1957 Murder In Sycamore, Illinois Is Oldest Cold Case To Be Prosecuted


The brutal 1957 murder of a seven-year-old girl in Sycamore, Illinois, is the oldest cold case in the US, and the former cop accused of being the killer is appealing his conviction, which was claimed to be the result of “nostalgia” and “flimsy” evidence.

The man serving a life sentence for the 1957 murder of a neighbor’s daughter wrote an 80-page appeal to the court, claiming that his mother accused him from the grave and he was not allowed to prove that he was not at the scene of the crime 57 years ago.

Former police officer Jack Daniel McCullough says he deserves a new trial in an appellate brief — filed on Friday — and argues that nobody witnessed little Maria Ridulph being snatched from a street corner in Sycamore, or how she was murdered in 1957.

McCullough was never tied to the forensic evidence in the horrific crime of the seven-year-old, and the court papers say that whatever prosecutors used to convict the former police officer of the 1957 murder was unreliable, since it came from witnesses with ulterior motives.

“The evidence against Jack McCullough,” the appeal argues, “was so unreasonable, so improbable, and so unsatisfactory as to create a reasonable doubt that he was responsible for a 1957 murder, kidnapping, and abduction of an infant.”

The evidence included “personal memories of what occurred 55 years ago; a photo identification made 53 years after the incident; testimony from jailhouse informants; innocuous statements from the defendant; and an improperly admitted and inconclusive statement from the defendant’s mother while on morphine and Haldol just before her death.”

McCullough was convicted in September 2012 of the murder of young Maria Ridulph, who was snatched from the corner of Archie Place and Center Cross Street during the evening hours of December 3, 1957. The murder gripped the nation and caught the attention of then-FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover.

Maria’s body was found in the spring of 1958, in a grove of trees off a highway about 120 miles away, making the 1957 murder the oldest cold case ever prosecuted.

McCullough denied he committed the 1957 murder in several letters to CNN, as well as in an interview from jail. He also denied his involvement while being interrogated by investigators prior to his arrest. Because he was acting strangely, however, the police were sure they had their man.

Janey O’Connor, McCullough’s stepdaughter and his staunch defender, hopes his lawyers can convince the court to review the case:

“I think the problem with Jack’s trial is, it was all emotion-based. To find a man guilty based on conflicting stories, unconstitutional rulings and emotion and not allow Jack the chance to present the evidence that cleared his name in 1957 goes against our constitutional rights.”

Testimony in the 1957 murder trial for McCullough lasted a little over a week and was decided by a judge from a neighboring county.

[Image via Shutterstock]

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