GUILTY IN - Christina Tedder, 12, Marion County, 24 Dec 2004

[Casshew]

Police: 'Friend' Says He Killed Lost Girl

INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 30, 2004 — A man arrested in a 12-year-old girl's disappearance confessed hours later to her killing, then led officers to her body, police said.

The body of Christina Tedder, who vanished Dec. 24, was found clad only in a pair of socks shortly after midnight Thursday in a creek about four miles east of Geist Reservoir in northeastern Hancock County, Indiana.


Marion County Sheriff's Capt. Phil Burton said Jeffrey A. Voss, 39, told detectives he abducted Tedder, strangled her, then abandoned her body in the creek.

"He actually led us to where he had dumped the body," Burton said. "He did not seem remorseful, either."

Brother of Suspect Devastated

The Indianapolis man was arrested Wednesday on preliminary charges of kidnapping and murder.

Christina, an honor roll student at Stonybrook Middle School who played clarinet in the school band, vanished after she left her mother's apartment on the city's east side to walk to a nearby convenience store.

Voss' brother, Brian, said his brother was a friend of the Tedder family and that the girl often asked his brother for money to buy candy.

Brian Voss said he was devastated by his brother's arrest. He said his family had helped search for Tedder the night of her disappearance.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=372158&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

 

[mysteriew]

Television cameras tested Guillermo Mendoza's nerves Sunday afternoon, but the quiet man said his first time in the spotlight as an activist wouldn't be his last.

He told the cameras 10 minutes was all it took last Christmas Eve for his daughter, Christina Tedder, to vanish. Six days later, Christina's abused body was discovered in a Hancock County creek.

Organizers and speakers cited statistics from the National Crime Information Center that recorded 1,206 active cases of missing people in Indiana through March 1 -- including 834 children and 372 adults.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050502/NEWS01/505020392

 

[curious1]

It's good to see him taking on an activist role, maybe it can help save another child from going through something like this. It takes a lot of courage and strength to not just curl up and die after something like this happens to your child. Bless him and his family.

 

[mysteriew]

Christina Tedder was found strangled on Dec. 30, 2004, but the headstone on her grave at Washington Park East Cemetery still bears no date of death.

Her mother, Michelle Tedder, says she'll have the date engraved only after she is certain she knows everything there is to know about her 12-year-old's slaying, including the date her daughter was killed.
The sixth-grade honor-roll student at Stonybrook Middle School was snatched from a gas station near her family's Eastgate Terrace apartment on Christmas Eve 2004. Investigators said she was bound with duct tape and sexually assaulted, and her body was dumped in a snowy creek near McCordsville. The man accused of killing her, Jeffrey A. Voss, 40, Indianapolis, was arrested several days after her disappearance.
Voss, a convicted armed robber, has confessed to killing the girl but denies raping her.
His trial has been delayed by an appeal now before the Indiana Supreme Court over which Marion County judge will hear the case.
While she waits for the trial to begin, Tedder remains suspicious of Voss' account of why and exactly when he killed Christina. She's also upset at the pace of the prosecution.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060102/NEWS01/601020425

 

[KatherineQ]

This story is so sad. Who knows why he won't admit to sexually assaulting Christy, maybe in his dementia he doesn't remember it. He's admitted to killing her, and showed LE where he dumped her body, and the timeline works out, it's sad that Christy's mother can't accept what seems very real - it doesn't seem like she's going to get better answers no matter how long she waits . . .

Sad too that the police who appeared to have done everything right, and missed their Christmas last year are now being made out to be villains.

 

[mysteriew]

In a way, I can kind of understand her. When you suffer that type of loss, every detail of their last week, last day, last moment is important to you. Even if it hurts.
And the version he has given to police doesn't match the forensic evidence. The contents of her stomach, doesn't match what she ate at home. She showed evidence of being raped, and the DNA matches him. Mom, just wants to know that when she puts a date on her dau's headstone- that it is correct. Not the legal date, not the assumed date, but the exact date her dau drew her last breath.
Seems a lttle thing, but when you have lost so much- little things sometimes feel important.
As far as her complaints about the LE system, they didn't call an amber alert and Mom doesn't understand why not- so she resents them. It made her feel they weren't looking for her dau.
It has now been a year, and they haven't even started the prosecution of the case. So for the last year, while she has been trying to get past all of the firsts- the first Mother's day, the first birthday, the Thanksgiving, the Christmas- all of the many days that went by learning to live with the knowlege that her dau. was dead. She has also lived with the knowlege that she has this horrible trial to go through before she can ever start to really learn to live with it.
Basically, she is a grieving parent.

 

[KatherineQ]

It doesn't seem like there was actual criteria for an amber alert in this case, and the mother didn't report her male visitor was just there minutes (literally) before Christy disappeared.

It also seems like the prosecution is delayed because the prosecutor is trying to get a judge favorable to the death penalty. It seems like he has the family interests at heart.

I understand though, that in grief sometimes the anger is very far flung and often flung at the wrong people. I just think it I were a cop in this situation I'd really lose heart at being the subject of this mother's anger.

I don't know . ..

 

[partyuv5]

It's time to update the Amber Alert. It needs to include all children under 18 yrs of age. No matter what the circumstances are. If a child under 18 is reported missing then obviously someone cares about that child and more than likely he/she is in trouble. Whether LE thinks a 12 yr old is a runaway or a 17 yr has been abducted. They are still children. Our children.

So how do we make this change? I will do all I can. I have 5 children ages 5 - 17 yrs. Let's save our children

 

[OkieGranny]

From February 2007:

http://www.wthr.com/story/6149238/voss-will-serve-life-sentence-for-teens-christmas-eve-murder

A murder case is now over without going to trial. A plea agreement will send the suspect to prison for life for killing a teenage girl. Her mother now says she can move forward...

"It was the in the best interest to resolve this with life without parole. He's waived all of his appeals. He can't come back to court now for a reduced sentence," said David Wyser, Chief trial deputy prosecutor.

The guilty plea for the Tedder family is vindication after Voss initially told police he had nothing to do with Christina's disappearance and didn't molest her. Yet he later wrote a letter to her mother confessing.