Girl's Abduction and Murder Became 'Oldest Cold Case' in U.S. History. Here's How It Was Solved — Until It Wasn't

Mar. 15, 2025

Maria Ridulph.

In 2012, investigators seemingly brought long-awaited closure to one of the nation’s oldest and most high-profile kidnapping cases, solving it after more than 50 years. But less than five years after that, the case unraveled as it became evident the man on whom Illinois investigators pinned 7-year-old Maria Ridulph’s disappearance had been wrongfully convicted of the crime.

Jack McCullough, who changed his name from John Tessier, as he was known around the time of Maria’s 1957 kidnapping and murder, was released from an Illinois prison in 2016, ending a nearly five-year stint for a crime he long maintained had nothing to do with him.

Under this fallen tree the decomposed body of a young girl was found, near Woodbine, Ill., April 26, 1958. The body is thought to be that of Maria Ridulph, 7, who disappeared Dec. 3, 1957, from Sycamore, Ill.AP

AP

Maria Ridulph’s Disappearance

Three weeks before Christmas Day 1957, Maria Ridulph was playing in the snow on a street corner in Sycamore, Ill., with her best friend Kathy Sigman Chapman, when a man who introduced himself as “Johnny” approached the two young girls, according toThe New York Times.

The stranger offered Maria a piggyback ride and asked to see their toys, said Kathy, the case’s only surviving witness in 2012 when McCullough was sent to prison, according to CNN. Kathy, testifying more than 50 years after the fact, told the court she went home to get her mittens and when she returned “Johnny” and Maria were gone, according to CNN.

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Ridulph await the arrival of a pathologist at the sheriff’s office in Galena, Ill., before a positive identification of a body found near Woodbine, Ill., can be made, April 27, 1958.AP

McCullough’s Stepsister Turns Him In

“Those two little girls and the one who disappeared, John did it,” the sister told police her mother had said, according to CNN.

The outlet reports, however, that McCullough long maintained he was not only innocent but couldn’t possibly have committed the crime because he was taking a military recruiting exam in Rockford, Ill., roughly 40 miles away, at the time Maria went missing.

“Nothing else matters if Mr. McCullough was in Rockford at the time,” McCullough’s attorney Russell Ainsworth told CNN after McCullough’s 2016 release. “All of the other evidence falls away. He simply could not have committed this crime.”

Illinois Department of Corrections via AP

McCullough’s high school sweetheart Janice Edwards Swafford had also told a judge at McCullough’s exoneration hearing that he had come to her home around 9:30 p.m. the night Maria went missing after he was in Rockford for the military exam.“He was really, really excited about passing the physical,” Swafford told the judge, according to CNN, adding that he didn’t appear nervous or that anything was out of the ordinary. “He was happy. He wasn’t anything else. He was just the same old guy.”

McCullough’s Conviction and Release

But less than five years after the trial, McCullough’s conviction was vacated after evidence was re-examined and it was determined McCullough was, in fact, at a military exam at the time Maria went missing, local ABC 7reported. His mother’s deathbed assertion was made when she was on morphine and was “pleasantly confused,” a doctor testified. Prosecutors said that investigators used “suggestive” tactics to get eyewitnesses to pick McCullough out of a lineup decades after the crime.

Charles Ridulph, the brother of Maria Ridulph, wipes his eyes during a hearing at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore, Ill., on Friday, April 22, 2016.Danielle Guerra/Daily Chronicle via AP

Danielle Guerra/Daily Chronicle via AP

Although the Ridulph family remained convinced McCullough was the man who kidnapped and killed 7-year-old Maria in 1957, according to ABC 7, he was granted his freedom in 2016.

In the year after his release, McCullough won more than $4 million in legal settlements with the state of Illinois, the town of Sycamore and others related to his wrongful conviction, according to theNational Registry of Exonerations.

“If they had a tiny bit of evidence, maybe I’d think, ‘Could it be?’ “ McCullough’s stepdaughter Janey O’ConnertoldCBS News, which featured the cold case on48 Hoursin 2013. “But they have no evidence. They have no proof.”

The case remains unsolved.

source: people.com