Sarah Knisley has visited the grave of her sister, Laurel Jean Mitchell, dozens of times in the nearly 50 years since she was sexually assaulted and murdered in North Webster, Ind. But a visit to the cemetery in February 2023 was different.
That time, Ms. Knisley, 62, took balloons that she had decorated with a handwritten inscription: “We got him.”
The suspects in her killing had finally been arrested and charged.
The police investigated the killing over decades, but they were unable to solve it until last year, when DNA testing provided the missing link and led to the arrests of two men. They had been suspects for years.
It was the first step toward closure for Ms. Knisley. This week came one more.
One of the men, Fred Bandy Jr. of Goshen, Ind., 69, was convicted on Tuesday of first-degree murder in the killing of Laurel, 17. He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison at a hearing on Oct. 22.
The other person charged in the case, John Wayne Lehman, of Auburn, Ind., who will turn 69 on Thursday, pleaded guilty in August to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder. The plea deal, which is expected to be finalized on Friday, carries an eight-year sentence.
Lawyers for the two men declined to comment.
Through the entire ordeal, Ms. Knisley had a singular motivation: “I gotta do it, so I’m doing it, and I can’t give up until it’s done,” she said. “It’s been that way for the last 49 years.”
Ms. Knisley describes her childhood in North Webster, Ind., as one in a typical small town where everyone felt safe. She often tagged along with Laurel when she went to meet with a church group, go to choir practice, or hang out with friends. Every year, their family would drive to Fort Wayne to see a Lipizzaner Stallion show, a favorite of Laurel’s.
That sense of normalcy changed when Laurel did not return home by curfew on Aug. 6, 1975. She was supposed to meet friends at an amusement park after leaving work at a church camp. Her body was found the next day in the nearby Elkhart River.
The initial autopsy ruled the cause of death a homicide by drowning, according to a police affidavit. “She made a violent struggle to survive,” it said.
All of the clothing and belongings found on Laurel’s body were preserved for DNA testing. After a decades-long investigation, Capt. Kevin Smith of the Indiana State Police, who relentlessly followed hundreds of tips over the years, resubmitted some of Laurel’s clothing to the state laboratory for DNA testing in 2019. That ultimately led to charges of first-degree murder against Mr. Bandy and Mr. Lehman in February 2023.
At the trial, prosecutors said Mr. Bandy’s DNA was found on Laurel’s underwear.
Ms. Knisley attended their arraignment with other members of her family. A friend of her parents held her hand through the hearing. Ms. Knisley was thinking about her sister the whole time.
When she saw Mr. Bandy and Mr. Lehman, she thought, “My God, these scumbags had their hands on my sister,” she recalled.
In the months since, Ms. Knisley has continued to meet with prosecutors and attend every court hearing in Noble County Circuit Court in Albion, Ind., a 45-minute drive from her home in Warsaw, Ind. The one-day bench trial for Mr. Bandy on Monday was “very rough,” she said. Her older brother, Bruce Mitchell, was also with her.
When Judge Michael Kramer handed down his decision on Tuesday, Ms. Knisley hugged her family and Captain Smith, who she said was holding back tears. She just wished her parents, who both died in 2012, could have been there to see it.
Ms. Knisley said she had mostly held off crying, but imagines that she’s “just going to be a puddle” after sentencing. “But I do that all along, because that’s who I am. I’m the strong one.”
Ms. Knisley plans to hold a moment of silence in the coming weeks in honor of Laurel, possibly at her gravesite, which is next to where their mother is buried.
Ms. Knisley was 12 years old when Laurel died. The two weren’t very close because of a four-year-age gap, she said. But she still thinks about what could have been.
“Now, we would have been best friends,” Ms. Knisley said. “I just miss the possibilities.”
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