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 named her killer — is told in this history's high-profile file and stands here in a single line, as the proof of the principle that the rest of this entry documents: in Allen County, cold cases close.

The 1980 county cases · closed by confession, 2020: Valeria Boyd, 18, was found dead on November 4, 1980, in a field in the 14000 block of Conners Road in southern Allen County; Mary Ann Porter, 31, was found on December 13, 1980, off the roadway in the 4600 block of West Wallen Road. Both investigations went cold for want of any viable suspect. Thirty-nine years later, Allen County detectives interviewed Samuel Little — a confessed serial killer serving life sentences in California, who had admitted to more than ninety murders nationwide — in a Texas confinement facility. In the Sheriff's Department's account, Little told the detectives that on a single night in late October 1980 he had picked up both women, at different times, near Maumee and Division Streets in Fort Wayne, and killed them, leaving their bodies in separate parts of the county. The department announced on March 6, 2020, that both cases were solved by his confession, and forwarded the investigations to the Allen County Prosecutor's Office for follow-up. Little died in custody in California in December 2020.

The 2002 case · an arrest after eighteen years: Stacy Degrandchamp, 17, was stabbed to death on August 15, 2002, at 1353 Guthrie Street. On March 25, 2020, after what the department described as almost a year of reviewing evidence, forensic testing, and interviewing witnesses in several states, officers of the Cold Case/Homicide Division arrested Holly Boisvert in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on a murder warrant in the case, issued the day before. The charge is stated here as the release states it; the case's court record belongs to the courts.

The clearances of 2024–25: The city's own public-safety recap reported that five cold-case homicides were solved in 2024, from cases of 2001, 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2017. The named ones in the department's releases: on November 13, 2024, Tommy Harris Jr. was arrested on a warrant charging felony murder and burglary in the June 27, 2001 homicide of Larry Lovelace Jr.; and on July 23, 2024, the Homicide and Cold Case Unit announced the clearance of the July 24, 2012 homicide of Robert Jackson Jr., shot in the 3900 block of Wayne Trace. On August 14, 2025, Raphael Helton was arrested on a warrant for the March 28, 2015 murder of Michael J. Fedock. The board, too, keeps its closed file in the open: the 2017 homicide of Nicholas J. Hennan (case #2017-32) stands on the board marked solved, an arrest made. And the department has added hands: its homicide detectives have partnered with Trine University to build a university cold case unit to work the evidence of cases exactly like the ones in this section. That is the standing of the open files in November 2026 — twenty-nine names on a board, two people missing, one man unnamed, and a department that closed five of the old ones in a single recent year. The list is shorter than it was. It is not yet empty.

Sources:

1. Allen County Sheriff's Department, news release, "Serial Killer admits to two 1980 Allen County Murders" (March 6, 2020) — the Boyd and Porter investigations, the Texas interview, and the forwarding to the Prosecutor's Office.
2. Fort Wayne Police Department news releases — the Boisvert arrest (March 25, 2020); the clearance of the Robert Jackson Jr. homicide (July 23, 2024); the arrest in the Larry Lovelace Jr. cold case (November 13, 2024); the arrest in the Michael J. Fedock cold case (August 14, 2025).
3. City of Fort Wayne, public-safety recap of 2024 (January 2025) — five cold-case homicides solved in 2024, and the Trine University Cold Case Unit partnership.
4. Solve the Case, Inc., FWPD case page #2017-32 (Nicholas J. Hennan) — marked solved on the board, arrest made.