Arrest In Springfield Murders - Not Homer Simson!
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news
wire:
Arrest In Springfield Murders
January 25, 1999
Reuters
(SPRINGFIELD) -- Police in Springfield have a man in custody they
believe is
responsible for that city's worst mass murder. Springfield Police Chief
Lynn
Rowe (ROH) identifies the suspect as Richard DeLong of Joplin. Rowe says
DeLong
is the father of the nine-month old fetus inside Erin Vanderhoef when
she was
strangled early Tuesday. A neighbor found Vanderhoef's body and those of
her
three children inside Vanderhoef's home Wednesday night. Rowe would not
divulge
a motive for the killings.
--------------------------------------
Arrest Ends Intense Investigation
January 25, 1999
Reuters
(SPRINGFIELD) -- The arrest of Richard DeLong in connection with the
mass
murder in Springfield highlights one of the most intense criminal
investigations in that city's history. According to police chief Lynn
Rowe,
detectives have been working around the clock since the bodies of five
members
of the Vanderhoef family were found strangled inside their home
Wednesday
night. Rowe refused to comment on what led officers to arrest DeLong for
the
killings. Rowe said DeLong was captured Sunday afternoon with the help
of the
Joplin police department. Rowe said DeLong was trying to hide from
authorities
when they arrived to arrest him.
---------------------------------------
The following two news articles both appear courtesy of today's
Associated
Press news wire:
Joplin man arrested in slayings of Springfield family
01/25/99
By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- As hundreds filled a downtown church to
celebrate the
life of a pregnant woman and her three children today, the man police
say
killed them was arraigned on murder charges in a courtroom only a few
hundred
yards away.
``This morning we cry, we cry, we're just devastated by this cruel death
that
has met this good family,'' the Rev. Jim Eberhard, struggling to keep
from
breaking down, told some 500 people who filed in to the huge auditorium
at the
Central Assembly of Good Church.
About the same time, down the street at the Greene County Courthouse,
Richard
Ivan DeLong was arraigned on five courts of first-degree murder. He was
charged
with killing Erin Vanderhoef, her children Darlene Vanderhoef, 8; Jimmy
Vanderhoef, 11; and Chris Franklin,10, as well as Ms. Vanderhoef's
9-month
fetus.
At the church, hundreds of mourners, many weeping, filed past four open
coffins
containing the bodies of Vanderhoef and her children, as well as a fifth
one,
hardly larger than a shoe box, that held the body of the child she was
carrying.
``We can find comfort in knowing these children will never suffer, never
suffer
another day,'' Eberhard said before pausing to compose himself.
Associate Circuit Court Judge Dan Conklin ordered DeLong, 34, held
without
bond. He asked if DeLong wanted a public defender appointed to represent
him
and the Joplin man said yes.
DeLong, 34, was arrested Sunday afternoon in Joplin. Police Chief Lynn
Rowe
said he is believed to be the father of the unborn child that Ms.
Vanderhoef
was carrying when she was found dead in her home Wednesday.
DeLong and Vanderhoef were no longer dating at the time of the killings,
Officer Mike Green, a police spokesman, said.
The family was likely killed early Tuesday morning, investigators said.
Greene County Deputy Medical Examiner Ron Yoder determined that
Vanderhoef, 36,
and her children were strangled.
Police would not say exactly how the four were strangled, only that the
killer
used fabric or a rope-like item. Yoder said all the victims were
strangled
similarly, but different items were used. It appeared the same person
had
strangled Vanderhoef and her children, he said.
The baby Vanderhoef was carrying, a girl she planned to name Hannah,
likely
would have been born healthy, Yoder said, and as a result prosecutors
listed
the 40-week fetus as a murder victim, too.
Rowe announced DeLong's arrest at a news conference late Sunday night.
He would
not speculate on a motive for the killings.
Police continued Sunday to gather evidence and are trying to reconstruct
events
leading up to the crime, Rowe said.
``We still have an awful lot of work to do to prepare the case for the
prosecutor,'' he said.
Hundreds filed through a Springfield funeral home Sunday during a
six-hour
visitation for the family. Five open caskets holding the bodies of a
mother and
her children were arranged at the front of the funeral home chapel.
``I didn't know those people -- I didn't know them from Adam,'' said
Phyllis
Shields, there with a friend's daughter who went to school with
Vanderhoef's
children. ``I just felt the need. I had to see it.''
``I hope they catch the person who did this and I hope they hurt them,''
she
said. ``That baby -- that little, tiny baby ...''
AP-CS-01-25-99
-------------------------------------------
Joplin man arraigned for murder as Springfield family laid to rest
01/25/99
By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press Writer
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- The life of Erin Vanderhoef and her children
was a
hard one, marked by constant struggles just to stay together. And when
it was
ended so cruelly, by murder, her pastor and hundreds more were left with
tears
of incomprehension.
``This morning we cry, we cry, we're just devastated by this cruel death
that
has met this good family,'' the Rev. Jim Eberhard told some 500 mourners
as he
struggled again and again to keep from breaking down during his funeral
eulogy
at the downtown Central Assembly of God Church.
About the same time, just a few hundred yards away at the Greene County
Courthouse, Richard Ivan DeLong was arraigned on five counts of
first-degree
murder. He was charged with killing Ms. Vanderhoef, her three children
and the
9-month fetus she was carrying in what police believe may be the worst
mass
murder in the city's history.
Associate Circuit Judge Dan Conklin ordered DeLong, 34, held without
bail. He
asked if he wanted a public defender appointed to represent him and the
Joplin
man said yes.
DeLong, who was arrested Sunday afternoon, is believed to be the father
of the
fetus Ms. Vanderhoef was carrying when she and her children were found
dead in
their small Springfield home on Wednesday.
The two were no longer believed to be dating, and police haven't said
what the
motive for the murder might have been.
Ms. Vanderhoef, 36; and her children, Darlene, 8; Jimmy, 11; and Chris
Franklin, 10, were strangled.
Although the Vanderhoefs attended a nearby Baptist church, the Central
Assembly
of God provided its huge house of worship to them Monday in order to
accommodate hundreds of mourners.
``As a church I felt we must open our doors and have the community come
together,'' said the church's pastor, David Watson.
As mourners, many weeping, filed past the four open coffins containing
the
bodies, several stopped to place a keepsake inside. They stopped, too,
at a
fifth coffin, all in pink and hardly larger than a shoe box, that
contained the
body of Ms. Vanderhoef's fetus, a girl she had planned to name Hannah.
``We can find comfort in knowing these children will never suffer, never
suffer
another day,'' said Eberhard.
As children's minister at the Cherry Street Baptist Church where the
family had
attended services for years, he had grown particularly close to the
Vanderhoefs
and proud of the way their mother struggled to keep them out of poverty.
``Like you, I found joy in knowing that I knew them,'' he said, his
voice thick
with emotion as he recalled how he and his family would ride their bikes
down
to the Vanderhoef home on weekends. Of how his daughter and Darlene
shared a
birthday party one year.
``I'll never forget Erin's independence, her drive to be
self-sufficient,'' he
said of Ms. Vanderhoef's efforts to support the family on earnings from
jobs at
supermarkets and fast-food restaurants.
She would borrow his tools to fix her car, he said, or borrow a ladder
to paint
her house, never letting someone else do it for her.
Among the mourners were scores of children who had taken the morning off
from
school to attend the service with their parents.
One of them, 9-year-old Vincent Scott, leaned against his mother outside
the
church on a cold, gray day, crying inconsolably, as four hearses pulled
away
with the bodies.
Susie Scott told how she would watch the three children walk past her
house on
the way home from school everyday and how Darlene, who had known her son
since
kindergarten, had become one of his best friends.
``She signed his yearbook last year. She was the only one to sign it on
this
one page, and she signed it with a face and a little tongue sticking
out,'' she
said wiping away a tear.
John Northway and his three children all knew Jimmy from church.
``They have a picture of them there, and he's sitting on the monkey
bars,
leaning back, kind of a half-smile on his face,'' Northway said.
``That's how
all I'll always remember him.''
AP-CS-01-25-99