The Deck Investigates - 6 of 15: Evil All Around

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Police interview Darlene Hulse’s husband, Ron, to learn more about Darlene, the couple’s relationship, and their family’s routines. Ron’s quoted in the local newspaper saying something that sparks rumors.Click HERE to sign the petition and demand justice for Darlene Hulse.If you believe you have information about Darlene Hulse’s 1984 abduction and murder in Argos, Indiana, please email [e-mail] view information and photos referenced in this episode, visit https://thedeckpodcast.com/evil-all-around/Brought to you by CarMax. Car buying reimagined. Find a car you’ll love at CarMax.com. Find more of The Deck Investigates on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcThe Deck Investigates is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at [phone] to share your thoughts about the case, discuss all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Before moving on to other suspects, whose names were coming in via phone calls and letters from the public, investigators knew what they had to do next. Give Ron Hulse another polygraph test. I say another because they actually gave him one just three days after Darlene's abduction, which he passed. And listen, Ron was never a suspect. But back then, officers knew that they had to play offense and defense.

And if this case were to ever go to trial, police knew that Ron would be an easy target for a defense attorney. So they had to formally rule him out, not just as a suspect, but of any involvement. Plus, talking with Ron was a great way for investigators to learn more about Darlene. As far as bad habits, the only one I ever got her on was the fact that at night she never pulled the drapes or

pulled the shade down. She just thought that we lived out in a remote area. Anybody that's out there is going to be sick anyway, and if I went into the bedroom first was going to shower or something, then I always pulled them down. She never did. She never did. And I just wonder now if there's been someone looking all along or what. Up to this point, they had kind of skimmed over Darlene's lifestyle and personality because, A, nothing really stuck out as a red flag, and B, they were hot on the trails of Danny Bender, Robert Zebrowski, and Ricky Mock. But it was time to understand more about their victim and her husband. So in October 1984, they sat Ron down again.

This is Episode 6, Evil All Around. around. At your request, Ronald Glenn Hulse was examined on the polygraph, a detection of deception technique. In the pre-test, the subject gave the following information and admissions. Subject stated he knew why he was there. Re reference, he had been asked by Detective Criswell to take a polygraph, reference, to cover all the bases, reference, of the investigation into his wife's death. Subject stated he had nothing to do with his wife's death, Darlene, and that he had not contacted anyone to come in and take her from the home and kill her, and that he did not know that Darlene was going to be taken from the house on August 17th, and that he did not know that she was going to be killed. Subject advised he's never talked with Danny Bender, and that he's never talked with anyone in particular about his finances. He advised that several people at work knew that his dog would have been gone that week, but that was something that he had talked about for quite some time,

wanting to have his dog bred. Marshall County Lieutenant Ed Criswell conducted the Q&A part of Ron's interview, and he started off asking where Darlene did her shopping to try and establish her routine. As far as incidentals, it was always done at either the mall up at Scottsdale or 3D in Rochester. I'd say 75% of it was done at 3D. And how about Argus? Did you do any shopping at Argus at all? Oh, the parking shop and stuff like that, you know, for odds and ends.

But she didn't like to go into Argus very often like that. Things were too high. Okay. She did most of her buying in... Rochester. What were some of her habits? What were her daily routine? Well, as far as getting up, generally a quarter till seven. Was always, the alarm was set for 6.45.

Bathing the children, getting them ready in the summer, you know. She liked to take off around 10 or 10.30 in the morning. She wouldn't go anywhere. She's been going lately to Jellystone Pool, trying to go there once a week. Last year she had gone to Lake Maxenkaki. I don't think she's gone there this year at all. Jellystone Pool. Okay. Do you have a membership out there?

No. She's got a girlfriend she usually went with that knew someone that got her in for nothing all the time. But the only other place she went would be piano lessons for the kids, that's all. Otherwise, she's pretty much a homebody. She wasn't one to go out. I had the old car at home and it was terrible on gas. We really watched that. So if we went anyplace, it was as a family in the evening. I understand you said something to one of the officers about her having an exercise routine. Okay. There, for a while, she hasn't done this now for a few weeks, she'd take a walk around the square.

She'd go east from the house down to 110, all the way down to 31 and back. That was her exercise, just walking. Lieutenant Criswell asked Ron to recap the week before the abduction, trying to see if he remembered anything weird happening. I tell you, of all the weeks we've had this summer, I'd say that was about the least active week we've had. She's been doing a lot of canning at home

except for one day on Wednesday previous to the incident. She hadn't gone anywhere. She's been putting the garden up. I think she just finished it up Thursday evening. It's been a pretty boring week for her. Ron said the only thing out of the routine for that week

was the fact that they were having issues with their new refrigerator. And a guy named Lee Chisholm, who owned the nearby appliance store where they bought the fridge, was going to come by and take a look. We called him, and he was supposed to come down shortly then and fix it.

As it turned out, he was on his way at 9 30 that morning, drove by the road and said, well, I promised I'd call first. So he kept driving and went into Rochester. Now you'd guess the next questions might have been about this Lee guy who was apparently supposed to be arriving at the Hulse home on the exact day, at the exact time Darlene was attacked. Well, you'd be wrong. Instead, Lieutenant Criswell asked Ron what was wrong with his refrigerator light, and then they moved on to talking about their relatives, basically to gauge if there were any creepy boyfriends of Darlene's sisters that had come around or anything like that. Ron said no, pretty much everyone within their immediate and distant circles were upstanding people. Ron admitted that there was some family drama between them and Darlene's

parents regarding a family business, but it wasn't anything serious. They both came from religious families and weren't ones to let greed or spite destroy relationships. They were good, church-going folk who were all about love and giving. And speaking of church, Lieutenant Criswell then asked Ron why he and Darlene had hopped around to lots of different churches lately. Why not just stick with one? We went to First Baptist. We went for about a year and a half and just felt like we weren't getting what we needed. So we visited a couple other. And when we visited, it was generally just for a Sunday or two,

and then we'd move on and got back to the First Baptist for a while, and then we'd settle in down at Liberty Baptist down in Rochester. There's probably a half dozen churches that we'd visited in the last two and a half years. Well, what exactly were you looking for? We're not out to be entertained. We want good, basic Bible doctrine. Okay, a lot of these people are out for the Sunday school programs for the kids and this and that. We're not. We just want a good preacher. That's all we're looking for. Your social life then would probably mainly revolve around the church. Even then we didn't have much contact. We were not party goers. We only go out to eat once in a couple months. Pretty thrifty, not extravagant.

Well, during your travels from one church to the other, did there... Was there ever a time that you felt that someone had taken a special interest in Darlene? You and I both know that usually you can tell when somebody's a little interested. No, I really can't. Anybody contact her from the church? Well, we were always getting letters from the other churches and stuff, thanking us for our visitation and stuff.

But as far as... We had a couple of pastors come over for a visit, but no. She was a... Darlene was a hard person to talk to. She was real quiet, and she wasn't really one to open up to anyone. So I was generally around her all the time. If people called ahead of time, she'd make arrangements so I could be there too.

She was pretty quiet and shy. No, I can't think of anyone. No, if there had been, she would have told me. She'd have been awfully shook up. How about your marriage to Darlene in general? Did you guys communicate? Never went to bed mad. Not once. You had differences, though. We've always had arguments and stuff, but no sleeping on the couch or running off to Mama's house. Not once.

Ever had any fights? What, I mean, you ever slap her or... No. Or she ever slap you? No. Sounds like a slap you? No. Sounds like a fairy book, but we've really got a good marriage. Ron passed the polygraph with the conclusion stating, quote, After careful analysis of this subject's polygrams, it is in the opinion of the examiner that he told substantially the truth during his examination.

End quote. Police never questioned Ron's alibi since he was at work when the crime happened, coupled with the fact that the girls saw the intruder and it wasn't anyone they recognized. But there had been some hushed whispers about him around town not long after the murder because Ron gave an interview to the local paper,

The Pilot News, saying, quote, I just know it's his will. Darlene was ready. I'm ready whenever he wants to take me, end quote. He went on to say in that same article that he didn't understand why something so awful would happen to his wife, but that it must have been God's will.

He said, quote, I don't understand, but I accept it. People side-eyed those remarks, and gossip spread. Even online today, sometimes people point the finger at him. Sure, he wasn't the one who took Darlene, they'll say. Otherwise, his daughters would have seen him. But he could have maybe hired someone. But let me tell you, that makes no sense. Darlene's attack was anything but a professional job. The attacker didn't come prepared. He used her fire poker to subdue her. Ron is not now, nor has he ever been a suspect. And listen, I get his comments may feel strange to some people. I'm not very religious myself, but I do come from a family that was. And I understand what he said. It was something that

he could hold on to in a time where his whole life was upended. He also told the reporter that he thought Darlene's attack was random, which might have also been comforting in some way. After losing Darlene, Ron tried his best to be there for his daughters. But Marie said that some things were harsh reminders of what the family had lost. Things like mornings spent with their mom. My dad hired a babysitter. Her name was Lori. And I remember being aggravated because I just didn't, I mean, she was fine, but I was like, I don't want to see her first thing in the morning. And she was there instead of my dad. And it just felt lonely.

I mean, my aunts chipped in, but it was more like, from my memory, they would watch us like after school, not first thing in the morning. And I remember the mornings being hard to me. I didn't like the mornings anymore. Eventually, the family established a new routine. Ron went back to work. The girls went back to school. And Ron remarried a woman named Chris. One of Darlene's friends had actually set Ron up with Chris, and the girls went on his first date with her. I think that when she married my dad, I know that she loved us, and she didn't think she could have

children. So, you know, you look at it from that perspective. Like, I don't know that I could marry someone with three small children and take that role on. So that was a huge sacrifice on her part. Chris had been a substitute teacher in Argus, so the girls were familiar with her prior to her dating and marrying their dad. And the two are still together today. As Ron continued trying to rebuild their life and establish a new one with his new wife, police were going back to the drawing board. In an effort to draw in some new information,

they went knocking on doors in Argus. Police really wanted to know if anyone else had any problems with peeping toms or harassing phone calls or literally anything. One woman named Karen said she noticed a white car watching their house during evening hours, but it had been months since she'd last seen it. In fact, she said, she hadn't seen it since Darlene's murder. Another couple said their 18-year-old daughter had gotten creepy phone calls from a man. They said the man would ask when her dad would be home, how old she was, and if her parents were home. A woman named Marsha, who lived

nearby with her family, said that she'd also gotten some creepy phone calls in the past year, mainly heavy breathing and dirty talk. Similarly, a neighbor named Rex said that his household had gotten some calls with filthy language and they had happened three or four times since Darlene was killed. Rex also said they had one strange visitor who said that he was a preacher, but he had a car full of girls with him. And then some other neighbors reiterated rumors

that police were already familiar with, involving Ricky Mock and Danny Bender. Since so many people had talked about having phone calls from creepy men, and because so much time had passed and investigators were really starting to spiral, police decided to look into other crimes that they may have missed before. Maybe smaller things like break-ins, thefts, whatever. And they actually found a crime that interests them.

A break-in, an attempted sexual assault that happened at a house just a stone's throw away from where Darlene's body was found. It happened in December 1982. It was early in the morning and a woman was at home asleep when her phone rang. The man on the other end asked if her husband was home, and the woman, I'll call her Pam, said that no, he was at work and he wouldn't be home until later that evening. They hung up, and soon after, a man came bursting through her front door and running down her hallway to her bedroom.

The man pinned her to the bed, but Pam was able to fight him off before he was able to assault her. And he gave up and ran back out the front door. In 1985, when police went back to look at the details of this case and compare it to Darlene's, Pam's case was still unsolved. And the location was almost eerie. The woman's home, where she was attacked, was just across State Road 110 from where Darlene's body had been found off Olive Trail. I mean, like, even in a small town, this was strangely close.

Now, the problem was, again, Pam's case was unsolved. So, weird, yeah. Connected, maybe? There was some blood from the intruder left at Pam's house, and I know they tried to compare it to at least one of their known suspects, Robert Zebrowski, that traveling carny. But it wasn't a match for his blood type. So it seems like the idea of a connection, while there, didn't further the case.

And the investigation into Darlene's murder slowed down as police got busy working other violent crimes in the area. In August 1986, a night manager at the Plymouth Dairy Queen was shot and killed at work. In October 1986, a 47-year-old woman died in a suspicious fire at her house in nearby Bremen. And on December 11, 1986, 11-year-old Brandy Peltz was sexually assaulted and strangled in her house in rural Argus, just 1.5 miles north of the Hulse home. Brandy's murder shocked the community that was still recovering from Darlene's murder. And Brandy's case even hit close to home for one of the Holst daughters, Marie. She and Brandy had been in the same grade in school.

That just tells you how small this town was. She rode my bus, and she didn't go to school that day, and we were on the same bus route. And our house was further out than her house, and she was not on the bus. And we were coming home from school that day. And we saw smoke billowing out of her house. It just felt surreal because that was just a couple years later, I think.

December 11th, 1986, had been a Thursday. And Brandy wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home from school. She was old enough to stay home alone, so Brandy's mom, Roxy, went to work at Hollins Hardware. During her lunch break that day, Roxy went home to check on her daughter and bring her some lunch. Everything was fine, so Roxy returned to work. And sometime after she got back, Brandy called her mom and said that someone had just called the house and was breathing heavily into the phone. But the person didn't say anything. Now, this had happened before, apparently,

and it creeped them out, so Roxy had previously notified the telephone company, but she hadn't reported the calls to police. Now, because this had happened before, it was kind of part of their routine. Brandy let her mom know, but she said she felt safe and she felt fine at home. So they hung up, and her mom said she would see her after work. But later that day, around 3 p.m., a schoolteacher driving on Old Highway 31 saw smoke coming from the Peltz house. So he stopped at a neighbor's house and asked them to call the Argus Fire Department. He then went back to the Peltz home and went inside. First, he let out a

barking dog, and then he walked around the first floor. And as he was yelling for anyone inside to get out, he went inside the bathroom and found Brandy's body in the tub. When police got there, they immediately noted the kitchen telephone had been ripped out of the wall receiver, which told them that Brandy likely tried to call for help when her killer came inside. They also thought that it looked as if her body had been placed in the tub after she was killed. The autopsy revealed that Brandy had been sexually assaulted and strangled. The water from the bathtub and the fire in the house were most likely efforts to cover up any evidence left behind.

These days, if you go to Argus and ask locals about the unsolved murder, they bring up Brandy. This is the case that people remember. The little girl violated and murdered in her own home. Someone even self-published a novel about it. And even though it's fiction, the author admitted that it's about Brandy's case. Though most people from Argus dismissed the book entirely, calling it sensational and untrue. The South Bend Tribune ran an article on December 14th, 1986, about how many calls police were getting about Brandy's murder. wrote, people here are concerned, remembering and wondering if there is any connection between the pelt slaying Thursday and the yet unsolved August 1984 slaying of Darlene Hulse, who lived just one and a half miles away. The Tribune quoted an anonymous co-worker of Roxy's who said, quote,

a lot of things like that are going through our minds. Quite a few people have been talking about it in private. End quote. That question was the right one. Are they connected? If they were, it meant investigators' worst fears were confirmed. Their killer wasn't some evil man just passing through town. He was living among them. And he wasn't done. Local police decided it was time to get some assistance from the feds.

So Sergeant Yoculet wrote the FBI and spelled it all out in a letter. The undersigned investigating the homicides of Brandy Peltz and Darlene Hulse and the home invasion of Pam has investigated these crimes from the standpoint of being individual cases, and that the assailants responsible for those cases are separate individuals and that these cases are unrelated, and it is only coincidence that they have occurred within a particular geographical area. At the same time, this officer has geared my investigations to include that very well, that all three of these cases may be linked together, and I base that opinion on several similarities that I feel exist in each of these cases.

You'll get the Fed's take and a brand new suspect in Episode 7, Bring in the FBI. You can listen to that right now.