The new information still led to no significant new leads or suspects. In fact, he's probably at work right now.". It wouldnt have been unusual for Amy to go there alone or with friends. Jason became concerned quickly and called his mother Margaret at work to ask where Amy was. She steadily declined for years until she left Bay Village in the 1990s and relocated to the Cleveland area. On October 27, 1989, Amy Mihaljevic was kidnapped from the Bay Square Shopping Center in Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Runkle also seemed to have volunteered in the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village at the time of the murder. This case to me, to solve it, not just to me, but for the police department and Amys family and really for Amy, would be everything for us, he said. What history do I have of inappropriate behavior with kids? The killers hope that their victims remains will decompose by the time their bodies are found and prevent any extraction of forensic evidence such as hairs or fibers. Further evidence that supports the fact that Amy was not this killers first victim is the phone call they allowed Amy to make to her mother at work around 3:30pm on the day she disappeared. Whether there is enough to convict is a whole separate argument. A suspect has never been identified. The lengths that Joseph went to hide his real name and the longevity of his identity theft led them to speculate that he was a dangerous fugitive. Most Popular #109790. All these other girls had unlisted phone numbers. He lured Amy out, made her call her mother to gain some time, and then kidnapped her for his own depraved purposes. He also photographed his students regularly, developing the negatives himself. But the only student they know who went inside was a boy named Dan, who attended Sailorway Middle School. 2.1 Dean Runkle; 3 References; 4 Further reading; He was very touchy." Other students of Runkle have since testified that Runkle engaged in sexual misconduct with them in the form of inappropriate touching and rides in his car to and from his apartment. 08/18/2006. I will admit that sketch of the man Amy met that day looks like DR (and like a dead-ringer too), but simply looking like a sketch doesnt make him our guy. The man spoke to her for a few seconds, and then led her away from the sidewalk. Last weekend, I paid him a visit. DR seems eccentric from what Ive read, but being eccentric isnt a crime either. Why did you leave Ohio in 2003 without giving notice to your employer, For the most part, information on potential suspects has been revealed as, part of independent investigations. Since Runkle is exceptionally well liked as a teacher by many former students, Renner became the subject of strong criticism, unlike anything he had faced from naming previous suspects, when he named Runkle. In 1987, Runkle set a few thousand dollars aside in a trust for Dan, according to Dan's mother. I wasn't going to chance it because I didn't trust him based on his unfounded and mean spirited hatchet job on his personally manufactured suspect, Dean Runkle, in the Amy Mihaljevic case. I suspect they are getting real damn close to getting the person/s. Tue Aug 17, 06:49:00 PM . Scne de . But, none of them match the facts of the case and the description of the offender as closely as Dean Runkle. "NEW" EVIDENCE? Your email address will not be published. Read more about this topic: Amy Mihaljevic, Suspect, Confession, alas, is the new handshake.Richard Dean Rosen (b. Now we know: New clues in the Amy Mihaljevic case. He was like a son. After he returned, Runkle began building his own nature center inside his classroom. Although the Bay Village Police have, confirmed that these same suspects have been interviewed, there are few. In early 1990 her body was found. He knew Amy and her friends. Adkins says she and other young girls were questioned about Runkle's behavior by the superintendent in 1995. Residents of Bay Village lived on edge for years after Amys disappearance and murder. Sometimes he talked about how his father beat him if he didn't finish dinner when he was younger. Amy attended the local middle school, and her older brother Jason attended the local high school in 1989. Your email address will not be published. Cleveland newspaper reporter James Renner investigated Mihaljevic's murder case and concluded that a teacher named Dean Runkle should be viewed as a prime suspect. We should also mention that a former student of Dean has publicly accused him of inappropriate contact. Police found signs of sexual assault, and her cause of death was declared as multiple stab wounds to the neck area. The Lake Erie area had never seen such a gruesome murder of a child. Thousands of tips have come in throughout the years, but no one has ever been arrested. Elish believes anyone who can identify those items, the curtain especially, will help solve this case. Also not in his personnel file were the occasions when Runkle was caught alone with students in his gold-colored Grand Prix, by both the principal and a policeman, who let him go with a warning. He's not homeless anymore. He walks over to see what we're talking about. Signed the visitor log book with their phone numbers, Abruptly quit teaching in 2003 without notice and moved to Florida. It's a day investigators have pored over for decades: October 27, 1989 -- when 10-year-old Amy Mihaljevic disappeared from Bay Village, Ohio. "And it better be someone who cannot be linked to you, because when a child is abducted and murdered in this country, trouble will rain down upon you. Renner interviewed all of Amys friends and teachers decades after the murder about the nature center. Amy Mihaljevic, United States Unclassified. This "list os suspects" is so completely bogus. It's hard to tell what might be ailing Runkle, though, because, at 65, he could easily pass for 45. She was stabbed twice in the neck and struck with a blunt object on the back of her head. Everyone standing in line at the Flagler soup kitchen wants to help. On the 31st anniversary of finding Amy's body, a woman (who remains unnamed), called the police to tell them that her ex-boyfriend, Dean Runkle, was a potential and most likely suspect of Amy . Ten-year-old Amy was lured from her Bay Village home on Oct. 27, 1989, to a shopping center at Dover Center . Another key person of interest in Amy Mihaljevics disappearance and murder case is Richard Holbert, who, like a few others, has confessed to slaying Amy. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. She said she was going with a friend to the Bay Square Shopping Center. Through Renners research and his own private investigation, Renner has produced what is by far the most valuable lead in Amys case so far. He said that hed take Amy to the nearby shopping center after school one day to buy her mother a present, and possibly even insinuated that hed buy her one as well, just for her help. I ask him how so much circumstantial evidence could line up against one person. Amy Mihaljevic disappeared on October 27, 1989. The other students assumed the man was a friend or relative, and that Amy knew him, so they thought nothing of it. One is that the killer felt remorse for what theyd done, and returning Amys body would give some peace and closure to Amys family, and allow them to bury her properly. I requested Runkle's personnel file from Nord Junior High School and ran his name through a search of newspaper articles. "Amy!" And how did the log book disappear from the nature center? But I answered the FBI's questions, I took their lie detector test and they haven't done anything to me. "He made comments about girls' outfits. Categories Posted Recently. "Wish it was me," said Runkle, according to Adkins. He shrugs. Over three decades after the kidnapping of 10-year-old Amy Mihaljevic in northeast Ohio, local police said this week that newly-discovered DNA on a blanket and a curtain could be the key to solving the decades-old cold case. None took the bait. Finally, police discovered a link between all the girls. "He would stare at me in class," says Kim Raeburn. Amy was last seen walking away from the plaza, toward the parking lot, with that man. But no one knows Runkle. In late October 1989, Amy Mihaljevic was lured to a suburban Ohio shopping center by an unknown male who had befriended her via conversations on the phone, and she was never seen alive again. And he talked about how he liked kids who hadn't reached puberty yet, because "I was a runt too.". The third girl took horseback riding lessons at Holly Hill Ranch, the very same ranch that Amy took lessons from. Marshals searching for Ohio man wanted in multiple crimes, Chief issues 6-alarm fire in Camp Washington, 1 dead, 4 hospitalized after being hit by semi-truck following crash on Ohio Turnpike, 2-year-old Ohio boy found safe, Amber Alert canceled, police say, Duo of suspected porch pirates wanted on Clevelands West Side, police say, RELATED: 32 years later, Mark Mihaljevic still hopeful his daughters killer will be found, Closed Captioning/Audio Description Problems. At the time of Amy's . And then Maddie sees the man. We have proof that this killer attempted to lure many other little girls into the same fate as Amy with phone calls to households with unlisted phone numbers. Only Amy and her killer will ever know the answer. Whoever this predator was, he had robbed Bay Village of its peace and sense of safety. At the time of the crime, he was wearing a beige windbreaker with plaid lining, front-pressed khakis, and a button-up shirt. Thankfully, though, a few people noticed him with Amy that day, and so a sketch of what he looked like was made. But Lanning can extrapolate some ideas about the man who killed Amy. Then the man puts an arm around Amy's shoulders and leads her away. "My sister told me about you," he says. That way I really get to know the kids and they get to know me, and we understand each other that way.". Then Runkle suddenly quit again, in 2003, according to his personnel file; he gave no reason, declined to apply for a sabbatical that would have allowed him to reach retirement, and didn't even complete the paperwork necessary to collect his pension. I ask my questions anyway. His denials of involvement in her abduction and murder notwithstanding, no other suspect has ever matched the facts of the case as closely as Dean Runkle. There is new evidence in the Amy Mihaljevic murder investigation - a homemade curtain and a blanket found on the road where Amy's body was discovered in 1989. On Friday 27 October 1989, ten-year-old Amy Renee Mihaljevic woke up at 6am and dressed herself for school, before meeting two friends and riding on their bikes to class at 7.50am, the same as they did every other school morning. Shockingly, another girl a few years older than Amy came forward to police that she had received a similar call months earlier. "That's Dean!" I quickly began to see why this man was on the FBI's list of priorities. By New DNA results reveal Amys hair was on both items. James Renner, around the same age as Amy at the time, had been following the story about the cute little girl with the side ponytail. It turns out the suspect had schizophrenia and he had stopped taking his medication. and our 1. Unfortunately, neither witness got a good look at the mans face, nor did they see him or Amy get into a vehicle, or go into a store. By Dateline NBC. The handyman was brought in for questioning, but was quickly eliminated as a suspect once his alibi was corroborated by multiple people. Some believed that this suspect could have been teacher Dean Runkle, according to James Renner . What happened to the car you were driving in the Fall of 1989? Four months later, her body was found in a corn field off a remote county highway. But they recently tested dog hairs found on the fabric and determined that they matched hairs taken from the dog Amy owned at the time. He often filmed his students in class, cutting together the film later at home. All four girls, who received suspicious phone calls (with Amy being the last one), have visited it in the weeks before the abduction and may have written their names and phone numbers in a logbook by the front doors. . Multiple witnesses say that he matches the man they saw . For more info about Amy's case, you can read through the blog I've devoted to it since 2006. Then, in August 2008, a man named Tony Perchinsky called to tell me that he'd heard from a local cop that the man who'd been Perchinsky's eighth-grade science teacher in 1991, Dean Runkle, was a suspect in Amy's case. The movie Mean Girls made a joke about this, but its something that sticks out to the kids theyve taught. His hair is thick and bushy above his eyes. As is the case in many child abductions, I believe the motive in Amys case was sexual assault, but then Amy couldve identified the perpetrator, so she had to be killed. New DNA evidence could help solve the decades old mystery. The case seemed to go cold again until new details were released in 2016, some 26 years after the body of Amy Mihaljevic was discovered. When reached at home, he admits to being Runkle's "favorite" for a while. According to his co-workers, he lives just a mile from the restaurant, near a large apartment complex, but no one has his exact address.