Murder of Christie Lynn Mullins
Christie Lynn Mullins was a 14-year-old girl who was abducted, sexually assaulted, and brutally murdered on August 23, 1975, behind the Graceland shopping center in Columbus, Ohio. Her cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head.
Background
Mullins was born on August 28, 1960, in Columbus, Ohio. She was scheduled to begin as a sophomore at Whetstone High School that fall before her murder.Investigation
Three days after the murder, police arrested 25-year-old Jack Allen Carmen, who closely matched a composite sketch of the perpetrator. Carmen, who had an IQ of 50 and was later determined to be intellectually disabled, confessed to the crime after a prolonged police interrogation. He was convicted of Mullins' murder and sentenced, but later claimed his confession was false and given under coercive circumstances. Carmen was retried and acquitted in 1977 and publicly exonerated by the Columbus police department in November 2015.Decades after the 1975 murder, the case was reopened following a tip from Pam Brown, the niece of Henry H. Newell Jr.—a man who had claimed to be a witness at the scene. Brown claimed that Newell had privately confessed to the murder, and further investigation revealed inconsistencies in his's original statement. Newell, who died of lung cancer in 2013, had a history of violent and sexually deviant behavior towards minors, including two prior arrests. Despite Newell's criminal history, he was not thoroughly investigated at the time of Mullins' death.
The case was reopened in part due to the efforts of author and attorney John Oller, whose 2014 book An All-American Murder examined the details of the investigation and brought renewed attention to the case. In November 2015, Columbus police formally closed the case, naming Henry Newell as the perpetrator and issuing a public apology for the wrongful original conviction of Jack Carmen.
Statements
The witness Henry H. Newell Jr. claimed that he was walking with his wife, stepson, and stepdaughter in the woods behind the mall, when he and his family saw a man beating a young girl with a 2x4 wooden plank. The man saw the family walking and quickly fled the scene. The description of the unidentified man was a tall white male in his late teens. He has a scrawny thin build with long hair and a scruffy face. He was shirtless and wore cut off shorts. When the police arrived they found the girl, later to be identified as Christie, lying dead with her hands tied in front of her. She was unidentifiable due to the beating on her face and head. Her tank top was pulled down to her waist, and she was barefoot.Christie's classmate Carol stated that earlier that day Christie and her were at the pool in her housing complex. She got a phone call from a radio DJ saying that there would be a "cheerleading competition" behind the shopping center. Christie agreed to go to the event and when they arrived at the back of the shopping center no one was there. Carol claimed to have gone inside the mall and asked about the "competition." No one had an answer about it so Carol went back to where Christie had been sitting. Christie was no longer there when Carol arrived so she went home thinking Christie did the same.
Later when Christie's mother, Phyllis Mullins, was questioned by authorities, detectives asked about her daughter's interests/hobbies, specifically cheerleading or gymnastics. Her mother was confused because her daughter had little to no interest in those types of hobbies, and when she was asked about her "friend" Carol, she was yet again confused because Carol did not know Christie well but only knew each other as classmates.
Key information
There were many key parts of the murder that were overlooked with the original investigation, such as the similarity of the description of the clothes that the man and Newell were wearing, such as the fact that they were both shirtless and both had cut-off shorts on.In the initial investigation when Newell was questioned about his shirt, Newell claimed that when the man ran off he and his wife checked on the girl to see if she was still alive. When they found no pulse, Newell took his shirt off and placed it over the victim's face.The shirt was never found. Newell also claimed that when the man ran off and out of rage, he picked up the plank and threw it 20–25 ft. in the direction that the man ran in. It lined up with the physical evidence but multiple people had their doubts about the claim. Another thing was the "radio DJ" phone call, it was never fully looked into let alone seen as a factor in the case.
Wrongful arrest
The first arrest was made three days after the murder, when a patrol officer pulled over a man named Jack Allen Carmen, who had a striking resemblance to the composite sketch. After hours of questioning he confessed. He was later tried and pleaded guilty on September 3, 1975.In an interview Jack Carmen later confessed to lying about committing the murder and only said he did because the police were being nice to him. He was then reassessed and given an IQ test. When the results were back it was determined that Jack had an IQ of 50 and was deemed mentally disabled and therefore was later retried with the new information. He was later acquitted and released.
Primary suspect
In the beginning of the case, there were not many suspects other than the man that Newell claimed he saw, but since he was unidentified it was hard to determine where, and who this mystery man was.Numerous but inauthentic tips came in until the arrest 3 days after the murder. Later it was determined at trial that Carmen was not the killer. Newell, who testified against Carmen at trial, was in jail at the time, having been convicted a couple months earlier of arson in setting his own house on fire in an attempt to redeem insurance money for the home. Newell had a criminal past for 2 similar crimes. However, despite substantial evidence at the time connecting him to Christie's murder, Newell escaped prosecution for the murder.