COLD CASE: Man receives 8 years in 1975 Noble County killing

NOBLE COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) – One of two men accused of killing a North Webster teenager in 1975 received an 8-year prison sentence Friday for his role in the girl’s death.

John Wayne Lehman, 68, appeared via video from the Miami Correctional Facility for his sentencing hearing after previously pleading guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the death of Laurel Jean Mitchell.

Lehman’s guilty plea came as part of a deal with Noble County prosecutors, who agreed to drop a murder charge levied against Lehman and recommend to a judge he serve eight years in prison on the conspiracy count.

Fred Bandy, Jr., 69, was found guilty of murder in connection to the killing after a bench trial earlier this week and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

On Aug. 6, 1975, Laurel Jean Mitchell disappeared after leaving her job at the Epworth Forest church camp snack bar. She was supposed to meet friends at an amusement park about a half-mile away.

One person told police he had seen Mitchell walking and had waved to her shortly after when she would have left work.

She was never seen alive again.

Her body was found the next day in the Elkhart River by some fishermen. An autopsy showed that she had drowned but had struggled and her death was ruled a homicide.

The case went cold for nearly 50 years until February 2023, when police arrested Bandy and Lehman.

Their arrests were made possible by advancements in lab technology that allowed investigators to connect both men to Mitchell’s death, according to police and court documents.

Two people who lived near the road Mitchell would have been walking on after her shift at work told police they heard a loud car go by, turn around and then stop near their home. One of those people told police he heard what sounded like someone slamming the trunk of a car shut. When he stepped outside, according to court records, he saw two cars leaving the area.

The other resident told police that at around 10 p.m. or a bit later, a car turned around in the drive next door and as it came back by her house she heard several voices say, “Let’s get,” or “Let’s get her.” She said the car was very loud and dark in color.

Then in 2013, a detective with the Noble County Sheriff’s Department was contacted by a woman in Florida who told him that in 1975 when she was 16, she dated a man named John Wayne Lehman. The two had gone to a party and when driving her home, Lehman admitted his involvement in a crime he had committed with his friend Fred Bandy.

In 2014, investigators interviewed a man who said that when he was a sophomore at West Noble High School in 1975, Fred Bandy had told him that he had committed the crime. Another person also came forward to say Bandy had admitted to the crime at a party.

In 2019, Mitchell’s clothing was resubmitted to the Indiana State Police Laboratory Division for examination and DNA testing. A DNA sample was taken from Bandy in late 2022 and it showed he was 13 billion times more likely to be the contributor of DNA in Mitchell’s clothing than any other unknown person.

Investigators believe Bandy and Lehman grabbed Laurel Jean Mitchell, put her in Bandy’s 1971 Oldsmobile and took her to the Mallard Roost public access site on County Road 600 N in Noble County where they drowned her.

During the next nearly five decades, steered clear of the law and trouble, according to court records. Bandy, however, was convicted of sex crimes multiple times in Noble Circuit Court throughout the years – which allowed investigators to gather his DNA.

As part of Lehman’s sentencing Monday, he was given 613 days credit for time already served – most of which has come at the Miami Correctional Facility in Miami County. Most of his court appearances have been made via video conferencing due to ill health.

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