Seven-year-old Maria Ridulph disappeared on December 3, 1957 while playing outside her house with her best friend. Closer returns to this mysterious case.
It’s at Sycamorea few tens of kilometers west of Chicago, that this case takes root. On December 3, 1957, seven-year-old Maria Ridulph was having dinner with her family when she saw snow falling outside. Amazed, the little girl asks permission to go out to find her best friend and neighbor, Kathy Sigman, 8 years old. Her parents, Michael and Frances Ivy Ridulph, let her go, unaware that they would never see their daughter again.
Around 7:00 p.m., little Kathy Sigman knocks on the Ridulphs’ door. Mary has disappeared. She says she played “dodge cars” with her best friend when a man named Johnny stopped them. The latter asked them if they liked dolls and being carried on the shoulders, to which the two little girls replied in the affirmative. Maria then agreed to be carried by “Johnny”, before going back and forth to her house to pick up her doll. For her part, Kathy went home to get a pair of mittens. But returning to the corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Square, the little girl and the famous “Johnny” had vanished. All that remained of Maria was her doll, abandoned on the snow-covered ground.
Looking for “Johnny”
Alerted, the police opened an investigation and launched searches throughout the state. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is also mobilized, and little Kathy is placed under close surveillance. In the neighborhood, several witnesses confirm having seen the two children playing shortly after 6:30 p.m. Unfortunately, no one except Kathyn has seen the famous “Johnny”. At first, the police suspect a certain John Tessier (who would later change his name to Jack McCullough), a man in his twenties matching Kathy’s description and residing a few blocks from the Ridulphs’ home. But seeing him, little Kathy does not recognize “Johnny”. The girl’s gaze is rather on a certain Thomas Joseph Rivard, but the police discover that he was in prison the night of the crime. The investigation quickly begins to stall…
Until next spring. On April 26, 1958, the decomposed body of a child was discovered in a wooded area of Woodbine, about 100 miles from Sycamore. The corpse’s dental print identifies little Maria Ridulph, and the disappearance case becomes a murder case. But again, there is nothing to identify a serious suspect. It was only fifty years later, in 2008, that the assassination of Maria Ridulph made headlines again. To everyone’s bewilderment, Janet Tessier, sister of John Tessier (Jack McCullough), claims that her mother, Eileen, sold her brother on his deathbed. “These two little girls, and the missing one, John did it. John did it, and you need to tell someone”, would have declared the dying. Janet also learns from her sisters, Katherine and Jeanne, that Eileen Tessier allegedly lied to investigators to give her son an alibi for the night Maria disappeared.
One of the oldest American cold cases
On September 14, 2012, Jack McCullough is found guilty of the murder of Maria Ridulph. At 73, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 20-year security sentence. The case is officially closed, but Jack McCullough continues to deny and decides to appeal. He will prevail. In 2016, the judge believes that the evidence against him is not enough. In addition, his alibi casts doubt on his guilt. On the night of the crime, he was in Rockford, about sixty kilometers from Sycamore, to enroll in the US Air Force. Ln April 15, 2016, McCullough was released, leaving the Marie Ridulph case officially unsolved.