April Tinsley

Child Taken, Assaulted and Murdered

From Crime Watchers :

It was a chilly Friday afternoon in 1988 when April was abducted walking home from a friend’s house. Her body was found three days later about 20 miles away in a rural area dotted with Amish farms.

Despite an intensive search, police were unable to find her killer. Two years later, a message written in pencil or crayon appeared on a barn door not far from where April’s body had been discovered. The writer claimed responsibility for the murder.

Then, in the spring of 2004, four notes appeared at various residences in the Fort Wayne area—several placed on bicycles that young girls had left in their yards—believed to be written by the killer. The notes, all on lined yellow paper, were placed inside baggies along with used condoms or Polaroid pictures of the killer’s body. Several of the notes referred to April Tinsley.

From True Crime Diary :

April 1, 1988 was Good Friday and Tinsley, a first grader at Fairfield Elementary in Fort Wayne, Ind., got together with two friends to play after school. Around 3:30 p.m. Tinsley indicated she was going to walk down the street to fetch an umbrella she’d left at a friend’s house. A witness later described seeing Tinsley forced into a battered blue pickup by a white man in his 30s. On April 4, a jogger discovered Tinsley’s body in a ditch in Spencerville, about 20 miles northeast of Fort Wayne. She’d been raped and suffocated.

Tips came in, but the case went cold. Two years later, on May 21, 1990, a teenage boy in northeast Fort Wayne called police with a peculiar story. Over the course of several days he’d noticed a message scrawled on a barn door getting progressively darker and more readable.

Someone had first written the macabre message in pencil, then returned the next day and drew over it in crayon, then returned a final time to write over it in black marker.

“I kill April Marie Tisley” it said, misspelling her last name. “I kill again.” There’s also a “ha ha.”

Three weeks after the message was left at the barn 7-year-old Sarah Bowker disappeared from her Fort Wayne apartment complex. Her body was found the next day in a nearby ditch. Like April, Sarah had been sexually assaulted and suffocated. For unknown reasons the FBI, after analyzing the cases, said they didn’t believe the same perpetrator was responsible. But a coroner who examined both bodies, Dr. Phillip O’Shaughnessy, publicly stated he believed it was the same killer.

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This case is really old but it involves a child and that always gets me. I want the monster who did this put behind bars or, better yet, executed. So I'm posting this to reawaken interest in this sad case. There is nothing "ha ha" about it. It is so sad it brings tears to my eyes. The case they draw in comparison, the case of Sarah Bowker, is similar to April's case but, for some reason, little has been written or shared about it. This little child was only 7. She had been raped and suffocated as well. As much as I would love to do the Bawker case and compare my findings to the Tinsley case, there are no times given for Sarah. I found a single newspaper article scanned into google docs and it is sparse. The cases were two years apart and the cops sort of dropped the ball on Sarah's. They just couldn't make the connection, which I find appaling. I also found a book about unsolved crimes in which this child was briefly mentioned, along with the conclusion by the police that the cases were unrelated and this while there were 90 other attempted abductions of girls the same age in the same area. Nothing amazes me anymore but I can still be disappointed.

So I am limited to analyzing the Tinsley case. In the first chart, for the time she went missing, I am using both Mercury (she was young) and the fifth house ruler (on her own and not with adults) to depict this child. Mercury is in the seventh house, showing her to be in the company of someone else and since Mercury is conjunct the node, we can assume this was planned. She was probably stalked and had seen this man before and may even have known him. The seventh house ruler, Neptune, is in the sign Capricorn, disposed of by Saturn in Capricorn in the fourth. Saturn is in dignity and is one of the powerful planets in this chart, being angular as well. What this tells us is that this man had lived in her neighborhood for a very long time and is familiar to the neighbors. Uranus and Saturn close to Neptune also tells us that he is unusual, a bit quirky, known to be a recluse, perhaps. Capricorn describes a very old home with a long family history, probably some degree of wealth. His parents were probably in business in the community and admired. But they are now deceased and he is alone, perhaps with money and no need to work. He spends most of his time looking at children (Neptune in the fifth house). He has most likely molested children in the past and it may be previous incidents that have been covered up because of his family heritage.

The placement of the eighth house ruler in the fifth usually shows us the rape of a child. Combined with the fifth house planet, Mars, being disposed of by Saturn in the fourth house, we are seeing the child dieing during the assault. This occurred in a home (the fourth house). Saturn conjoined Neptune in the fourth as Neptune rules the seventh, we can assume the home in question belonged to the kidnapper. The fourth house ruler (Jupiter) in the eighth house of death reasserts the idea that she was killed in his home.

There is not a lot to the charts, as there often isn't when the case involves children, making the reading simple. This is the case for many reasons, not the least being the helplessness of a child and the complexity that arises when older adults are taken.

The fourth house ruler in the ninth house tells us that he lives in an area surrounded with woods and may even be staying in a hunting lodge or cabin. Rustic but not run down. Jupiter in Taurus tells us there is a grill, either indoors or out, where the animals he kills are cooked or burned. Venus at the tenth house cusp (inside the ninth) is near the Pleiades, the fixed star formation known as the "weeping sisters" and which usually portends the shedding of tears. It is a marker for great sadness and loss. The tenth house rules the public and the authoriites (along with the ninth) and shows us just how upsetting the death of this child was for everyone who knew her.

Capricorn, like all earth signs, describes earthen places, such as farms, especially those with animals in cages (Saturn). I understand she was found in a rural area near Amish farms. I googled Amish farms in SC and found that most were either chicken ranches or dairy farms, both types of industry known for keeping animals in cages. Saturn also describes restrictive lifestyles, which describes most religious communities, and also describe antiquated lifestyles, which the Amish are known to be, with their old fashioned clothing and living quarters.

This chart shows us the Moon rising in the first, which is our last indicator that April was alive. Moon disposed of by Venus in the ninth again describes the place she was being held as rustic and in the woods, or near a wooded area. Could this describe the Amish area where she was found? Was she taken there and then killed? Could her killer have been Amish? It seems insane but not impossible. The ninth house also describes religions, religious beliefs, churches, religious communities and religious teaching. Most especially the teaching aspect.

With this chart, I am beginning to think it is possible her killer was from the Amish community. The seventh house ruler, Pisces and Neptune, is often associated with drugs but it is also known to relate to religions, especially cults and missions. The disposition of Neptune by Saturn and to have Neptune together with Uranus and Saturn in Capricorn, is to describe an old fashioned, spartan and disciplined lifestyle that could be applied to the Amish. A few more things I must point out now and then I will move on. Mars in the fifth, which describes her assault, is also disposed of by Saturn and is in trine aspect to the rising Venus in Taurus, which is conjoined the Pleaides. This seems to bring it all together and make it seem possible that a religious man from that community decided to do this and even relished creating the misery? Wow. That's really sad. But I want to get off of this and move on.

I believe, from the charts, that April died around 6 pm that evening. In the chart for 6:40 pm, as shown, you can see the first house ruler, Venus, entering the eighth house of death and the Moon, the chart co ruler, entering the twelfth house of endings. Saturn now rules the fourth from dignity and since Saturn rules the dead body, I believe we can say that April died in his home. Capricorn again describes his home as rustic and wooded. It also describes his community as an old one so the area he lives in is older and not a new construction. It would make sense if it were a farm or hunting cabin in an area like the Amish community near by.

This chart for the time when they found her body is an ugly one. Notice the Moon with Pluto in the fifth house, Pluto describing the violence and brutality of the crime and in the fifth house, which describes children. Also, Pluto in the fifth is a marker for sexual assault. Both of these planets are disposed of by Mars in the seventh, showing a violent perpetrator and someone dangerous. Since Mars is disposed of by Saturn in the sixth, I might be convinced that this person worked on one of the farms in the area, perhaps chopping wood, building homes or transporting lumber to and fro. He would have lived in the same area. Mars disposed of by Saturn in the sixth house is a marker indicating he will never be found. He has gotten away with it for this long. The victims marker, the Moon, in the fifth with Pluto shows us again how ugly this was. She was assaulted and killed in a violent fashion. Mars also rules the tenth house, which shows the residence of the kidnapper (the fourth from the seventh) and reinforces that this child was killed indoors, in the abductors home. All the planets in Capricorn indicate he intended to buy her but was thwarted somehow by something sudden (Uranus) such as being come upon while doing it. He had to leave her as she was. He may have wanted to go back but did not because she was discovered quickly.

The message on the barn door fits this scenario. He lived and worked in and on the farms. He may or may not have been Amish.

Venus left the last few degrees of Taurus, where it was conjoined the Pleaides, and moved into Gemini when she was found. Venus was disposed of by Mercury, which was leaving the sign Pisces at the time, showing immediate change. So the child was uncovered.

The man in question would be described best by the planet ruling the seventh at the time of the murder. This is Mars in Capricorn. Physical characteristics would include a lean, muscular body which was acquired through physical labor. Overall small body size with a small head. Sharp features and stringy dark hair. Light eyes, light skin and possible freckles. Red hair is common with Capricorn. These are characteristics dependant upon profiling that began many years ago and may be altered by modern characteristics. For instance, this could be a dark skinned man with colored red hair or red in his hair. Other modifications may or may not apply.