Police find girl's body on Far Eastside
By Tom Spalding and Ted Kim
[email protected]
December 30, 2004
Hours after making an arrest in the Christmas Eve disappearance of a 12-year-old girl, police this morning discovered a child's body on the Far Eastside.
Investigators handling the disappearance of Christina Tedder, 12, made the announcement around 7 a.m. The identity of the body, however, had not been confirmed.
The body was found outdoors. Marion County sheriff's officials would not immediately disclose the specific address where the body was found or a possible cause of death.
"We have recovered a body that fits the physical description of this missing child," Sheriff Frank Anderson said.
He said Christina's parents have been told of the discovery.
"How saddening it is for us to have to deal with a missing person, even more so when that missing person is a child. I often say and tell people that children are our flowers," Anderson said. "And there are a lot of weeds out there that want to snuff them out. So today my heart goes out to the family and the friends."
Authorities Wednesday arrested Jeffrey A. Voss, 39, Indianapolis, on preliminary charges of kidnapping and murder.
Christina vanished Friday evening after she left her apartment in the 7000 block of East 10th Street to walk to a nearby Shell gas station. Christina was an honor roll student at Stonybrook Middle School and played clarinet in the school band.
The Sheriff's Department offered few details today as to why Voss was arrested, or what connection he might have had to Christina.
But Jeffrey Voss was good friends with the Tedder family and that Christina always bummed loose change from Jeffrey to go buy candy at the Shell station, Jeffrey Voss' brother Brian Voss told the Star this morning. Brian Voss said he was devastated by his brother's involvement and that his family had been out in the freezing cold the night of her disappearance, searching for the girl along with everyone else.
Brian Voss said he pointed investigators to a residence where Jeff Voss had been house- and dog-sitting for some friends vacationing in San Diego. The location of that house is undisclosed, but a search was conducted there Tuesday.
Authorities said Jeffrey Voss continues to be uncooperative. On Wednesday evening, Voss told reporters he knew Christina and her family but denied any involvement in her disappearance.
As several deputies escorted Voss in handcuffs out of the Sheriff's Department, he said: "I did not hurt that little girl. I did not do anything to her."
Voss was arrested at the sheriff's office after questioning Wednesday afternoon, authorities said. Records reveal he has a criminal history: He was released from prison in November 2002 after serving sentences in several Indiana counties, including Marion County, for armed robbery and criminal confinement.
Formal charges and an initial hearing are pending.
Christina's mother, Michelle Tedder, and father, Guillermo Mendoza, have slept or eaten little since the girl's disappearance and have appeared drained by anxiety.
Tedder spent the evening in her apartment on East 10th Street. She refused to speak to reporters, at one point calling police to order the media away.
Mendoza, who doesn't live with Christina and her mother, expressed profound grief at the news.
"It was like somebody pulled my heart out of the chest," he said. "It's a terrible feeling -- there's a part of me missing. Right now, I'm very empty inside. I've got my son holding me together, but my little girl, she was my life."
Christina's disappearance set off a frenzied search in the neighborhoods surrounding her Eastgate Terrace apartment complex and left her family to contemplate the worst. In the first days, searchers battled bitter temperatures and the remnants of last week's snowstorm.
The case also sparked a public debate over the decision by authorities not to issue an Amber Alert after Christina was reported missing.
The alert system, implemented in Indiana in 2002, is activated only when evidence exists that a child younger than 18 might have been abducted or might be in peril. When she first disappeared, there was no evidence that Christina had been kidnapped or was in danger, police said.
Police on Sunday arrested another Indianapolis man, 42-year-old Vince Cooley, a convicted child molester and neighbor of Christina's, for failing to report a change of address to his probation officer. Authorities named Cooley a "suspect" in the case earlier this week but backed off Tuesday. Cooley was sent to prison Tuesday for violating his probation
http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/205805-2861-092.html
