I originally published this article on Medium on Aug. 13, 2022. I slightly rewrote it for this blog due to time restraints.
Keyla Weddel grew up in Jackson County, Indiana. She was born on Oct. 11, 1954, to Glenn and Wanda Freeman, the oldest of two siblings, Duane Freeman and Jacki Hall.
Keyla graduated from Columbus High School in 1973 and Indiana University in 1978. She worked part-time jobs during college to cover tuition. After college, Keyla secured a teaching position at Medora Community Schools in Medora, Indiana, and earned a Master’s degree during her first year.
Keyla met Bill Weddel in 1979 through her brother, and the couple married on Oct. 4, 1980. They built a house a couple of miles north of Medora and had their first son, Sean, in April 1982.
But the marriage was rocky, and Keyla filed for divorce in early 1983. However, she dismissed the petition in August 1984. They separated again in 1985, and she filed for divorce. Bill got the house; Keyla and their three small children moved into a mobile home behind her parent’s home on the northern edge of Medora.
Keyla was pregnant and gave birth to twins Shaena and Shane Weddel in April 1986.
Keyla, 33, worked part-time as a bookkeeper at Brownstown’s county auditor’s office during the summer of 1988. However, her primary job was as a second-grade school teacher at Medora Elementary. She was preparing for the new school year and her 12th year of teaching at Medora Community Schools.
Around 11 p.m. on Aug. 17, 1988, Keyla’s oldest son, Sean, 6, walked to his grandparent’s home for pudding cups and returned home shortly after.
A while later, Wanda Freeman noticed the lights still on in the children’s rooms at Keyla’s trailer. She contemplated going over and worried Keyla was not getting enough sleep. Instead, Wanda got a drink of water and went to bed.
The following day at 5 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 18, 1988, Glenn Freeman noticed Keyla’s lights still on as he left for work but thought nothing of it.
At 7:30 a.m., Wanda went to Keyla’s mobile home when it appeared no one was awake. Wanda was supposed to watch her grandkids at 9 a.m. that morning while Keyla worked at school. Wanda planned to hit a garage sale first but wanted to let Keyla know about the lights.
Wanda arrived at the trailer, and the door was unlocked, which was strange. Keyla had started putting the chain lock on the door after Shaena became tall enough to open the regular latch and wander outside. Keyla was a sound sleeper and worried she would not hear her daughter. Furthermore, a local minister saw a peeping Tom in the area six weeks earlier, and Keyla started locking her doors.
When Wanda entered the trailer, she could hear Keyla’s alarm clock still buzzing. Shane was awake and told her, “Mommy won’t wake up.” Shane had tried unsuccessfully to wake his mother.
Wanda walked to Keyla’s room and found her daughter dead inside. Shaena was seated on the bed next to her mother’s body. Sean came out of his bedroom crying.
It was clear to Wanda upon first sight that her daughter was dead. Keyla had sustained a head injury in a childhood accident. Wanda briefly thought she had fallen and hit her head, then crawled back into bed.
Wanda grabbed the children and ran to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor called the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office at 7:51 a.m.
When deputies arrived, they secured the crime scene and spent days searching for clues. They found no signs of forced entry, and nothing was stolen. There was no indication of a struggle in Keyla’s bedroom. Keyla remained in her night clothes, which suggested no sexual assault.
Sean told police that he heard his mother squeal but could not give an accurate time when it occurred.
Jackson County Coroner Keith Burkholder estimated the time of death around 3 a.m. on Aug. 18, 1988.
Dr. George Weir performed the autopsy. He determined Keyla had been struck repeatedly on the head with a blunt force instrument. Weir found no alcohol or drugs in her system, and she had not been sexually assaulted.
On Aug. 21, 1988, a local youth found a baseball bat near the softball diamond at the corner of First and George streets, about a block west of Keyla’s home. The bat had what appeared to be blood on it.
Police sent the bat for forensic testing. However, investigators said months later that the testing could not determine if the bat was the murder weapon. They found no other weapons during their search.
They interviewed more than 300 people, including Keyla’s family, friends, and co-workers, and administered several polygraphs to people.
Bill Weddel said he saw his former wife on the following days: Aug. 13, 14, 15, and 16, and they still had occasionally gone out together. He had hoped to get back together with Keyla, he said.
It is unclear whether authorities ruled out Bill as a suspect.
Keyla had a court date scheduled for a week after her death to increase child support payments and receive payment of back child support. The court hearing never convened because of her death. According to the Jackson County Banner, her father’s name was substituted for hers on the petition. However, an out-of-court-settlement was made before a new hearing took place.
Bill later said that he believed someone in Medora killed Keyla but did not believe the police would ever catch her killer.
Several months later, Indiana State Police Trooper Ron Chandler told the Jackson County Banner that he believed he knew who Keyla was with during the last hours of her life. He never revealed a name, saying Keyla “had no real enemies” and that one specific person refused a polygraph test and to talk with the police, even with an attorney present.
In 1992, Jackson County Police Detective Sgt. Joe Shirley stated he had a suspect who had refused to speak with officers. Shirley was convinced “to a reasonable degree” that the suspect was Keyla’s killer, but he also never named the suspect. Shirley had planned to interview others, too, as part of the ongoing investigation.
But authorities had no physical evidence leading them to Keyla’s killer or a motive for her killing. Sadly, investigators never arrested anyone for her murder.
Glenn and Wanda removed the trailer Keyla and her children lived in before her vicious murder.
Keyla was well-known in the community. After her murder, residents became fearful and locked their doors at night for the first time. Her children subsequently moved in with Bill and his parents.
More than 200 people attended Keyla’s funeral, and the school dedicated the yearbook to her in the spring of 1989.
In 1990, Bill took his former in-laws to court. Per court documents, Bill appealed “an award of 108 days visitation to the maternal grandparents of his children, arguing that the amount of visitation is excessive and constitutes an abuse of discretion in that it impairs his rights as custodial parent to spend his free time with his three children, ages 8 and 6 (twins).
“The trial court allowed appellee Morris (Glenn) and Wanda Freeman to exercise visitation with their grandchildren every other weekend, alternative holidays, six weeks during the summer, Easter vacation, and one week at Christmas.”
Keyla’s children are now grown with families of their own. Bill currently resides in Seymour, Indiana.
Wanda Freeman died from cancer in 1997, followed by her husband in 2000 from pulmonary fibrosis. Keyla’s brother and sister long for justice for their sister’s brutal killing, and the police hope that advanced DNA technology will finally solve the decades-old murder.
A little over a year after Keyla’s brutal murder, Sheri R. Herr, 18, was found bludgeoned to death and stabbed in the throat in her bedroom at her parent’s house in Warren, Indiana, less than 200 miles north of Medora, on Oct. 13, 1989.
Sheri’s father discovered her body when he returned home from work at 4:30 p.m. Police estimated the assailant had killed her between 8 a.m. and noon.
Investigators later sought a white male driving a 1970s dark red Chevy Camaro with double stripes running from front to back on the hood, roof, and trunk. However, they never found the car or driver.
As in Kayla’s case, there was no forced entry, nothing was stolen, and Sheri had not been sexually assaulted. Both murders occurred in small rural Indiana towns. Police never arrested anyone for Sheri’s murder, and few details are available in the case.
True Crime Diva’s Thoughts
Here’s another case where I think it’s obvious who killed Keyla – Bill Weddel, her ex-husband.
Keyla was not seeing anyone other than Bill on occasion. She was in the process of taking him back to court over child support payments. Maybe this pissed Bill off, and while it may seem a lame motive, some men have killed to avoid paying child support. Bill still had to pay something in the settlement with her father, which he probably did not anticipate.
Keyla was not raped. Therefore, the killing was personal, not random. Whoever killed her wanted her dead, plain and simple.
Bill seems the likely suspect, but I don’t know. It seems too easy, like in crime dramas, lol.
I suppose the killer could have been a jealous female. Maybe a fellow teacher or another co-worker. Whoever it was, showed up at Keyla’s trailer after Sean got the pudding. While I believe the twins were sleeping, Sean might have been awake when his mother was killed. They lived in a trailer. Trailers are small, so the kids could have heard something. We know Sean heard his mom squeal, but I wonder if he got out of bed to investigate. Kids are curious by nature.
There was no forced entry, meaning Keyla knew and let in her killer.
Chandler said Keyla had no enemies and knew who last saw Keyla. Who was this suspect? Male or female? I think she and the killer argued, and they killed her, taking the murder weapon and disposing of it.
The killer never harmed the children, so that’s interesting.
But who would show up at Keyla’s home that late at night? And why? For sex? Wanda noticed the lights on but never mentioned hearing or seeing a vehicle. So maybe the killer walked to Keyla’s?
Bill admitted to seeing Keyla for four days straight, but not on the 17th. He said he was with her on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th. So why didn’t Bill see her on the 17th?
Medora has around 700 people, so you know someone has heard something through the years about who killed Keyla.
I also think about how comparable Sheri Herr’s murder is to Keyla’s. But I think both victims knew their killers, and the murders are unrelated. I only mentioned Sheri’s killing because of the similarities.
