.
• 9:41
  Speaker: No murder weapon was ever found.
• 9:43
  Speaker: Uh, within two weeks of the killing, police responded to two
• 9:48
  Speaker: reported break ins at the house.
• 9:49
  Speaker: Oh. Wilma called the police
• 9:50
  Speaker: twice within two weeks of
• 9:52
  Speaker: Arthur's death to report break
• 9:54
  Speaker: ins.
• 9:55
  Speaker: In both cases, nothing was taken, according to Posey County
• 9:58
  Speaker: Prosecutor Kim Kelley, more.
• 10:00
  Speaker: Another strange turn on
• 10:02
  Speaker: September eight, nineteen ninety
• 10:03
  Speaker: one.
• 10:04
  Speaker: Wilma's brother, William Scales, committed suicide.
• 10:08
  Speaker: He OD'd.
• 10:09
  Speaker: So this is about a month or so after Arthur's death.
• 10:13
  Speaker: So you start to wonder, like, as the investigators are looking at
• 10:15
  Speaker: this, they're thinking, is William somehow was he was he
• 10:18
  Speaker: paid by Wilma to to come in and be involved in this in some way?
• 10:24
  Speaker: And he was maybe overwhelmed with guilt and OD'd less than a
• 10:28
  Speaker: month after Arthur was killed.
• 10:30
  Speaker: Investigators examined the
• 10:32
  Speaker: possibility of a connection, but
• 10:33
  Speaker: the prosecutor stated that
• 10:35
  Speaker: William was actually out of town
• 10:37
  Speaker: at the time of the murder, so he
• 10:38
  Speaker: was ruled out as a possible
• 10:40
  Speaker: participant.
• 10:41
  Speaker: But the prosecutor does admit
• 10:43
  Speaker: that there are some obvious
• 10:45
  Speaker: timing questions that raise
• 10:47
  Speaker: eyebrows.
• 10:48
  Speaker: One thing that interests me is, you know, it's it's easy these
• 10:51
  Speaker: days to kind of track people with cell phone technology.
• 10:54
  Speaker: Like a lot of people.
• 10:56
  Speaker: If you watch these true crime
• 10:58
  Speaker: shows like they, they will track
• 11:00
  Speaker: everywhere you go with your cell
• 11:01
  Speaker: phone.
• 11:01
  Speaker: Back then, the nineteen ninety
• 11:03
  Speaker: one people didn't have cell
• 11:03
  Speaker: phones.
• 11:05
  Speaker: So you wonder how they verify that someone was quote unquote,
• 11:08
  Speaker: out of town or out of the area at the time?
• 11:11
  Speaker: Is it or is it just a he said,
• 11:12
  Speaker: she said kind of a situation
• 11:13
  Speaker: where he says, I was out of town
• 11:15
  Speaker: and everyone just has to believe
• 11:16
  Speaker: it.
• 11:17
  Speaker: Um, I don't know.
• 11:19
  Speaker: Either way, it's a strange coincidence.
• 11:21
  Speaker: Wilma's brother OD'd less than about a month after Arthur's
• 11:25
  Speaker: murder, so that's what it is.
• 11:28
  Speaker: And in February of nineteen
• 11:29
  Speaker: ninety two, a grand jury heard
• 11:31
  Speaker: testimony from twenty five
• 11:32
  Speaker: people.
• 11:32
  Speaker: There were they heard from
• 11:34
  Speaker: neighbors, police officers,
• 11:36
  Speaker: friends.
• 11:37
  Speaker: One person who did not testify was Wilma Denton.
• 11:41
  Speaker: So she never actually spoke or testified as far as what her
• 11:46
  Speaker: side of the story was.
• 11:47
  Speaker: And she was the only one that was there.
• 11:49
  Speaker: After the prosecutors looked at
• 11:51
  Speaker: all the information, they
• 11:52
  Speaker: decided not to move forward with
• 11:53
  Speaker: any indictments.
• 11:54
  Speaker: So there was never anyone charged in Arthur's murder?
• 11:57
  Speaker: There was one more interesting tidbit that I came across in one
• 12:02
  Speaker: of the articles I read.
• 12:03
  Speaker: One of the Denton's next door
• 12:05
  Speaker: neighbors, Jim de Haven, claims
• 12:07
  Speaker: that he heard a prowler around
• 12:09
  Speaker: his home.
• 12:09
  Speaker: This would have been at two
• 12:10
  Speaker: thirty in the morning on Friday
• 12:12
  Speaker: night.
• 12:12
  Speaker: This would have been two days before the murder.
• 12:15
  Speaker: So he hears some sort of
• 12:17
  Speaker: disturbance or prowler around
• 12:19
  Speaker: his house at two thirty in the
• 12:20
  Speaker: morning.
• 12:20
  Speaker: Another family member turns on a
• 12:22
  Speaker: light to the outside, I guess,
• 12:24
  Speaker: and the prowler apparently
• 12:26
  Speaker: flees.
• 12:27
  Speaker: He never actually called the
• 12:28
  Speaker: police to report the incident,
• 12:29
  Speaker: but that is an interesting
• 12:30
  Speaker: tidbit.
• 12:30
  Speaker: So it's kind of like you wonder
• 12:31
  Speaker: if there were people scoping out
• 12:32
  Speaker: the area, or maybe trying to get
• 12:36
  Speaker: around the dogs or something, I
• 12:37
  Speaker: don't know, but that is
• 12:39
  Speaker: interesting.
• 12:40
  Speaker: So it is possible that maybe there were some prowlers, uh,
• 12:44
  Speaker: who, who were targeting Arthur for some reason.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Several years went by and the case was appearing to go cold,
• 12:51
  Speaker: but investigators never really stopped looking at Wilma.
• 12:56
  Speaker: In this case, I think they
• 12:57
  Speaker: always viewed her as being a
• 12:58
  Speaker: potential suspect.
• 12:59
  Speaker: They just didn't have the the
• 13:01
  Speaker: evidence to to pin the murder on
• 13:04
  Speaker: her.
• 13:05
  Speaker: They did have something that
• 13:07
  Speaker: they had found during the
• 13:07
  Speaker: original investigation.
• 13:09
  Speaker: While they were searching Wilma's car, they found a check
• 13:13
  Speaker: in her glove box.
• 13:15
  Speaker: It was a fifteen thousand
• 13:17
  Speaker: dollars check made out to Wilma
• 13:18
  Speaker: Scales.
• 13:19
  Speaker: Scales was Wilma's maiden name and the check appeared to be
• 13:23
  Speaker: signed by Arthur Denton.
• 13:26
  Speaker: Indiana State Police handwriting analysts examined the check and
• 13:29
  Speaker: reached a troubling conclusion, you might say.
• 13:32
  Speaker: The writing showed characteristics of a quote
• 13:35
  Speaker: unquote, simulated forgery.
• 13:38
  Speaker: By nineteen ninety five, Posey County Prosecutor Trent van
• 13:41
  Speaker: Haaften formally referred to Wilma as a potential suspect.
• 13:45
  Speaker: So she was she'd kind of morphed into potential suspect realm.
• 13:49
  Speaker: So they were really trying to pin this on her at this time.
• 13:53
  Speaker: And they were just looking for
• 13:53
  Speaker: that one piece of evidence to
• 13:55
  Speaker: get over the over the hump, I
• 13:57
  Speaker: think, uh.
• 13:58
  Speaker: Trent Van Haaften requested a
• 13:59
  Speaker: handwriting sample to determine
• 14:01
  Speaker: whether she had forged the
• 14:02
  Speaker: check.
• 14:04
  Speaker: Wilma's attorney, a well-known defense attorney, John de Klaus,
• 14:08
  Speaker: in the Evansville area, argued that spouses frequently sign
• 14:11
  Speaker: each other's names and that forcing a sample would violate
• 14:14
  Speaker: her Fourth Amendment rights.
• 14:16
  Speaker: In December of nineteen ninety
• 14:17
  Speaker: five, Judge James M Redwine
• 14:20
  Speaker: agreed so she could not be
• 14:23
  Speaker: compelled to provide a
• 14:24
  Speaker: handwriting sample.
• 14:25
  Speaker: And with that ruling, that basically shut the door on on
• 14:29
  Speaker: that whole avenue of thinking about the forged check and maybe
• 14:33
  Speaker: a motive there.
• 14:34
  Speaker: According to an article in the Evansville Press dated March
• 14:36
  Speaker: eighteen, nineteen ninety six, the Posey County Sheriff's
• 14:39
  Speaker: Department is no longer actively investigating the case.
• 14:42
  Speaker: So this is, for the most part, a
• 14:43
  Speaker: closed case that they're not
• 14:45
  Speaker: looking into.
• 14:45
  Speaker: So my goal of this episode is to shine a light on the case.
• 14:50
  Speaker: Maybe there's somebody out there who has heard something second
• 14:52
  Speaker: hand, third hand, or that might be relevant to the case.
• 14:55
  Speaker: Maybe there were former
• 14:56
  Speaker: neighbors that heard or saw
• 14:58
  Speaker: something, and they were never
• 14:59
  Speaker: asked by police at the time, and
• 15:00
  Speaker: they want to come forward and
• 15:01
  Speaker: say something.
• 15:02
  Speaker: Either way, somebody out there knows something.
• 15:05
  Speaker: Even if Wilma wasn't involved,
• 15:07
  Speaker: this involved more than one
• 15:09
  Speaker: person.
• 15:10
  Speaker: It sounds like it was a little bit of an operation.
• 15:12
  Speaker: So if maybe there's a person out
• 15:14
  Speaker: there who said something to
• 15:15
  Speaker: somebody else who thinks that
• 15:17
  Speaker: was questionable.
• 15:18
  Speaker: Now, Arthur didn't have any children.
• 15:21
  Speaker: So his obituary lists a couple of nieces and nephews.
• 15:24
  Speaker: There aren't people following up on this stuff over the years.
• 15:27
  Speaker: And a lot of times when you have these people without any
• 15:29
  Speaker: children or close loved ones, these cases just get swept under
• 15:32
  Speaker: the rug because it's easy to do that, I think.
• 15:35
  Speaker: Arthur spent his whole life following the rules and
• 15:39
  Speaker: following the law and doing the right thing as much as he could.
• 15:41
  Speaker: I'm sure I didn't know him personally, obviously, but I
• 15:44
  Speaker: don't think he deserved to be forgotten like this.
• 15:47
  Speaker: So hopefully someone hears this and it triggers a memory or
• 15:51
  Speaker: something that becomes helpful.
• 15:53
  Speaker: As far as what became of Wilma.
• 15:55
  Speaker: She remained at the house on
• 15:56
  Speaker: Middle Mount Vernon Road for a
• 15:58
  Speaker: while, and that was the house
• 16:00
  Speaker: that Arthur had purchased for
• 16:01
  Speaker: them.
• 16:01
  Speaker: And she inherited his entire estate worth hundreds of
• 16:04
  Speaker: thousands of dollars.
• 16:05
  Speaker: She eventually moved on and remarried.
• 16:08
  Speaker: She married a prominent Evansville area dentist and
• 16:11
  Speaker: whatever secrets that she knew and didn't tell anybody, she
• 16:14
  Speaker: took to her grave.
• 16:15
  Speaker: She passed away in twenty fourteen, so we're left with
• 16:18
  Speaker: other people who may know something in this situation.
• 16:21
  Speaker: If you have any information on
• 16:23
  Speaker: the death of Arthur Denton,
• 16:24
  Speaker: contact the Posey County
• 16:25
  Speaker: Sheriff's Department at eight
• 16:26
  Speaker: one two eight three eight
• 16:28
  Speaker: thirteen twenty.
• 16:30
  Speaker: Because a man who spent his own life seeking justice for others
• 16:33
  Speaker: shouldn't have to wait forever for his own.
• 16:35
  Speaker: Thank you for listening to this episode of River City Mystery.
• 16:38
  Speaker: Until next time, take care.