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Unsolved Mysteries · the open files
The main Crime section of this history closes at the end of the twentieth century, and it closes its cases: the scaffold, the Prohibition wars, the murders that were tried. This section is its companion — the cases that never closed. It holds the killing the city's newspapers followed for a single spring in 1911 and then left in an unmarked grave; the wartime murders of 1944 that were never put to a jury at all; the twenty-nine homicide files the Fort Wayne Police Department itself publishes as open, from 1987 to 2025; the one much-worked cold case that does not appear on that published board; the two people who walked out of Fort Wayne's ordinary nights and were never found; and the county's unnamed dead — one of whom got her name back in 2024, after thirty-two years. It ends where the record says it should end: with the ones that closed, because in this county, some of them do.
A word on the sources, printed once and plainly. The Fort Wayne Police Department does not print its cold-case list on its own website; its Cold Cases page states that the department partners with Solve the Case, Inc., and links to its database there as its own. That board is the Story of Fort Wayne section of this section, transcribed as listed — name, date, and place as the listing gives them, checked in November 2026. The platform itself cautions that its case pages compile details from family, friends, news postings, and government releases and that it does not guarantee the accuracy of any content; where a listing's own page disagrees with itself, this section prints the disagreement rather than choosing. The Allen County Sheriff's Department publishes no cold-case list of its own, and the Indiana State Police district list for this region carries no Allen County case; the county's open files reach the public through the city's board, the sheriff's and coroner's releases, and the newspapers. Nothing has been added to any case that its record does not state.
The man in the river · Harold Shaw
MARCH 1911
The finding: In the first days of March 1911, two boys playing at the city dump found a man's body floating in the St. Marys River. He had been beaten to death — the coroner, Dr. Abraham J. Kesler, ruled out the theory that river…
The verdicts that never came · 1944–45
THE FORMAL RECORD INSIDE THE "KILLER IN THE RAIN" YEARS
The main Crime section tells the wartime murders of 1944–45 in full — the four women killed, the city's fear, and the three men accused in turn. What belongs here is the narrow, formal point that makes three of those killings…
The department's board · how Fort Wayne publishes its cold cases
THE PUBLISHED LIST, AS CHECKED IN NOVEMBER 2026
The Fort Wayne Police Department works its old homicides through a Homicide and Cold Case Unit — the listings name Detective Brian Martin as lead investigator on case after case — and it publishes them, through its Solve the Case…
The board's first decade · 1987–1989
FOUR NAMES FROM THE 1980S
Phyllis Smith (case #1987-6) is the board's oldest file, and the fullest of its early listings. In the early morning hours of April 24, 1987, Smith was at work cleaning an orthodontist's office at 4606 East State Boulevard. Her…
Beverly Parker · the case that is not on the board
AUGUST 23, 1997
Beverly Parker, 47, worked for a Fort Wayne life insurance company and lived with her teenage son. On the night of August 23, 1997, she was killed in her own home. Her son, who had been out at an all-night skating party, came…
The board · 2006–2009
THREE FILES FROM THE 2000S
Alexia Ray Vidales (case #2006-9) was killed on February 5, 2006, in the 4400 block of Oliver Street.
Timothy C. Zimmerman (case #2007-11) was killed on April 13, 2007, in the 400 block of Greenlawn Avenue.
Adam N. Tadeo and Deanthony J. Lewis (cases #2009-10 and #2009-15) were killed in the same incident, on March 25, 2009, in an alley north of Creighton Avenue at Harrison Street — two names on the board for one night's work, each still awaiting its answer.
The listings for these cases publish the name, the date, and the place, and nothing more. They are printed here at that size, as the record gives them.
Sources:
- Solve the Case, Inc., FWPD case pages #2006-9, #2007-11, #2009-10, and #2009-15 — as listed, checked November 2026.
The board · 2014–2019
TWELVE FILES FROM THE 2010S
Alan J. Puff (case #2014-27) was killed on September 21, 2014, in the 600 block of East Rudisill Boulevard.
The board · 2020–2025
EIGHT FILES FROM THE PRESENT DECADE
Justin C. Dawson (case #2020-103) was killed on August 28, 2020, at the Summit Apartments, in the 1000 block of Ridgewood Drive.
The missing · two open files
2018 — AND 2023 —
Kevin N. Nguyen (FWPD case #2018-12) went out for the night in downtown Fort Wayne and did not come home. The listing's account: he was dropped off at a local bar, and was last seen in the early morning hours of December 8–9…
The unnamed · and the one who got her name back
1992 — AND 1999 —
Two of the county's open files are not about finding a killer. They are about finding a name.
The Cold Cases That Were Solved
2018 — 2025
An unsolved file that never records a solution teaches the wrong lesson, so this one ends with the solutions. The city's most famous cold case — the 1988 murder of April Tinsley, closed in 2018 when forensic genetic genealogy…