The state's list · what Indiana itself publishes for this county

THE STATE POLICE DISTRICT PAGE AND THE COLD-CASE CARD DECKS

The Indiana State Police publish their cold cases by district. St. Joseph County falls in the Bremen District, and the district's page, as checked in November 2026, lists three cases. Only one of the three is this county's. The other two — Darlene Hulse, killed at Argos on August 17, 1984, and Brandi Peltz, an eleven-year-old killed on December 11, 1986, in her home — are Marshall County cases, and they are printed here only as a boundary line, so that no reader mistakes the district's page for this county's list. The state's second publication is the Indiana Cold Case Homicides playing-card decks, issued by the Department of Correction in partnership with the State Police — fifty-two unsolved homicides and missing persons per deck, distributed through the state's prisons in the hope that an inmate's memory might be jogged. The second edition was released July 13, 2010, and the third on April 22, 2013. The decks themselves caution that hundreds of other cases are not profiled in them. Two of this county's cases stand in the second edition, and they are the state's whole published word on the county's cold cases beyond the district page.

Vickie McDonough, 22 — the district page's one St. Joseph County case, and this section's oldest state-listed killing. The State Police state it in full: on November 27, 1974, Vickie McDonough's body was found covered by old mattresses near a railroad access road approximately 300 feet south of Brick Road in Clay Township. It was later determined that the body had been placed at its location several days before. She had been shot twice in the back of the neck. The state's two publications disagree on her case number — the playing-card deck prints 12F3538, the State Police's current page prints 12F3548 — and the disagreement is left standing here, as the state leaves it. Information is asked for at the Bremen District numbers above.

Lawrence (Larry) Howard Groves, 40 — the county's second deck case, printed on the king of hearts of the second edition under case number 24-24378. The card states the whole of it: on January 28, 2003, family members reported Lawrence Groves missing from his home in downtown Lakeville, and not tending to his antique business. His home was found locked, and family members had no means of access. In June 2003, family members made entry into the home and found his body in the crawl space, which had been closed with a rug over the opening. The card gives the tip route as the #80 T.I.P.S. Hotline. Groves does not appear on the State Police's current district web page; the deck is the state's standing publication of his case, and no fuller official account of it was reached.

Sources:

1. Indiana State Police, Bremen District Investigations (cold cases by county), as checked November 2026 — the district's three listed cases; the McDonough case page (case number 12F3548, county: St. Joseph) and the Peltz case page (county: Marshall) read in full.
2. Indiana Department of Correction / Indiana State Police, Indiana Cold Case Homicides Playing Cards, 2nd Edition (2010), Hearts — the cards for case 24-24378 (Groves) and case 12F3538 (McDonough), read in full; the 2nd Edition Spades and the 3rd Edition (2013) Clubs were likewise read card by card and carry no St. Joseph County case.
3. Indiana Department of Correction releases, "IDOC Issues 2nd Edition of Indiana Cold Case Playing Cards" (July 13, 2010) and "Prison Playing Cards Aim to Help Solve Indiana Cold Cases" (April 22, 2013) — the decks' purpose, distribution, and the tip routes, including coldcasetips@idoc.in.gov.