Evansville’s Most Well Known Unsolved Murder (The Underbelly Of Evansville)

Forty-three years ago, on the rainy day of January 18, 1973, Ann Kline walked across the street from what was then Lockyear College where she was a teacher, to the basement of the Old Courthouse to where the College stored books.  She would never walk out again.

Some of the follow sources material comes from the Evansville Courier and Press:

Ann Kline lost her life in a moment of a frenzied, savage, personal attack.  She was stabbed 19 times, with the fatal strike coming to her aorta.  She had defensive injuries, showing she was attacked from behind.  She took a blow to the head, and there many scratches and abrasions on her arms from fighting off her attacker.  This is one brutal attack.  Killers that use knives are well known to make the killing personal, as opposed to a gunshot, or something that can kill from the distance. Ann Kline’s murder was definitely a crime of passion.

EPD Detective Tony Mayhew had started working this cold case about 16 years ago.  He believes he know who the killer is and even talked to this person by phone. Det. Mayhew, a 13-year veteran detective with the Evansville Police Department thinks there are several reasons so many haven’t forgotten.

“I think it’s because the fact that it was a college professor, a teacher. I think the fact that she had a number of students. I think the fact that it happened in broad daylight in a downtown area a very busy area,” Det.Mayhew said.

He believes this person of interest was in one of Ann Kline’s classes, and he also believes the killer had two small children with him that day.  Weird, huh??  Very!

There was no such thing as gathering DNA back then, but many tips have come in, even from a caller who claimed to be a friend of the killer and claimed to be with That individual that day.

This crime, as an Evansville resident, pops into the back of my mind now and then.  Why would someone have done this?  This murder showed rage and passion. I can remember that not too long after this murder, I stayed up late an watched The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  He made the statement, “Well, if you want to kill someone and get away with it, just go to Evansville, IN!” He then talked more in detail about the crime.

I have requested an interview with Detective Mayhew so we can find out if there’s more that’s been discovered since the last report in the Evansville Courier-Press in 2013 in an article by John Martin.  To date, Detective Mayhew has not responded to my request, but I’ll keep trying.

Keep looking for further installments of my Underbelly of Evansville blogs and videos, coming soon.

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