The Deck Investigates - 8 of 15: It All Goes Through One Guy

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

The audiochuck team joins Darlene Hulse’s daughters on their quest for answers. Though police turn down our interview requests, we convince the man in charge of Darlene’s case Prosecutor Nelson Chipman to meet with us and explain where the case stands now.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/all-goes-through-one-guy/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!

In 2016, Kristen was all grown up and a mom of her own when she decided to take her mom's cold case into her own hands. It got to a point about seven years ago where I was like, OK, I want to do this. I was sitting at home with little kids and I just started reaching out like, hey, is there anything new, anything going on? Who can I talk to? And I just started reaching out, like, hey, is there anything new, anything going on? Who can I talk to? And a lot of them were, no, there's nothing new. There's nothing I can tell you because I don't know anything type of thing. She was asking all those questions over the phone and via email from hundreds of miles away.

So it's not like she could just march down to the prosecutor's office and demand answers. You see, it had been decades since Kristen or any of her immediate family members had lived in Indiana. Back in 1989, five years after Darlene's murder, Ron got a new job opportunity with the door manufacturing company. So the Hulse family moved away from Argus, and not just out of town, to a whole different state. This is Episode 8. It all goes through one guy. By then, Ron and his wife, Chris, had also added a son to the family. So Marie, Melissa, and Kristen had a new baby brother. Tons of changes for their family in just five years.

So the girls were a bit hesitant about leaving Argus. It was the only place they'd ever called home, even though it was a constant reminder of their family's biggest tragedy. I was not excited because I was leaving all my friends and all of our family was there. I was not excited. And the South is so different from the North. The only part I was looking forward to moving down here is because I got my own room. They're like, we're going to get you your own room. I was like, OK, that works.

From 1984 to 1989, the family was defined by what happened to Darlene and the failed investigation into finding her killer. The move wasn't exactly intended to be a fresh start for them, but in many ways it was. They settled in and all of a sudden no one at school knew the horrible thing that had happened to their family. Of course, they would visit family members back in Argus every so often. I mean, we would try and go back twice a year,

but then they got fewer and further between after that. But we would go back for a long time. But it got to the point where they sort of dreaded going back there. They figured if a huge breakthrough ever came in Darlene's case, someone would let them know. But in the 30-plus years since, no one ever called. So when Kristen started making calls

about her mom's case back in 2016, she was frustrated to learn that nothing had been done in years. She found out the case file was essentially sitting on a shelf in Marshall County Prosecutor Nelson Chipman's office in Plymouth, Indiana. So I reached out to Nelson and he talked to me because he remembered about mom's case. He said he had her picture up in his

office still, but that there's nothing new going on with it. Of course, Kristen's next question was, well, how do we change that? She pushed and pushed, call after call, but she felt like she was getting nowhere. Kristen even arranged an in-person meeting with Prosecutor Chipman, and he basically dismissed her, saying that what's been done has been done and there's not much else he can do. I said, you guys, the case files are just sitting there collecting dust. And he leaned across his desk. He goes, you don't think I know that? I was like, well, obviously nothing is going to get done when it's just sitting there. You know, have a fresh pair of eyes, look at it, something, you know, do the touch DNA testing. After that meeting I had with him, when I left, I got up and left his office in tears.

And I didn't, we haven't spoken since then. Kristen left that meeting not knowing if anything would even happen. And Marie knew how hard Kristen had worked for years by that point, trying to get some movement in their mom's case. So being the big sister she is, Marie called Prosecutor Chipman. I said, you know, you don't understand what it's like. I said, you don't have this in your life. And I said, you need to be a little more gentler with her because you are coming off rude

and you've got to understand where she's coming from. And I just think he's lost that sense, that touch of things because it's not his personal life. And I get that, but you still don't need to talk that way. A little more kinder. There were no apologies or mending fences. Instead, Nelson assigned someone in his office to act as a liaison between Kristen and himself. But maybe something about what Marie said tugged at his heartstrings.

Or maybe Kristen's persistence paid off. Either way, Kristen was shocked, surprised, encouraged, all the emotions when in 2019, Prosecutor Chipman was in the local news talking about how they were planning to use new DNA technology to try and solve Darlene's case once and for all.

Detectives are not giving up. Right now, they are starting over with fresh eyes, once again tracking down persons of interest and conducting interviews. Chipman also says they're choosing new pieces of evidence to send to the Indiana State Police crime lab. Kristen was hopeful. She could feel answers just around the corner. But around the same time, that liaison that Nelson had appointed, Kelly, who'd been keeping Kristen in the loop on stuff

that was going on in the case, she left Nelson's office for a different job. She still tried to keep up to date on the investigation in order to text Kristen updates, but new information was scarce after that. It took some time, I mean so much so that Kristen thought the ball had been dropped yet again. But at some point, she heard that they had gotten some kind of DNA off some piece of evidence,

but the details were fuzzy. Now, she knew nothing was going to happen overnight, but months were going by, and then years. February 2021 was when I came across that 2018 news story. I had stumbled across Darlene's story and become a little obsessed, as I've been known to do. But there was just nothing. A big void where I expected answers were sure to be. Now, normally I'd set my Google alerts and wait for something to pop, but I don't know what it was about this one. Instead, I found Kristen on Facebook and sent her a DM.

And that message put us on a wild journey that I could have never imagined. After my message to Kristen, we hopped on a phone call and she got me up to speed with everything she'd been doing since 2016, which included not just pushing the prosecutor's office, but doing some sleuthing of her own, creating maps, connecting important events through newspaper archives. But she said that she was stuck. What needed to happen was DNA testing, which brought us full circle to the reason for me reaching out. My big question was, well, what the hell happened after that article in 2019? And she said she had no idea. She explained to me the falling out that she had with Prosecutor Nelson, and by 2021, his liaison no longer worked in his office.

Her only lifeline of communication was gone. So really, she had no idea exactly what evidence they had or what was happening with it. I've worked with a lot of good people in law enforcement, and I've worked with a lot of families. And this kind of rift that happens is something that I'll never fully understand, but it happens. I knew there was no fixing it by the time we came in, but maybe there could be a bridge. Maybe we could be that bridge, is what I was hoping. When I asked Kristen if she wanted our help, I'll be honest, she wasn't jumping.

I mean, don't get me wrong, she wasn't against it, but I think over the years, she learned to keep her hopes tempered. So instead, she gave me a resounding, at this point, it wouldn't hurt. We dipped our toes in slowly. Kristen sent us everything she had, and we tried wrapping our heads around the case, one little piece of the puzzle at a time. By 2022, I had assigned our reporter, Emily, to start digging into Darlene's case full time. And like any good reporter, she knows that you got to get to the source.

And the source in this case is prosecutor Nelson Chipman. So she started there. It took several phone calls to Chipman's office before he even called her back. And when we asked for a sit down interview with him, this is what he said. Why would I? I don't understand. And when we asked for a sit-down interview with him, this is what he said. Foran says the guy who had gone on local TV saying he was reopening the case. What's changed between then and now that makes you not want to do another interview?

I mean, isn't it always worth trying? Say that again? What was the last part? Isn't it always worth trying just to get some new publicity out there in case it does spark someone's memory? Well, who's listening to your podcast? You're listening, right? Even if Nelson doesn't think anything will come of this, he's the gatekeeper. And I know this because we also tried getting interviews with the Indiana State Police and the Marshall County Sheriff's Office, even the State Crime Lab.

And they all say that we have to talk to Nelson, that he is in charge of the case. And I just have to preface this by saying it's unusual for a prosecutor to be the gatekeeper of a case that has never even been close to an arrest. He's not a detective and his office doesn't have detectives. But when we asked him why he had it, he said that he just inherited it from the prosecutor before him. Like at some point, Darlene's case went from the jurisdiction of the Marshall County Sheriff's Office to the Indiana State Police and then the Marshall County Prosecutor's Office. But no one really has a logical explanation for why that happened or any real plans to transfer it again. But Emily is nothing if not persistent. Let me just pop by your office and we can have a conversation, she said. And reluctantly, he agreed. I think it'll be worth our time either way. All right. Okay,

thanks, Nelson. I will. I hope I don't regret it. Emily traveled to Plymouth, Indiana for that meeting. And the first thing Nelson did was take her to see the photo of Darlene that he keeps on the wall in his office. What has made you want to keep that up on your wall? It's just a reminder of what we're here for. Our big goal for that first meeting with Nelson, which was in September 2022, was to see what results, if any,

they had gotten from the new DNA testing they allegedly tried around 2018 or 2019. And keep in mind, Nelson talks in circles and sometimes the details are fuzzy or he says he can't answer a question. But about a half an hour into the interview, he started to open up a bit. And he said, OK, yes.

After Kristen and I had our disagreement, I sent off a piece of evidence for MVAC testing, and the results were exciting, but, quote, not a slam dunk. So it sounds like you got something partial. Right. And it identifies a male. An unknown male? Yeah, right. I mean, they don't have a standard to go with. If we had a standard, you'd be here taking pictures of a perp walk or something, right? A partial profile isn't enough to put in CODIS. But it is enough to do direct comparison tests.

Do you have DNA swabs for the suspects in the case? I can't talk about that. So Nelson wouldn't say if they were in the process of doing any direct comparisons with suspects or persons of interest, but he was sort of willing to theorize about what he thinks happened to Darlene. And his theories, even decades after the crime, are very similar to what Sergeant Dave Yolkalet was theorizing back in the 80s.

Though they're still in touch today, so that's likely where the theory came from. I think it's one person. I think it was sex driven. You would think that the person would have a tendency of done something like that before and would have done something like that after. You would think amateur. I'm an amateur. I'm an amateur. That paradigm, that way of perspective

for me has proven useful through the years of if I'm going to go into a courtroom those people in there, in the jury box they they're going to know

less than I need to convince them. So if I'm going to convince them, I need to be convinced. Do you think it was someone who has really strong local ties, who lived here at the time and sounds like still might be in the area? You're not going to let up, are you? When we asked Nelson to explain how he managed to have a falling out with a victim's daughter, he said that when she first reached out, he was really open with her about investigative information

and that he was getting criticized by certain people, quote unquote, on his side for being too open. And then everything came to a head when they met in person. Nelson even accused Kristen of lying about her grandfather's funeral in order to come to Indiana to meet with him. It was just, it was a bad scene, and she was very emotional. She'd come up here, she said she came up here for a family funeral, but she couldn't tell me where it was or whatever was going on. I think it was just an excuse to get here, which is fine. I feel for her. It was very uncomfortable. For the record, I don't think it matters why Kristen was in

Indiana. I mean, she has a right to meet with authorities in charge of solving her mom's case anytime she wants. But just in case anyone's wondering, her grandpa did, in fact, die. We found the obituary complete with funeral service information. Yeah, I mean, I don't blame them for wanting answers. Oh, yeah. And I felt bad. I hate for it to have ended like that. And I sure as hell hate if in 14 months, 16 months, whatever it is, 18 months, and I'm gone,

I sure hope whoever takes over, if it was going to be Tammy, that they take over with as much passion. Passion. Prosecutor Chipman is saying that he hopes whoever takes over his job will have as much passion as him when it comes to trying to solve Darlene's murder. But this guy talks a lot about retirement. He's been in the role for a decade, and when Emily met with him in September 2022, he was in the middle of running for re-election. And he ran unopposed, so he won the bid for Marshall County prosecutor in November 2022. But he says he'll be retired by 2024. He also talks a lot about how busy his office is and how huge their workload is and how they don't have a dedicated investigator working on Darlene's case. Do you wish you had like a full time cold case investigator looking at both of these cases? I couldn't justify that. If it was supplied, yeah, it would be great. But, you know, just two cases. We had three, but everybody seems to think pretty well that the suspect on the third one is deceased.

So apparently, in Nelson's opinion, two unsolved murders isn't enough to justify a dedicated homicide investigator. And unfortunately, passion without action ain't going to cut it. So Emily and I decided we'll do it. We'll investigate Darlene's case. And we'll start from scratch. What we didn't realize in the fall of 2022,

after that first meeting with Nelson, was just how much more there was to uncover. Part of that meant staying on Nelson's good side. Because the guy's a talker. You can tell he wants to talk and be a part of this. And to his credit, he gave us time, a lot more than we expected. So Emily thought, why not ask for just a little more? She asked if he would take her out to the crime scene.

Yeah, if you want to go that way, I can lead you that way. Yeah? Let's do it. Nelson escorted Emily himself past Darlene's house and the patch of woods where her body was found. And along the way,

he opened up more about his real theory of Darlene's murder. And it gave us a really great place to start our investigation. That's in episode nine, Let's Go for a Ride. You can listen to that right now.