Criminology - The Dardeen Family Murders

Episode Date: April 18, 2021

In 1987, the small town of Ina, Illinois was rocked by the senseless and brutal murders of the Dardeen family. When 29-year-old Keith Dardeen failed to show up for work, his parents called the police. The police made a shocking discovery at the Dardeen home. Keith's wife Elaine, who was seven months pregnant, and their 3-year-old son Peter were found bludgeoned to death. Elaine delivered a baby girl during the attack and police found the infant deceased as well. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this infamous case out of the Midwest. Keith was nowhere to be found and he was initially thought of as a suspect in the murders by police. That thought disappeared, however, when Keith's body was found in a field not far from the home. He had been shot in the head and his genitals had been mutilated. Police scrambled to try to figure out who could have committed these heinous murders. One serial killer took credit but police don't believe he had anything to do with the case. But who did? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 155 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, what is going on with you? Not too much. Just excited to do this episode and get this one out.

How about you? Yeah. Yeah, this is a good case. This is a case that I think fascinates a lot of people. so I believe it will be well received. We continue to see some great Patreon support. Let's give some shoutouts. We had Andy Lynn, Carlos Elver, Katrina Goodyear, Sherry Marshall, and Kate Smolka.

So a lot of great support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, every week we say it, but it's true. We really do thank you for that support. And if there's anyone that would like to help the show, they can go to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, it's time to get into this episode. And today we're talking about the shocking murders of an Illinois family in 1987 that had residents there terrified. The community of INA and the larger Jefferson County, Illinois, were already on edge. In the previous two years,

there had been 15 homicides in Jefferson County, which was quite a large number compared to its population of just over 35,000 people. I think for reference, in 1987, there were 832 murders in Los Angeles, California, which had a population of almost 3.5 million people. Jefferson County's per capita homicide raid at that time nearly matched that of Los Angeles. Ina, Illinois has always been a truly tiny place. It's a village with a population of, less than 1,000 residents. Now, that number is boosted on the census because of the almost 2,000

prisoners nearby, Big Muddy River Correctional Centers, 1,850 inmates. Back then, there were just 199 households in the small village. Now, to be fair, the violence there is skewed due to one incident in which 18-year-old Thomas Odle killed his three-sense. siblings, as well as his parents, in Mount Vernon, Illinois, accounting for five of those 15 homicides. As news of each violent event was released, residents wondered how safe their community really was, but it was the brutal murders of the Dardine family that would shock them to their court. Russell Keith Dardine, who went by Keith, had married Ruby Elaine Callan, who went by Elaine, in Illinois in August, 1979.

The couple welcomed their first child, a son Peter Sean, on July 5, 1984. The family settled into their roomy mobile home on a private lot in Ina, Illinois. Life was normal for the young family. Keith and Elaine were both part of their Baptist Church's band. Elaine played piano, and Keith sang lead vocals. This was seemingly not a family that would be murdered in cold blood. On November 18, 1987, 29-year-old Keith Dardine didn't show up for work at the Rend Lake water treatment plant for his shift that day. He also hadn't informed anyone that he would be

late or absent, which was very out of character for Keith. It would always be reliable and professional. It was so unlike Keith that a supervisor was worried enough to call his parents and ask if they knew where Keith was that day. This worried his parents, who had no idea where he was. They expected he'd be at work or at home with his family, and they called police and Ina asking for a welfare check. It was odd that no one at home would be available since 30-year-old Elaine was pregnant with her second child and should have been at home watching 3-year-old Peter. She had taken time off from her job at an office supply store. Keith's parents met deputies at the Dardine's mobile home at around 6.30 p.m. and provided them with a key, which it turns out wasn't needed, as the back door was found unlocked. Police entered the home and discovered a truly gruesome scene.

Elaine Dardine, her son Peter, and a newborn baby girl had all been beaten to death and placed in the bed in the master bedroom together. Elaine was bound with duct tape. Keith was not in the home and his car was missing. It immediately appeared clear to investigators that they needed to find Keith Dardine, that he had likely killed his family before fleeing. Their theory was that Keehardin, that he had likely killed his family before fleeing. Keith had bound and gagged Elaine and Peter with duct tape and beaten them with a baseball bat. And when that caused Elaine to go into labor, he cruelly killed their newborn daughter as well.

After calmly cleaning the scene and placing the bodies of his family together, he took off. Police scrambled to find the presumed family annihilator Keith Dardine. Investigators put together a team to search for him and began to be. contacting his friends who might know where he was, even reaching out to friends who had moved to Colorado. But it turned out that it was a group of hunters who found him first. In a wheatfield, just one mile from his home, Keith Dardine lay murdered. The hunters had stumbled upon yet another grisly crime scene. Keith had been shot once in the head and twice in his face with a small caliber handgun. But that's not all. He had been mutilated as well.

Whoever murdered him had also cut off his penis. Police were called to the field. They soon realized that they had a huge mystery, a mystery like none other they had encountered. As police surveyed the area, they saw no signs of the Dardine family car, which was still missing. News of the shocking murders trickled out through the community, and people began locking their doors,

afraid that a dangerous killer was on the loose. So Morf already, this is a horrific story. I mean, if you really break it down, wife and mother, young son murdered, as well as a newborn, and I mean newborn baby, I think naturally at first the police would think, okay, Keith is not here. He's gone on the run because he killed his family. But pretty quickly, that has to be scrapped when you find Keith Dardine murdered in a feat. and then the plot deepens when it's discovered that not only was he shot in the head and the face and killed, but then someone took the time to sever his penis.

I mean, as a police officer, as a set of authorities, what are you thinking at that point? To me, there has to be a large degree of significance placed on the fact that. his penis was removed. I think of that type of mutilation as meaning something to authorities, right? Why else would someone do that unless it symbolized something? I think based on the ferociousness of the murders and the killing of a newborn baby and the sexual mutilation, I think police had to know right away that they were dealing with someone that was very dangerous. And maybe. very disturbed. I think the removal of the penis signifies something, some kind of serious grievance

or beef or hatred. And as we're getting ready to talk about, it does seem to indicate that perhaps these murderers were personal and that the person had some kind of serious issue with at least Keith or his entire family. The very next day, police found the Dardine's car a red 1981 Plymouth parked outside of a police station just 11 miles away from the Dardine home in nearby Benton, Illinois. Inside the car, there was blood. And police theorized that Keith was shot in the car and then his body was dumped in the field where it was found. So we kind of mentioned it already morph, but police had to immediately switch gears in their investigation. Now it's very early on but they had thought that Keith was responsible for doing the unthinkable and killing his family.

Now they knew that he was also the victim of a brutal murder. Police began to ask themselves, if Keith hadn't murdered his family, who had? Investigators carefully poured over the Dardine home looking for any clues. There was no sign of forced entry in the home. They recalled that when they arrived, the back-classed, door was unlocked. There was still a VCR and camera sitting in the living room, and cash and jewelry from the bedroom hadn't been stolen. Robbery didn't seem to be the motive for the cold-blooded killings. Despite the possible sexual undertones of Keith's genital mutilation, investigators found no

sign of sexual assault to any of the Dardines, so sexual assault didn't seem to be a motive either. The unlocked back door jumped out to investigators because they felt Keith in particular would have made sure it was locked. The murder weapon appeared to be a bloody baseball bat found in the bedroom near the victims. It's reported that this bat belonged to the Dardines. According to those that knew him, Keith had become increasingly protective of his family due to the news that Elaine was going to have their second child, but also because of the growing violence in the area where they lived. The Dardines had bought their mobile home in 1986. just one year before their deaths, and at the time of their murders, it was still being advertised

for sale. And there were a couple of reasons for the sale of the mobile home, because number one, the Dardines would need more space for their soon-to-be newborn. Casey, if it was a girl, or Ian, if they had a boy. And I think Keith wanted to move out of the Ina area altogether, because he wanted to to move his family to a safer area. It was clear that Keith was worried about living in this small town, and obviously, as it turned out, he was right to be worried. Police were interested in an incident that occurred not long before the murders, in which a young woman had knocked on the door of the Dardine mobile home and asked to use their phone.

But Keith refused to let the woman inside. He was apparently suspicious that she could have been casing the home, or perhaps was hiding other people with her until he had the door unlocked. Whatever Keith was thinking, he didn't let her in. Keith even told a good friend about the incident after it happened. It had clearly made an impact on him. Whether he was just on high alert because he was about to have another child, or if there was something that stood out about the young woman, we don't know.

But Keith was definitely being very safety conscious of the time. If he wouldn't let what appeared to be a stranded young woman by herself into the home, How did someone who wanted them dead so badly make it past the door? That leads to the possibility that the killer was someone familiar to the Dardines and they let this person into their home. And Morr, this is something that I've been discussing lately. I know Gibby and I have been talking about it quite a bit on our shows. The idea of walking this fine line between wanting to be helpful, wanting to be a good person, but also putting yourself in a position that compromises not only your safety,

but the safety of your family. You know, think of an example, you know, you're driving with your family. Let's say on vacation. And it's late at night. It's 11, 12, whatever. Somebody is broken down on the side of the road. I think in a perfect world, you'd like to be that person who's stops, make sure that they're okay and either, you know, helps them change a tire or make sure

that they have a cell phone so that they can call for help. I don't know, man. I think as I've gotten older, those decisions for me, and I'm just speaking personally for me, have become tougher and tougher. I've wrestled with them. Partly, I think because of all the research that you and I do and all of the stories that we talk about, I'm just not comfortable putting myself and especially my family's personal safety at risk in situations like that. I don't know. Yeah, and I think maybe, as you mentioned, the fact we talk about this stuff all the time, we're aware of a lot of things that maybe the average person out there isn't aware. But it does seem like at least when I was a kid, maybe when you were a kid,

that people were quicker to help each other when they saw someone in need. Whereas now it seems like a lot of people steer clear or don't want to get involved. Maybe they'll, you know, as you mentioned, call someone for them, but not want to pull over and get directly involved when they see something like that. So it does seem like that's more of a common thing now. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Now, there's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, you know, back when you and I were kids, we might see our dad pull over and help someone. There were no cell phones back then. So, you know, that person that was stranded really had very few options.

Today, everybody has a cell phone. You're, you kind of assume everybody has a cell phone. So they have the ability to call on somebody for help or call AAA. or do something like that. I don't know. It's something that I continue to wrestle with because I want to be a good guy. I mean, everybody wants to be thought of as a good person, right? But I cannot help but feel driving down the road that somebody pulled over is trying to pull a Ted Bundy on me. Yeah, and to put the shoe on the other foot for a second, you and I both have kids and lives.

if something happened where they needed help, you would hope that someone would help them if they're in that situation. They might be the person knocking on the door or stranded on the side of the road looking for help. Right. So you can see why it's so tough, why it's something that I continue to wrestle with.

As news of the gruesome murders continued to travel around town, residents began looking at each other with suspicion, and residents of Ina and Jefferson County were terrified. It was like all of a sudden, everyone began locking their doors at night. People checked their security. They stopped lending help to strangers near their homes. Everyone was pretty much on high alert, suspicious of everyone else.

Gun sales went up in the county. And while there was no way to know whether the murders of the Dardine family was an isolated incident or if there was some type of maniac out on the loose looking for their next victim, there was also no reason to think that anyone had a beef with the Dardines who seemed to have no enemies. Authorities ruled out the possibility of an angry dispute over money or financials and there was no evidence that either Keith or Elaine had been involved in any extramarital affairs, something that could have produced a jealous, scorned lover with no clear-cut direction to go in. Before long, satanic panic began taking hold in Ina, Illinois.

And more of how often do we hear about these same type of things in cases, right? You've got a small town where everyone knows everyone else. They're quick to help people out. Now all of a sudden, this horrific tragedy occurs. People kind of button up their homes, right? They're no longer willing to leave doors unlocked. They're less willing to lend help to strangers and gun sales go up. I mean, it's almost like there's a playbook of exactly what happens,

especially in small towns, where a really high price. profile murder takes place. And then, of course, you have the satanic panic angle because of the time period in which this occurred. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that in a lot of the cases we've talked about that took place in the 1980s, if there was any kind of bizarre or ritualistic type aspects to the case, it wasn't long before satanic panic was sort of mentioned as being involved. And Rumors of a satanic cult began to spread, mostly due to how brutal the crimes were, and also because of ideas about child's sacrifice and Elaine's newborn daughter being killed. Baby Casey weighed less than four pounds, and rumors quickly spread that she had been cut from her mother's womb,

rather than delivered due to trauma. Police found no evidence of cold activity, and no satanic symbols at the scene to back up the fear of a cult roaming through Ina. There was no mention in the autopsy report of anything like a child's sacrificial ritual involving a C-section. Sadly, Elaine's body had basically expelled the fetus due to the trauma of what she had gone through. As police continued to investigate, they came to believe that these murders were not random. Someone had wanted the Dardines dead and they were targeted specifically for whatever reason. This was not just someone nefarious who had happened upon the Dardine home and somehow forced their way in. In a town so small, the motive should have been pretty obvious, but the reason someone would want to kill the Dardines, as well as any reasonable suspect, remained a complete mystery to law enforcement.

Friends and family couldn't offer anything that would point to a motive or suspect in the murders. And I think a lot, especially in small towns, when something like this happens, it's fodder for chatter for rumors. And you would think that people would start talking and that might lead to potential suspects or motives. Well, that plus just the small population, right? You would think that if there was someone who had an issue with Keith or Elaine or, you know, the dark. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. or deans, someone would know because in a town that small, it seems as though everyone kind of knows what's going on with everyone else. I mean, I'm generalizing here, obviously, but when you're talking less than 200 households, pretty tough to keep secrets. Word gets out. Rumors fly. You know, it's something that we kind of see in a lot of these cases that occur in small towns. Keith's mother, Joanne, was determined not to let her son's killer remain free,

or let the murders of her family go unremembered. Joanne was able to obtain more than 3,000 signatures petitioning Oprah Winfrey to feature the Dardine's murders on her daytime talk show, the Oprah Winfrey show, which was hugely popular in 1987. The producers of the show thought that the details of the murders were far too graphic to air on daytime television, so they declined to cover the case. despite thousands of signatures being collected in support of it. America's Most Wanted also declined to feature the Dardine's murders due to the graphic nature of the crime.

But the producers finally relented, and they did end up airing a segment about the murders in 1997, a full decade after the murders occurred. Despite the segment featuring the Dardine case, no information was gained and no leads were generated. So I have a couple of different takes on this. Number one, you and I have mentioned before, right? Getting on America's Most Wanted back in the day, that was huge because they had a big audience and your chances of reaching someone who had information about the case was very high. But I'm telling you right now, if this had gone out on the Oprah Winfrey show, you talk about

eyes on a particular case. That show. and you said it more, hugely popular, that's almost an understatement of what a big deal the Oprah Winfrey show was, you know, back in the 80s and into the 90s. You weren't going to get any better exposure than that. But what I think it also demonstrates is that back then in the 1980s,

it was a different world as far as what people or networks were willing. willing to show graphically. You know, today, I mean, you can see crime shows all over the place. The details are extremely graphic. A lot of times they'll put up a disclaimer in the beginning, but oftentimes they don't spare the graphic parts of the case. And I think it just shows you the difference between the 1980s and where we are today in terms of what is able to.

go out on television. And along those lines, I think there was nothing back then like Facebook or Twitter or social media to where you could immediately put post on about the case and make sure they hit everyone in that town and in that county so it could be shared and get the word out there. That may have been even better perhaps in a national show because you could focus on the areas you wanted to focus on where the killer may likely have been from. The case grew cold and authorities still had no idea who had killed the Dardine family. The idea that whoever murdered the Dardine family was still out there roaming free and possibly still in Ina or Jefferson County was troubling for residents.

The fact someone who beat a family to death, including a three-year-old and a newborn and then sexually mutilated Keith was still out there. that was a lot to deal with for residents in the area. They wanted answers. They wanted the person that did this brought to justice, but police had nothing that they could give them. It wasn't until the spring of 2000 that a possible break in the case occurred. That's when a convicted killer confessed to carrying out the brutal Dardine family murders. Tommy Linne's cells had confessed to multiple murders.

including all four of the Dardines. He was already in custody for the murder of two young girls in Texas, and police were eventually able to link him to 22 murders, but not to the Dardines. Sell's first claimed that he had met Keith at a pool hall, and after talking for a bit, Keith invited him back to their home to have dinner with his family. Sell's claim that he accepted the offer of dinner

and said that once at the home, Keith asked him to have a threesome with him and Elaine. People have pointed out that the story doesn't make much sense, when you consider the fact that Elaine was seven months pregnant at the time. And police found no evidence that the Dardines had any kind of open sexual lifestyle. The story also doesn't hold much weight because Keith wouldn't let a woman into their home to use the phone. Why in the world would he let a stranger from a pool hall into his home? Regardless of the truth of the matter, that was Tommy Lynn Sell's story.

He claimed that the offer of a threesome made him so angry that it led to the murder. murders, he used his gun to subdue the family, tying up Elaine and Peter, and then kidnapping Keith, driving him in his own car to the field where he was later found. He killed Keith and mutilated his genitals because he had offered the sexual encounter. Then, Cells went back to the Dardine home and killed Elaine, Peter, and baby Casey. The name picked out for their newborn. if it was a girl. It really doesn't make sense for someone to admit to something so brutal and unimaginable if they weren't truly the person responsible for the crime. However, Tommy Linsells is a known liar and embellisher, and we have seen false confessions before. Police believe that he was

working the system, getting special favors and trips out of jail to crime scenes by confessing to crimes, that he didn't commit. Sell's claimed he committed his first murder at the age of 15 when he was burglarizing a home and caught a man molesting a child. He confessed to many more murders than could be linked to him, officially 22. And even though he wasn't always truthful,

he was worth a good look as a suspect. And more to me, Tommy Lynn Sells is one of the more fascinating. serial killers. I mean, this is a guy that hop trains. He crisscrossed the country. And, you know, those type of individuals, those type of killers are very hard to catch because, you know, oftentimes they don't have a connection to their victims. People who select victims randomly are much harder to catch, right, than a murderer who has a connection to their victim. But what I really want to talk about is this idea that I think a lot of us have, which is why would someone confess to something they didn't do? And I think of this is quite a bit different than

a false confession, a false coerced confession, which we've seen happen time and time again. What I'm talking about is killers after they're caught offering up that they were the ones that committed this murder or that murder. I think what ultimately comes out in a lot of these is that during the time that they are giving information on murders and trying to help police solve cold cases, they get special treatment, right? They might get more cigarettes. They might get to take some trips to crime scenes or this and that.

I mean, just go back to probably the most infamous case. which is Henry Lee Lucas. I mean, yeah, did he kill people? Sure. I think the number is very much up to debate. And a lot of people have looked at him and said, this guy would have said that he killed anyone for a tuna sandwich, a milkshake and a pack of Lucky Strikes.

I think, you know, I don't mean to make light of it, but I truly believe that he would have. and he enjoyed soaking up the limelight of all these detectives from all over the place coming to talk to him to try to solve their unsolved cases. I think what's unfortunate is that the police have to check these statements and these claims out that these guys like Henry Lee Lucas or Tommy Lin cells make because if there's a chance that they are telling the truth and they don't investigate that, it does the case a disservice. And I think that's why they did spend time looking at what Tommy Lincels had to say about the Dardine murders. Yeah, I'm right with you. They have to check those things out. I guess what worries me is that I think in some of these, especially when you talk about Lucas, it's almost as if they were willing to take his word on certain things,

even when his confession didn't quite line up because they were so desperate to try. try to solve some of these unsolved cases. I think that's a dangerous situation that police have to really be careful with. Tommy Lynn Sells enjoyed toying with the police a bit, and whoever killed the Dardine family had left a bloody stolen car in the parking lot of a police station. Seems like a big risk in something that could easily be seen as a message to the police were part of some kind of cat and mouse game. Sells had no qualms about killing children.

He was arrested in Texas for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old. during which he had also slit the throat of a 10-year-old who miraculously survived. He was linked to the murder of a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. He also admitted to a crime that seems very similar to the Dardine's murders. Sells was invited home by 28-year-old Inna Court in Forsyth, Missouri. He claimed that after they had sex and fell asleep, he woke up and found her trying to steal something from his backpack. He then beat Ena to death with her son's baseball bat.

Then he beat 4-year-old Roy to death, because he was a potential witness to his mother's murder. Their bodies weren't found for three days, and by then, Sells had skipped town. These details were striking because Rory was so close in age to Peter Dardine, and the Dardine family, except for Keith, were bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. And like we already mentioned,

Sells was known to confess to crimes with which he had no involvement whatsoever. He claimed to be responsible for the 1998 murders of Megan, and Sherry, Sherer in Missouri, but an eyewitness created composite sketch, looked nothing like him, and DNA later proved that a man named Robert Brasher's was responsible. Investigators, to their credit, did not take cells at his word. In the Dardine case, he said many things about the crime scene that were accurate, but most of those things had been published in the news and were publicly available knowledge at the time, Sells got a few things wrong, and some of these were big things.

They noticed that his story about how he initially met Keith Dardine had changed. Not just once, he told three different stories about their first meeting. Because Sells was in prison in Texas, Illinois officials couldn't bring him to the Dardine home or to the field where Keith was found to see if he had any real information or not. Even Keith's mother wasn't sure based on the information she heard. At first, Joanne Dardine was certain that Tommy Lynn Sells was her son's killer, though she and Keith's friends doubted Sells story. If Sells did kill the Dardine family, there's little doubt he was still lying about something.

Shortly before his execution, Tommy Lund Sells admitted that he could easily insert himself into a crime scene by naming mundane household items, asking something to the effect of, well, how many houses have watermelon ceramics? Well, depending on the decade and maybe where you're at in the country, quite a few. Perhaps, you know, depends. By the time cells was executed in 2014, Joanne Dardine was sure that he was not the person who had killed her son and his family. She had always wanted to talk to cells about the crimes,

but he was not willing, saying, what is there to say? Joanne Dardine has never felt that there was any closure in this case, even though Sells is long dead now. Even the investigators who were positive, Sells was responsible for murdering the Dardine family, wish he had gone to trial for it so everyone could know for certain. Most investigators doubt that Tommy Lynn Sells killed the Dardines. No one.

was ever able to place him in Illinois when the Dardines were killed, and no physical evidence points to him. In the end, yeah, he seems like a tantalizing suspect. He was undoubtedly a very dangerous man, but nothing solid links him to the case. With Tommy Lund cells unlikely to be the Dardine's killer, that really put the investigation back to square one. Police went back to the beginning, looking at the case with fresh eyes, wondering if the killer was known to the family or was a stranger. The murders seemed extremely rage-induced, personal. We know that Keith Dardine was apparently hyper-aware and on alert in trying to keep his family safe. That led to the question of whether Elaine was as careful as Keith was,

and could she have let down her guard and let the killer in if they were a stranger? Maybe someone with a sad story that weighed on the pregnant and perhaps sympathetic mother. We know that the killer had a gun, which they used to kill Keith Dardine, but for whatever reason, killed the rest of the Dardines using a weapon found in their home, the baseball bat. This could mean a few different things. Whoever entered the home didn't plan to kill the Dardine family. And perhaps an argument ensued and in some type of spur of the moment rage picked up the baseball bat. Or they planned to use their gun, but for whatever reason didn't. Maybe they knew the Dardines well and knew where their baseball bat was kept.

Perhaps the gun was an afterthought, used simply to gain control, and get the family to cooperate before it was finally used to kill Keith. But we just don't know exactly what went down that night. Questions also linger about the actual sequence of events in the case. Did the killer force Keith to witness the murders of his family before he was let at gunpoint out of the home and forced him to his car before he was ultimately murdered? In this scenario, why wouldn't Keith put up a fight with the killer immediately upon seeing his family attack? Another possibility is that the killer somehow secured Elaine and Peter and forced Keith to go with him to where he was killed, and then the killer returned to the home where he murdered Elaine, Peter, and newborn Casey. In this scenario, how could a single killer be confident that Elaine wouldn't try to get away while he or she was gone with Keith, or that someone wouldn't stop by the house and find them and free them?

This scenario has led some to consider the possibility that there was not one but two killers. Perhaps one stayed with Elaine and Peter, while the other took Keith for whatever reason from the house to kill him. When they returned, the rest of the family was killed to eliminate witnesses. More of I think the most widely accepted theory is that whoever killed the Dardines, whether that was one person or two people, the Dardines trusted them and let them in. In that scenario, Keith willingly left with him before he was killed for whatever reason. Then the killer went back to kill the rest of the family because they were witnesses. but if the purpose of killing Elaine and Peter was to eliminate witnesses, why was it necessary to beat the baby to death?

The baby that Elaine had delivered while being killed herself. There seems to be no logical reason to do that, since there would be no possible way that the baby could have identified anyone. Killing three-year-old Peter was horrible enough, but you could make the argument that he might have been able to ID the killer, especially if it was someone he knew. But you can't make that argument with the baby. Although police never found anything in the personal lives of Keith and Elaine Dardine

that pointed to a motive, Keith had told his mother that he regretted ever moving to Ina and wanted to move back to Mount Carmel. Apparently, he was in such a hurry that he planned to move there, even if he was unable to secure work first. The unease Keith had about moving to Ina has caused many to speculate that he might have been involved in something dangerous, and he knew it was catching up to him. There was no proof of that, however, and the only sign of anything remotely shady was a small amount of marijuana found in the Dardine's home that appeared to be for personal use.

Keith's mother Joanne even suggested that the marijuana may not have belonged to Keith or Elaine and may have been left by the killer. Police do not believe there were any signs of drug dealing or heavy drug activity involving the Dardine family. And Morph, you know, there are a number of interesting elements to this case. This one that you just talked about really jumps out of me. You know, the fact that it does seem, according to many who knew Keith, that he was worried about something. Okay.

Was it just the number of violent incidents that had been occurring in INA, or, was it something much more specific, something that ultimately led to the murders. I think that's a question that you have to ponder. Because if he was so adamant about moving out of Ina to the point where he was willing to move without even securing a job first, to me, that's a little bit more than I don't like the way that things are going here. there's too many violent acts going on in this small community. I'm getting the heck out of Dodge.

Now, I'm speculating here, but if you're willing to go to that length, okay, is it because there's something much more specific that has you worried? To me, that's what's most frustrating about this case, is that the Dardines, friends, family, coworkers, none of them could provide any kind of clue that there might be something shady going on in the Dardians lives, something that they were doing. And the investigation by police didn't uncover any sign of that. So while that does seem like a reason to get out of there, if there's something going on, that's a secret that no one knows about, there were never any clues developed pointing to that.

And you kind of just said. it if there's a secret that no one knows about. And I'm not saying or making the insinuation that Keith was into something shady. I'm merely saying that could there have been something very specific that he was worried about? And could it have been something that he was unwilling to confide in friends and family? I definitely think that's a possibility. For years, lack of a possibility. For years, lack of real motive and a lack of suspects stalled the case. Then in 2015, police in Mount Carmel, Illinois, reportedly cut out part of a wall of a home because underneath the wallpaper, there was some sort of what they described as

disturbing writing about the Dardine case. Joanne Dardine says police wouldn't talk to her about it. But according to Captain Burge of Jefferson County, he said it didn't create any new leads. But he did confirm that they took the wall into evidence and kept it. Also in 2015, there was a report in Mount Carmel of a man with the last name of Dardine being convicted and sentenced in November to one-year conditional discharge and six months in jail if he violates those conditions. We don't know if this man is related to Keith Dardine. That could be a coincidence. But if police could have found the message on the wall while searching this man's home, it would be interesting.

He was originally charged with possession of a controlled substance and the manufacturer of delivery of a controlled substance. Other charges were added, including trying to solicit sex for money, which is the only misdemeanor charge he pleaded guilty to in November, one month after his arrest. Yeah, I don't know what to make of that more if it's interesting in the fact that. that this guy has the same last name. It also happens to be the same year where police found this disturbing writing about the Dardine case.

You said that you're speculating. And I get that. I think that's part of what a lot of people do because we don't have all the information in these cases. The whole goal is to try to piece everything together. But you have to admit that it's interesting. Now, it could be 100% of coincidence. We don't know.

The one thing that we've not talked about yet in this episode is the possibility that any DNA might have been left by the killer. Remember, this attack happened in 1987 before most people had any clue what DNA was or that it would one day be used to help identify killers. because of that it seems highly likely that there would be DNA left behind. I could see a scenario where a killer back then would go maybe to great links to not leave any fingerprints, right? They might wear gloves, but they're not thinking about DNA and what it would later become. So I think in a lot of those cases, there wasn't the same caution used by killers because, frankly, they just didn't even know anything about it. If there was DNA left behind and police have logged it into evidence, they're not talking about it.

They've been pretty tight-lipped about much of the evidence, but it's safe to assume that if they want to solve this 30-plus-year-old case, it's probably going to take DNA to do that. And hopefully if they do have DNA evidence, they are working on putting it to some use. The Dardine family murders are still officially unsolved, and the case remains cold. While these awful murders happened over 30 years ago, the Dardines still have family members who want answers,

and the Dardines themselves, without a doubt, deserve justice. There's nothing they could have done to deserve their fate, especially three-year-old Peter, and newborn Casey, who may have lived only minutes. In the end, it may be just as Ina residents feared from the beginning that there was a monster walking amongst them, who up until now has gotten away with these disturbing murders. If you have information about this brutal, quadruple homicide,

you're encouraged to contact the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office at 303-271-0-2-1-1. So Morph, as we wrap up this case, it's one that continues to stump a lot of people. It's a well-known case and rightfully so. When you look at the murders, they were extremely horrific. Not only what happened to the two adults, mom and dad, but a young son.

And I think it's baby Casey that really draws a lot of people into this case. You know, we didn't go into a lot of graphic detail. The whole thing is heartbreaking. But to think about Elaine, who was pregnant, delivering a baby because she was being beaten to death. And then that baby is beaten to death within most likely minutes of being born. That's something that is extremely tough for anyone. to wrap their heads around, you're really talking about, more if in my estimation, a killer who has no conscience whatsoever.

If they're able to do the things that were done in this case, this is a bona fide monster. This is a person who has no feelings, no empathy, and no limits when it comes to what they're willing to do. Now, you can make the case that a lot of killers are like that, but you could also say that there are killers and serial killers who target men, who target women, but don't go after children.

Does it make them better than other killers? I don't know. I just think that this is a very, very dangerous individual. if you're willing to do that, then nothing's off the table for you as a killer. That's kind of the way I look at it. Yeah, I think based on everything that they did to this family, if they could do all that to them, they may have done it to others in the past or perhaps after the Dardians were killed. And I think while it's possible that somehow, some way a stranger, some psychopath wound up in their house,

is possible, but odds are, we see in most cases, people are killed by people closest to them. And if you take into consideration that there was no burglary, there was no signs of forced entry, it seems likely that the person came in because the family allowed them to come in. But the crime itself is so rage-filled and so, to me, shows so much anger and passion hatred, it's hard to fathom that someone like that that may have been angry with this family for whatever reason would be allowed into the house. It doesn't seem like someone that they had a loving, friendly relationship with, but still somehow trusted enough to let in. That's my take on it. Well, the Dardines, if that's how it happened, might not have known that this person had

this rage against them. They might have thought that their relationship. relationship was still intact. The other thing that I really want to talk about is the mutilation of Keith's penis. I said it before, but I want to come back to it. Why would someone do that? I think in most cases, it's because there is some type of connection between the killer and the victims and the removal of the penis or a sexual organ or something like that has a very specific meaning in the killer's mind. It's because you use that item to do something that I don't believe you should have done, right? You had an affair with my wife. So I'm going to chop this off. We've seen that in some cases. now could it be that a person would do that to throw off the investigation?

I think that's possible. But oftentimes I think when that occurs, when somebody takes the time and goes to that link to do that, they're sending some type of message. Think about the mob and what they have done over so many years. They sent messages using specific body. parts, right? Cut out a person's tongue because they talked. I don't know. I still think there's something to that more if I think it's a big factor in this case or it's done to make it seem as though it should be a big factor in this case. Yeah, and obviously the police have checked out the

Dardines well to check for extra mineral affairs and that kind of stuff and they haven't found anything It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but it's not on police radar if there was any kind of affairs, which would mean that this was kept very secret if there was. And not to accuse Keith Dardine of anything. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, and there's no proof of this. But I almost get the impression, as you mentioned, about the mutilation of the sexual organ, that perhaps that's the reaction, a parent and angry, father might have if he found out that a child had been molested. You know, we see these cases where

people kill their children's molester. Maybe they catch them in the act and they go to trial because they snap. This almost seems like that kind of level of anger to do that and then to not just take it out on Keith, but the rest of his family. Again, I don't want to put that out there as an accusation, just an impression I got from the type of person that might have that kind of anger. Yeah, no, I think we're throwing out possibilities, right? These are not accusations or possibilities. And I think the last one for me is, you know, could this have been someone who coveted Elaine, watched her from afar, was in love with her, and couldn't have her? I think you can make an argument for that as well.

and maybe throw in the sexual mutilation for that. You know, I can't have her because of you. And so I'm going to do this to you and then I'm going to kill the rest of the family. I don't know. I don't know with these unsolved. There's so many avenues to go down. But you have to talk about these things as they come up because, okay, there is some explanation to this case, we just don't know what it is. And whatever explanation there is,

it's still not going to make sense, right? It might have made sense in the killer's mind. It's not going to make sense to any of us that for whatever reason, someone chose to kill an entire family. One thing that really nags me looking back about everything we talked about was the need to bring Keith separate from the rest of his family out to this field. Why was that done? You know, I could see an instance where the family gets tied up. I'm going to take one family member to an ATM or to the bank to empty out their bank accounts. And that might be a reason to take them away.

But that didn't happen. So I wonder why the killer or killers chose to do that. And after all this happened, the killer dumped off the Dardine's car near a police station, which leads me to wonder, did they walk from there, drop the car off and walk close by to somewhere maybe where they lived or catch a bus? Or could they have had a second person involved, another killer or someone involved after the fact that picked them up and drove them away from that scene? And if that's the case, if there are two people, then maybe there's a greater chance that one of them will talk at some point. Well, I think there's a greater chance just because there's definitely more than one person that knows something about what happened, if that's the case. I don't know. This one really stumps me, man.

But I will say this. It's one that I want to see solved. I want justice for the Dardines. I want justice for their families, but I also want to know who did this, why they did it, and what was going on in their mind when they were killing this family of four. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminal.

Podcast goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts discussion and fans. So, Morp, that is it for our episode on the Dardine Family Murders. It's a head scratcher for sure. And it's also a very horrific case.

I mean, the details are extremely disturbing. There's no other way to put it. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with an all new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.