Katrina Fouts

Noblesville, Indiana, is a quiet city 25 miles north of Indianapolis.

The southern half of this 400-square mile county is very suburban.

We have some of the safest and, um, in many ways, wealthiest per capita-wise communities in the state, uh, if not the whole country.

But on April 24th, 2020, an urgent 911 call from a local resident serves as a reminder that the area isn't immune to violence.

911.

What's the location of your emergency?

Uh, Overnorth Road.

There's a dead body laying in the ditch.

I saw him when I was walking down the street.

It's a male, I'd say, I don't know, older 30s, 40s, maybe 50s, and it's got a dog collar around his neck.

Investigators are immediately dispatched to the scene.

I found a, a white male.

I estimated his age to be between 45 and 55.

He had no shirt on, had a pair of sweats on, and a shirt was tied around his left wrist.

You could physically see some red dots throughout the shirt, and you could assume it was blood.

At that point, we secured the scene.

It's on a, on a country road.

It's not very populated, but it is a traveled road.

There is what they reported as a dog collar or a dog leash wrapped around his neck.

I saw it and immediately recognized it as a rifle sling that you'd put on a rifle.

You could tell from the, the amount of lividity and some insect activity that it'd been deceased for a, a couple days.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence indicating who the victim is or how he died.

He had several small cuts, abrasions, not sufficient to cause blood loss that would result in death, so you don't have this obvious cause of death.

He has no ID on him, so we have no clue who he is.

DNA would take months to identify him, so our only real option was to do fingerprints.