Man charged in 1957 Sycamore slaying had history of abuse: police
BY TINA SFONDELES AND MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporters July 2, 2011 6:44PM
Jack Daniel McCullough | DeKalb Daily Chronicle
Updated: October 29, 2011 12:34AM
A man accused of killing a 7-year-old Sycamore girl in a case that made national news in 1957 has a long, troubled history of sexually abusing his relatives and others, court documents related to the murder of Maria Ridulph allege. A sister of Jack Daniel McCullough, who was charged with Maria’s murder in Seattle on Friday, told investigators that McCullough sexually abused her on numerous occasions when they lived in Sycamore, which is near DeKalb, and that he was “doing that to other neighborhood girls as well, because he would bring her along to act as a lookout while he did so,” according to a statement of probable cause prepared by the Seattle Police Department and filed in court by prosecutors. Later, as a police officer in Milton, Wash., in the early 1980s, McCullough sexually assaulted a “13-14 year-old runaway,” the statement claims. He pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful communication and was fired from the police department, according to court documents dated Thursday. He had previously worked for the police department in Lacey, Wash. McCullough, 71, missed his initial court hearing Saturday afternoon at King County Jail because he was hospitalized in Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for an undisclosed reason. McCullough, who was being held on $3 million bond, will have a bail hearing Monday. A woman who attended the hearing and identified herself as McCullough’s niece, Jen Howton, told reporters he was a kind and loving man. She said her family is praying for Maria’s relatives. McCullough was married and was living at a retirement community in Seattle when he was arrested Friday. The statement of probable cause, which was first obtained by the Seattle Times, also includes allegations from his sister claiming McCullough at times took his 2-year-old brother and two of his sisters into the attic of their home and made them strip and touch each other sexually. In addition to detailing alleged abuse of family members, the statement of probable cause describes McCullough’s troubled marriage with a former wife. The woman told investigators that McCullough was emotionally abusive to her and made sexually suggestive comments to his daughter from a previous marriage, who was about 11 at the time. The ex-wife said she found nude photos of the daughter taped to the bottom of a desk drawer. The court documents also give more details of the decades-old investigation and how the arrest unfolded. Maria Ridulph was playing with a friend, 8-year-old Mary Katherine Chapman, outside her Sycamore home on December 3, 1957, when a young man approached, introduced himself as “Johnny” and offered the girls a piggyback ride, the documents state. The man gave Maria a piggyback ride and then asked her if she had a doll. When she went inside her house to get one, McCullough allegedly made physical advances toward Kathy. “Cathy [sic] reported that Johnny touched Cathy’s arm and thigh, telling Cathy something along the lines of her being pretty,” the statement of probable cause said. “Cathy was leery of Johnny, and it went no further.” A short time later, Kathy went home to get mittens because she was cold. When she returned, Maria and the man were gone, she told police at the time. Three days after Maria disappeared, a woman made an anonymous call to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s office, saying that a “boy named Treschner” in his early 20s who lived in the neighborhood matched the man’s description, court documents said. Sheriff’s deputies later determined that the person the woman was referring to was John Tessier — McCullough’s name before he changed it, the statement says. McCullough’s parents joined the search for Maria the night she disappeared, his sister told investigators. In an interview with FBI agents on Dec. 8, 1957, McCullough said he had taken a train from Rockford to Chicago to try to enlist in the Army on the day Maria disappeared, the statement says. But the office was closed when he got there, so he made a collect call asking his stepfather to pick him up, he said. He said he then made a call to his girlfriend at the time and asked to meet her, the documents state. But the ex-girlfriend later said she didn’t recall seeing him that night, and investigators later determined his stepfather gave someone else a ride that night and would not have been able to pick him up. The documents also state that a friend saw McCullough’s car driving in Sycamore the night of the abduction. Shortly after Maria disappeared, McCullough joined the Air Force and legally changed his name. Investigators re-interviewed the ex-girlfriend in 2010, and she showed investigators a photo of her and McCullough from the time. When she took it out of its frame, she found McCullough’s train ticket from Rockford to Chicago, court documents state. Authorities have said the ticket was never used. In 2010, Illinois State Police detectives used an old high school yearbook to copy five pictures of men who matched McCullough’s description. They took a photo from him during the time of the disappearance and created a photo montage and showed it to Chapman, the statement said. On June 28, Seattle Police detectives obtained a search warrant for McCullough’s apartment. After he was arrested, authorities conducted a lengthy interview in which McCullough made several statements “inconsistent with past statements he had made about this incident, and indeed inconsistent with statements he made within this interview itself,” court documents state. Sycamore Police Chief Don Thomas said Saturday that multiple factors led to the charges, statements McCullough made during that interview as well as additional evidence.
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