The Murders of Blake and Chynna Dickus: The Crime

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[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00] When they use code MSheet at checkout, just head to jonesroadbeauty.com and use code MSheet at checkout. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. I'm Anya, and today we are going to start a deep dive into the murders of Blake and China Dickus. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of murder and violence, including the brutal murder of a child.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00] All right. So this has been some very big news out of Indiana recently. There was an arrest in this 20-year-old seemingly cold case, the murders of Blake and China Dickus. The man arrested is named Michael Jerome James, and he was taken into custody.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00] Today, I thought instead of focusing on him and instead of focusing on the news around that, why don't we do a deep dive into the murders themselves? Why don't we take an opportunity in this first episode to get to know these two victims, their lives, the timeline of what happened, and the overall timeline of the investigation, and how the community in Franklin, Indiana, where this happened, has coped all these years?

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00] Because this has just been a shattering sort of crime that I think has really haunted a lot of people. This is going to be our first episode delving deep into this case, but we plan to do more. And I would just say this. If any of you out there are from Franklin, Indiana, or live in Franklin, Indiana now, or live in Johnson County, we would love to hear from you.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00] We're striving to make connections in that community in order to make sure our reporting is as good and as accurate as possible. We've already heard from some folks, and we're looking to kind of get some interviews set up. But even if you feel like you don't have anything to add, please just reach out because you might know somebody, or we might be able to bug you at some point for some details, and it could really help us out, and we would really appreciate it. Same goes for anyone who might be retired law enforcement in that area. We protect our sources.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00] If you reach out to us with a story or a detail, we're not going to just run with it immediately. Like, we take our source security very seriously, so just know that you can trust us, and we would love to hear from you. So just get in touch at murdersheet at gmail.com. Today, in this episode, we're going to start out by talking about the most important people in this story, the victims. We're going to talk about where they were killed, the location.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00] We're going to talk about what we know about the timeline of the day of the murder, Monday, July 24th, 2006. And we're going to talk about the crime, what details have come out over the years. And we're going to talk about possibly related crimes. We're going to talk about the investigation into the murders. And then we're going to also talk about the community and how they've sort of continued to advocate for this case for many years. All right. So that's kind of what we're going to do.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00] And my sources for this one at the top are mostly the Daily Journal, which is an amazing Johnson County newspaper. We've actually reported for them on the Delphi trial before. Most of what I was accessing was through newspapers.com. So I read every article on this case that I could find on newspapers.com from 2006 to 2026. So this has been a real deep dive so far.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00] Also, some great reporting from the Indianapolis Star, from the Associated Press, the Reporter Times, the Madison Courier, the Call Leader, and some recent reporting from the Daily Journal that I will link to. So you have that. And they're a great source to follow on this one, by the way. All right. So let's get into it. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00] And this is The Murders of Blake and China Dickus, the crime.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_00] All right.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00] So to start off with, as I mentioned, we're going to talk about the two victims in this case. And we're going to get to know them a little bit as people before we learn about the horrible thing that happened to them. Kevin, why is it important for us to try to humanize and center victims as much as possible?

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_01] There's a number of reasons why that is so crucial to do. One is that after an arrest is made, a lot of focus turns to the person who did the crime. A lot of focus turns on how these people lost their lives. And it is important to remember that these people are more than just their deaths. They were living and breathing people who had futures ahead of them.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01] And they deserve to be remembered for their own sakes. And they are certainly more worth remembering and talking about than the person who so brutally took their lives from them.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yes. And of course, in terms of that, we're going to do more reporting on James going forward. He is innocent until convicted of this crime. And we'll be interested in that.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01] It's worth noting very quickly here at the top that no bits of the evidence against Mr. James has been released publicly. So it is impossible to make an informed decision about whether or not he is innocent or guilty other than the fact, as Anya aptly noted, we do have a principle in this country of innocent until proven guilty. And just because someone is accused of a crime, does that mean they are guilty of that crime?

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00] I would say that, frankly, I think there are too many limitations towards, in most cases, and certainly in cases where the evidence isn't immediately clear, going into trial with a really hard opinion of innocence or guilt is probably not super helpful. It's probably just better to just see how it plays out. So that's where I am. Let's talk about 26-year-old Chyna Dickus. She was born January 22, 1980, in Waukegan, Illinois.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00] And she was largely raised in Mooresville, Indiana, by her mother, Marsha Anderson, and her grandmother. She was the only child. And by all accounts, you know, she's a very young woman at 26. By all accounts, a lovely person. Like, never met a stranger. Kind-hearted. Thoughtful. Known for writing handmade notes to her friends or making handmade gifts for them.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00] Her husband, Sean Dickas, jokingly nicknamed her Betty Homemaker. And at the time of the murders, she was a homemaker. She was working. She was at home taking care of the household. And very much somebody who was sensitive, cried easily, and just, you know, a loving person. She was not only being a homemaker at that time. She was a student.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00] She had previously been a straight-A student at Marion College studying nursing. But then she shifted her focus and her school going to Indiana Wesleyan University and studying accounting there. So, you know, she's getting her education. She's doing all the things you're supposed to. She's trying to make their home a lovely place to be.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00] And she was a devout Christian with a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a member of Grace Assembly of God Church. And she served as a greeter at that church. And so she just sounds like a lovely person. Like the kind of person that you would want to meet. Close with her mother. Loving relationship with her husband, Sean. And also deeply loved Blake, her stepson. And wanted to be a mother herself.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_00] Very much wanted to, you know, get pregnant and have a baby as well. And, you know, it's tragic that she never got to do that. So Blake Dickus was 10. He was born February 21st, 1996 in Indianapolis. He was born to Christina Dickus, a medical assistant, and his father, Sean Dickus.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00] So Christina and Sean had gotten divorced and they shared custody. So Blake was used to going between their houses and, you know, making that kind of blended family work. The co-parenting, you know, kind of going back and forth. That's kind of something a lot of, you know, anyone who's kind of gone through a divorce in their family kind of understands that.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00] And that weekend, the weekend before he died, he spent a lot of time with his father at the county fair having fun. Obviously this crime happened in July. So he was going into fourth grade at Needham Elementary School. He had just completed third grade. He loved visiting amusement parks, watching cartoons. His real passion was playing video games.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00] And he would even sometimes sneak video games in his backpack and take them to school. He adored Sonic the Hedgehog. That was his favorite character. Loved bicycling with friends, going swimming, playing basketball. Very active child. Wanted to be a NASCAR driver when he grew up. Loved to draw cars. And he had actually started weight training with his father a few days before the murder was practicing martial arts. So, you know, he's 10. He's at that age where he's kind of adolescence.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00] The end of childhood. He was very polite, known to be a very polite child. Known to be great at school, especially with mathematics. Math whiz. His teacher described him as in third grade, knowing the multiplication tables before his classmates. And he was also a Christian and a devout one going to, I believe, Indian Creek Christian Church and Grace Assembly of God.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00] So, one church with his mom, one church with his dad. So, that's them. Another important figure in this story is Stephen S. Dickus, known as Sean Dickus. That was China's husband and Blake's father. He was 33 years old when this happened. And he had previously served four years in the United States Marine Corps. And then worked at NSK Corporation. That is in auto parts manufacturing.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_00] And at the time of the murders, he was also studying business administration at Wesleyan. The same school that China was going to. He and China had been married for three years at this point. He had been her mother, Marsha's supervisor at work. And Marsha Anderson, China's mother, ended up introducing them. And he was an active father with Blake, often chaperoning Blake's class trips, according to teachers. And, yes.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_00] So, he and China had just come back from a missionary trip. And I've seen it reported Ecuador and El Salvador. I don't know which is right. And he helped build a school there. China was working on the sewing team and the medical team. And Sean described them at this time as kind of financially broke, but extremely happy. And he loved both China and Blake very much.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_00] Sometimes he didn't feel worthy of China. But, you know, they were a young couple making everything work. They had just bought this house where this horrible thing happened. They would eat meals and watch movies at home to save money. But, again, they didn't have a lot of money, but they were very, very happy at this stage of life. So, let's talk about this house and where it is. The house where this horrible crime happened was located on Aberdeen Drive in Franklin, Indiana.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00] It was a new subdivision at the time on the north side of Franklin. Franklin, of course, is the county seat of Johnson County. For all of you who are not from Indiana, Johnson County is like the county right below Marion County. Marion County being where Indianapolis is. So, it's like the southern suburbs in a way of Indianapolis.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_00] But Franklin's a little bit – so Greenwood is right on the border with Indianapolis. And then you kind of go further into Johnson County and Franklin is the seat. Kevin, what is Franklin like? We've been there a lot.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01] We've been there a lot. The law offices of Andrew Baldwin, who represented Richard Allen in the Delphi murder case, are located there. There's a wonderful little college there, Franklin College. So, it's a college town. It's a very pleasant little town. Some great frozen custard there. It seems very safe. I have some family there.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01] It's just a nice little typical small town, probably about, what, 20, 25 minutes, half an hour away from Indianapolis.

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[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I'd say as far as small towns in Indiana go, it's a very nice one. You know, it's, I mean, I say small towns. I think it's technically a city. But Franklin's very nice, very cute downtown. And it's definitely not the kind of place that you associate with heinous crimes. Sometimes you go to small towns in Indiana and they're nice and they've got great elements to them. And they have a cute downtown, but then you kind of go further and it's kind of a mess.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00] And I never get the sense of that with Franklin. I always think of it as like nice, you know, different subdivisions where people live. I'm not saying there are no problems there. I'm just saying. It's a nice area. My impression of it is always been positive.

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01] When we drive through the neighborhoods, you'll often say, oh, look at these nice houses.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I'll be like, oh, this is a nice place to live. So this subdivision in particular was called Brannigan Woods. And it was located off United States 31 near the new Franklin Community High School at the time. And as I mentioned, the Dickases had only recently moved into this home. They bought the home on June 20th, 2006. So about a month before the murders. Things I've been able to piece together from newspaper reports. It was a two-story home.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00] And at least on one end, there was an empty lot separating their home from a neighboring home at the time. Let's talk about that day, the day of the murders, Monday, July 24th, 2006. So this is, again, all I've been able to cobble together from these newspaper reports. And, of course, sometimes these get it wrong. But I'm going to just be telling you what I was able to compile.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00] At 11 a.m. on that day, Chyna, I guess, went to a neighbor to say, hey, can we compare water bills? I want to see if mine's too high. You know, just sort of your typical thing. Now, that day, Sean Dickas went home for lunch. And as he describes it in one of his final conversations with his son was encouraging Blake to spend time with his maternal grandmother and mother. Actually, I do want to go back because I think this is important.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00] As I mentioned, Christina, a medical assistant, was Blake's mother. It is Blake's mother. And she was also very involved in his life. Like, it's not really clear, but from some of the media reports, it indicates that he was going to be with her and his maternal grandmother that day. So it's not really clear to me why that didn't end up happening or how that kind of plays a role. But I'm just noting it.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00] And one other cool thing about Blake is he would this might be something that jogs a memory for other people who do this. But every year he was known to camp with his family at the Tipton Pow Wow in order to kind of celebrate his Native American heritage and do some of the activities around that and some of the kind of different things that you do at that gathering. So he really sounds like an adorable kid. So anyway, so you have this lunch, a typical thing. They're talking.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_00] And Sean leaves around 1.30 p.m. or 1.40 p.m. I've seen both reported in these newspaper articles, but he's leaving some time in that window to go back to work. His lunch break is over. It's time to go back to work. Around 1.30 p.m., Chyna also calls her mother on the phone. So everything sounds so typical right now. Now, again, I've seen that Blake was supposed to be at his grandmother's house. I don't know. Apparently it was his mother's week to keep him.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00] It's Monday. I don't know when or how that transfer was supposed to happen. So we don't know. There's a lot we don't know. Now, Sean Dickus goes back to his home around 5.15. I've also seen it reported to be 5.14 p.m. when he revives back. Now, he's there for a specific purpose, and seemingly this makes sense because seemingly in his mind, Blake is now at his grandmother's.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_00] So he's there to pick up Chyna and some school supplies, some school materials, and then they go drive together to classes that they're taking at Indiana Wesleyan University. So that makes sense that Blake would be supposed to be somewhere else because, you know, they wouldn't be leaving him at home alone, presumably. So he's going to get Chyna and they're going to go. So he's left a household where everything seems fine and comes back to a waking nightmare.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_00] When he gets there, he finds the door from the garage to the kitchen open, but he later tells police that this wasn't necessarily unusual in his mind because sometimes Chyna would go there and greet him. So he thinks maybe that's what's happening. The next thing that they report in the paper is neighbors seeing Sean rushing outside, saying that his wife and child are dead.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_00] They see him bent over in the yard, sobbing uncontrollably. Seemingly at some point he might go back in because at some point police make him leave the scene. I mean, horrifying.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_01] Horrifying.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00] Like your worst nightmare. So. Let's talk about what we know about the crime, which is limited. Police, for reasons we'll discuss later, have been very tight lipped about this case. There's blood everywhere throughout the home. Sean Dickens is later quoted in the newspaper as saying, I know they suffered in their death. So what he saw was horrifying. Words like horrific, gruesome have been used by police to describe what.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_00] What was in this household. We know that both Blake and Chyna suffered multiple stab wounds. We know that Chyna's cause of death was listed as multiple stab wounds. So she succumbed to stab wounds. Now, with Blake, it was different. Blake also suffered stab wounds. But he also showed signs. His body also showed signs of asphyxia.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_00] What the word that they use in the papers is smothering. And they also talk about his cause of death was actually head trauma. So. Johnson County coroner at the time, Dave Lutz, in the newspaper said that more than one possible cause of death is not necessarily unusual, but it really does speak to the brutality of this crime. Here are some things that they were not releasing. Time of death.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00] Majority work where the stab wounds were, the number of stab wounds and what was used to stab or strike them. Now, we know that Blake fought his attacker. We know that because in multiple newspaper articles, Christina, his mother, pointed out at the funeral the scratches on his arms and hands. So those are defensive wounds. And those indicate that he was trying to fight back.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_00] The idea of a 10-year-old being in that situation is truly horrifying to contemplate. But another detail that comes out from some of this early reporting is the presence of a 2x4 board with blood on one end that was possibly involved in this attack.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00] So as far as how the crime scene was processed, you know, Sean at one point talks about how at some point they opened it up to him to go back to get clothes. He saw into other rooms at that point, presumably when he first came upon the bodies. At some point, he just got out. But he said when he got to see more rooms, he got to see further the extent of the struggle with the killer and saw in his mind that his family really fought back.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00] So we're talking about like multiple rooms being involved in a struggle. I mean, it just sounds desperate. As of the Daily Journal's report on September 7th, 2006, you know, months after the murders, the home was still being cleaned. And things that remain unknown, was there any sort of sexual assault? Unknown. Was there any sort of signs of a break-in? Unknown.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00] Not clear exactly in the house where exactly the bodies were found. All we know is that it was horrifying. What are your thoughts on all of that so far?

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01] I just find it so incredibly sad to contemplate what those two people suffered. And I have such feelings of compassion for the father to walk in on that and have to see the two people he loved most in the world in that horrible, horrible situation. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to deal with that.

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, it's horrifying. Yeah, well said. It is. I mean, this is the stuff of nightmares. I think that every parent faces. The idea that you could come back on a normal day to your home in a quiet subdivision of a small Indiana city and find a massacre is really scary. All right, so let's talk about the investigation.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_00] We're going to get into that. So we have police responding. I believe later on it was revealed that Officer Joe Dillon of the Franklin Police Department may have been the first police officer on the scene dealing with this. So you have police. They search the home and the property for evidence. Autopsies are scheduled quickly. We talked about the results of those autopsies.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_00] Early on, police are noting they don't want to release a lot of information. Why is that? Why is it important for police to not release a lot of information, even when it's deeply frustrating for the community to not know what's going on?

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_01] There's a number of reasons for that. Perhaps the most important one is that any time there is a notorious crime, people come out of the woodwork and say, Oh, I have information about that. Oh, I actually did it.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01] And so you want to have an easy way to tell who is telling the truth there and who is just basically not, who is trying to be manipulative to get attention. And a simple way to do that is hold back information. And if you ask them, oh, here's some information that wasn't in the media. Do you have that information? Do you not have that information?

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_01] That's a really quick and easy way to determine who is telling you the truth and who is not.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_00] Also, you know, yeah, as you said, the confessions. And if you get a confession from a killer and they know details that have not been put out there, then you're golden. So it's as much as I hate it because I want to know everything. The Delphi murders case in particular has sort of changed my opinion on this. I think we criticized the Delphi investigators extensively over the course of our coverage. Like, tell us more. Let out more information. And I realize now that that was stupid advice.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm glad they didn't listen to us because, like, well, first of all, why would they? But second of all, like, it was like, okay, yeah, no, that would have actually messed things up. So I think the public, I would hope people could understand that that is actually a good thing, that they're not releasing information. That is the mark of an amateurish investigation where they're just burning these details that could really come back to bite them later.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00] So early agencies involved with this, obviously, the Franklin Police Department is going to be the lead agency. Indiana State Police, often involved with these bigger investigations. The Cumberland Police Department, who they noted their chief used to work for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. I guess they helped. The Greenwood Police Department helped. And the Johnson County Sheriff's Office. So these are some of the agencies involved. More will join them. They brought in a blood spatter expert from the Indiana State Police to look over the household.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_00] Not sure who that is, but obviously ISP has a lot of those. They did a search of computer files, emails, trash bins outside of the NSK Corporation where Sean worked. And they quickly started getting a list of people to talk to. Early on, it said 11 detectives and officers were working on the case. Now, one interesting piece of evidence that I don't think ended up going anywhere, but I could be wrong.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_00] On July 27, 2006, mowers seemingly found a blood-stained shirt at 11 a.m. And this was near the entrance to the Brannigan Creek neighborhood, which I guess was nearby. On Brannigan Creek Boulevard and Brannigan Road. So the murders were in Brannigan Woods, all of these Brannigans. But they didn't know if it was blood or not, but they turned it in.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00] In the Daily Journal on July 31, 2006, shortly after the murders, police chief John Borges sat down for an interview. I apologize if I'm saying his name wrong. He talked about how they were working hard on it. He really couldn't give them a lot of details on the actual case because he said he wanted to protect it.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_00] He listed officers like Sergeant Pete Ketchum as working on it, evidence technician Larry Kephart, division commander Captain Joe Groose. And said that they are not yet, they're kind of accumulating leads. They're not funneling anything down yet. And they've not yet sent any evidence to the Indiana State Police Laboratory. And he said that Sean Dickus was extremely cooperative and assisting them at every turn.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_00] He also noted that Dr. John Schaefer, the director of counseling, the counseling center at Franklin College, had actually brought in, he had brought, they had brought in a professor. I think it's him because later on he said he was this person. So, you know, to deal with stress and critical stress debriefings, this person, Schaefer's trained in psychology and counseled the emergency responders after the murders.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_00] Schaefer later noted a lot of these men, a lot of these women, you know, a lot of the people working on the case had, you know, wives and children around Blake's age. And it just affected them a lot to see this. So, on August 1st, 2006, the Daily Journal reported that Franklin Police met with ISP to determine what they needed to send to the lab. And the next day they decided on that, although they declined to say what it was.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_00] On August 2nd, 2006, the following day, more evidence was collected from the backyard. And the ISP helicopter circled Brannigan Woods taking pictures. On August 3rd, 2006, the Daily Journal reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had become involved. So, specifically an agent out of Indianapolis with the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_00] The newspaper described this as assisting, you know, the investigation into unsolved serial murders, unsolved rapes, child abduction, could provide behavioral analysis. So, some of those, like, really heinous crimes. Like, almost the crimes that you often see the FBI handling in, like, fiction. That, you know, they're not, like, the FBI is not always going after serial killers. Like, it's, they do a lot of things, but that's, like, somewhat rare because it's a rare crime.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_00] But these are kind of, like, the high-profile cases that everyone cares about. And they sent in someone with that. They, I mentioned they were collecting more evidence potentially from the backyard. Sean told the newspaper that he had been fingerprinted and his DNA was collected. He, at that point, said that, you know, it had only been a few, you know, a couple weeks, I guess, at that point. And he said that, you know, he was hearing that people thought it was him and that was really hurtful.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_00] And he couldn't sleep at this home. He can't afford to live elsewhere, but he's just going to stay with friends for the time being. I think what I've seen from Franklin, at least talking to people there, is that a lot of suspicion was thrown at Sean for many years.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_01] Not just in Franklin. I saw a lot of talk on social media from people who just sort of assumed, oh, it must be the father, the husband. And we see that a lot in true crime cases where people immediately cast blame upon family members. Sometimes family members are guilty. I'm not saying otherwise.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01] But people should keep in mind that these are human beings who are undergoing a loss beyond which we can imagine. And for them to have to be accused by people online just seems really cruel.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_00] And here's what my thinking is. If any of us, like, have not heavily researched a case, I don't think we have any right to be like, well, I figured it was this guy. Especially when it could be a grieving father. Like, why say something so flippantly that could have such a negative impact on somebody else? Even if you're thinking it, maybe just don't put it out there. I think people need to have more respect for these situations, especially when it's like, we just don't know.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_00] If the police turned around and arrested the father years later, okay, then maybe your hunch was right. But you don't win any points by putting it out online. The other thing I feel is, I know exactly why this happens, I think. I don't know. I have a theory. I think this is an ancient human tendency. I don't think it's anything new. If you want to see it play out, read the book of Job in the Bible, okay?

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_00] Read about Job's friends and what they do after, through no fault of Job's own, his wife and children are killed. He's killed suddenly, viciously. And he's left in the wreckage of his old life and his heartbreak. And his friends come. And they're basically like, well, what did you do to piss off God? What did you do? I think the reason that we do this is to protect ourselves.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_00] The reason we want to blame somebody is to protect ourselves. Because if we see Sean Dickus as a man who did nothing wrong and suffered perhaps one of the worst things anyone can go through without dying themselves, and we see him as simply someone who was just a victim of these circumstances, it makes us deeply uncomfortable. Because if he did this, if this happened to him through no fault of his own, then it could happen to us. And the same thing could happen to us.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_00] And that makes people deeply uncomfortable. Instead of seeing him and his heartbreak and showing empathy, in those situations we want to close off empathy to him. Because empathizing with him means looking the possibility that there but for the grace of God go I in the face. And people don't want to do that. They want to live in their safe little bubble and pretend like, no. The only time bad things happen, it's that person's fault.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_00] They must have done something to bring this on. Or they must have done it themselves. I don't have to feel bad for them. Because feeling bad for them and showing empathy and showing compassion makes us uncomfortable because it makes us feel vulnerable. That is why people do this. And it's disgusting and needs to stop. Like, it just needs to stop. It's totally, when I see people doing this, I'm like, you're pathetic. Because you can't even deal with the possibility. You're such a coward that this could happen to you that you won't even extend empathy.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_00] And I just think that's wrong. I think it's wrong. Again, it's fine to have your, I mean, to me, like if people are just thinking about things or whatever, it's just like not everything needs to get said out loud or certainly on the internet. Anyways. On August 8th, a sheriff's deputy apparently found a knife in Whiteland, Indiana. Not sure if that's connected, but they did report that in the paper. As you can tell, they're pretty much taking anything and everything that they can find,

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_00] even if it turns out not to be related. On August 11th, 2006, the Daily Journal reported full page headlines, the top headline of the front page, that Sean Dickus had been cleared as a suspect. That's pretty quick, right? I mean, they're murdered on July 24th, August 11th. Police are unilaterally saying he is not a suspect. The reasons they gave for this are that Sean passed a polygraph test,

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_00] and the timeline of his movements that day did not fit the crime. Apparently, when a detective told him that he passed, he cried. And they said that he was actually not the first person in the case eliminated from the suspect list either. A friend in that newspaper article talked about, or either the friend or Sean talked about defending Sean at a garage sale where people were acting like maybe he did it.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_00] So, I guess, to me, what are your thoughts on this, being cleared by a polygraph and the timeline?

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_01] Frankly, I find the being cleared by the timeline more persuasive than being cleared by a polygraph. I personally don't put a lot of faith in polygraphs. But if you have a timeline indicating that he was known to be in other areas and was seen in other areas at the time the crime is believed to have occurred, I think that is very persuasive.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_01] And that would be enough to eliminate him as a suspect in my mind.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_00] Polygraphs, to me, are just another opportunity for police to get someone on the record and trip them up. They're not really something I consider a lot. But, you know, they are a tool for law enforcement, so I understand why they're used. Yeah, to me, it's interesting. In other cases, like in Delphi, you know, the police knew the families were not involved, but they never officially cleared them because I think they just never wanted to have that thrown back in their face in case they found something, you know?

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_00] And so it was interesting to me that they went ahead and did that here. I imagine it meant a lot to Sean Dickas, but I also can see how it can be a strategic error in certain cases. One of our friends who's a police detective or a retired police detective tells us, like, the way you clear somebody is to convict somebody else.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly.

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_00] And you almost, police never want to take that off the table. In this case, they did. You have on, by September 7th, 2006, the Daily Journal is reporting they still don't have a suspect. Actually, they had Greenwood police sending in extra DNA test kits to Franklin because they ran out. And we know at this point that neighbors, family members, people who knew Chyna and Blake were getting swabbed for DNA.

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_00] That doesn't necessarily mean they had DNA to compare against, but they're certainly at least being proactive at this time. And amusingly, Kevin, Stoney Van was quoted in this article about what, you know, what DNA is and how they use it. Do you want to explain who that is?

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_01] We know him because he was also a key investigator on the Burger Chef case for many, many years.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_00] Stoney Van.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_01] Stoney Van.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00] So I saw that and I was like, wait a minute. By October 2006, the police are saying we just need one break. We've got 250 leads at this point. We're in contact with the family at least once a week, but there's little we can tell them. Marsha Anderson, Chyna's mother, listed Detective Brian Goldfarb as an investigator on the case in November.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_00] Remember, you had later in November, it comes out that the ISP lab couldn't do certain tests that they wanted to do in this case. So they were going to send stuff to the FBI lab. Not exactly clear what. At this point, it comes out that the family is trying to raise a reward fund. They had raised $685 at that point, wanted to get to $5,000. And there was also an extra $1,000 from Crime Stoppers on the case.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_00] In 2007, an article in the Indianapolis Star from Paul Bird comes out and talked about how the perpetrator may display some kind of unnatural level of interest in the case. Do you want to explain who Paul Bird is?

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_01] Paul Bird is another longtime Indianapolis reporter who also covered the Burger Chef case back in the day. So we're seeing a lot of familiar names who are still around, at least in the early part of the century.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_00] The Burger Chef murders, of course, culminated with the murders happening in Johnson County near Greenwood. So it kind of makes sense that we're seeing some of these people. But I'm always just like, whoa, Burger Chef. The case reminds me more of the Delphi murders where you have a heinous knife-related crime going unsolved for years. But yeah, a lot of Burger Chef names.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_00] So at this point in 2007, we learn that Detective Chris Tennell of the Franklin Police Department is working on the case. An article talks about how he has a thank you card from the Dickus family on his desk. He's hoping at that point that the ISP lab will yield new clues and says tips are still coming in. In 2007, in August of that year, the reward jumps up to $10,000.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_00] Franklin Police want the public to know, look out for these changes in someone in this area. Around the time of the murders, the person may have seen a change in their sleeping pattern, in their religious beliefs, in their consumption of alcohol or tobacco, or their general nervousness. So they're putting out like a partial profile of, hey, if someone does a heinous crime like this, how might they have changed?

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00] And they're looking at all those things. In 2008, now Lieutenant Chris Tennell is the chief of investigations at Franklin. He talks about how people call in weekly with information. They just met someone at the Johnson County Jail to talk about it. And at that point, Franklin Police Chief Stan Lynn, who's taken over from John Borges, says, quote, everything is solvable. But at this point, they've not solved it. They talk about in 2008, I mentioned Joe Dillon speaks at a memorial.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_00] Turns out he was the first one on the scene. The Reporter Times on June 12, 2010, report on a book that came out about the Dickus case. And it involved the involvement of Marsha Anderson, China's mother. And she reveals a rift between herself and the Franklin Police Department at this point. She says, quote, The Franklin police and I don't speak. They said I'd read about it in the paper when it's solved.

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_00] So animosity there on the part of at least one victim's family member and the police. It seems like relations broke down early on closer to the murders. She was often writing in letters thanking the police in the newspaper. But sometimes the agony of having a crime go unsolved just drives a rift. Some people get closer to the police through that. And they are forging those relations.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_00] Others are angry and upset and feel like not enough is being done. It just kind of depends on the person's personality. And I would never invalidate anyone for feeling frustrated or angry over an unsolved case. I imagine it's absolute hell on earth to go through. But I think that is worth noting. And the Madison Courier reports that in 2010,

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_00] the Indiana State Police and prison officials at the Indiana Department of Correction are putting out a second edition of playing cards with unsolved cases on them. They had previously done this. Now this is the second edition. And Blake and Chyna were going to be on the seven of clubs. These cards were distributed to inmates at Indiana prisons and were an opportunity for them to, you know, play recreationally and learn about these cases. So if anyone said anything that might ring a bell,

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_00] they could come and potentially provide that tip. As of 2010, in July, the anniversary article on the murders, the lead detective is now listed as Scott Carter. And he talks about how they have 500 leads, many, many boxes. He's not going to talk about any of the physical evidence or the injuries. He does helpfully, though, break down some of the top theories that I think is going to be interesting. And we're going to get more into one of these later.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_00] His top theory is that the murders were connected to a string of burglaries that occurred around the time of the murders. And he mentioned things like fingerprints, palm prints, and DNA from the burglarized homes. Highly interesting. We're going to get more into that later. Another theory was construction workers, that they questioned construction workers working near the home at the time. Several homes in the area were under construction.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_00] Samples from the men who they talked to didn't match the house. Not clear what those samples are, whether it's fingerprints or DNA. But they also noted that we're not able to find every single person working for contractors in the area. And the contractor's business records didn't show some of the workers they didn't find. And the managers didn't know where those workers got off to. So that's another thing they're looking at. And then the other possibility is somebody passing through.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_00] Someone who just kind of is passing through Franklin and randomly does this. They would sometimes check in with other agencies if they saw similar looking cases. They felt that this theory was the least likely though because they felt that this area, Branigan Woods, would have been very hard to find without knowing Franklin, Indiana. Very similar to Delphi, right? There was always the talk of like this guy might just be drifting. But people would point out like not a lot of people know about these trails. And you and I had a hard time finding them in the beginning

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_00] even though we knew where we were going. So they talked about doing case reviews. Again, Delphi did this. Delphi would bring in outside agencies and be like, what did we mess up? And the outside agencies would be like, nothing. It's a hard case. Franklin says that they did the same thing here. They would bring in ISP. They would bring in the FBI. They would bring in IMPD. They would bring in experienced detectives. Did we miss anything?

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_00] And the detectives would say, no, it's just a tough case. In 2013, Franklin Police Department Sergeant John Borges is back on the case. You'll recognize his name. He was the police chief when this happened. He ultimately became the lead detective on it at some point. He said he was confident it could be solved. They had 450 tips and many leads.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_00] So July 24th, 2014, the Daily Journal reports that they have a whole police room filled with boxes at the police department. They have transcripts of interviews, reports. It just never pinpointed that one person. 40 binders worth of statements, interviews, reports, lab results, hundreds of pieces of evidence in the police department evidence room. Four investigators at that point in 2014 working the case.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_00] They're just not there. And September 11, 2014, we see a report in the Daily Journal that Marcia Anderson, China's mother, unfortunately passed away. She died. This article also alludes to the breakdown in the relationship because they say that detectives would try to ask Marcia Anderson about China's past, about where she grew up, who her friends were, how she spent her time, and that Marcia Anderson did not give them those answers.

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_00] So after she died, police went into her home to look at yearbooks, letters, things like that. They were very clear they didn't think Anderson was in any way involved, but just that some of this information might be contained in the house about possibly old friends of China's or an ex-boyfriend. And at this point, Detective Scott Carter is still listed on the case. You had in 2015, July 23rd, they talked about how 10 new leads had come in that year,

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_00] and that Franklin Police Detective Sergeant John Borges was the third lead investigator on the case, and they recently brought on a new detective to help out, and that they still believed the burglaries could be connected. This is something that circles back to what you just said a little while ago, Kevin, that the previous month there had been a man in Florida who confessed to murdering Blake in China, but they were able to rule him out quickly since he got all the details wrong.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_01] So that underscores the importance of not revealing everything you have.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_00] So what do you know about the VDoc Society?

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_01] The VDoc Society is ostensibly an organization which helps solve unsolvable crimes or difficult-to-solve crimes by putting people in contact with experts. They have – I don't know how I –

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I mean, like, I think it's an interesting idea. Like, it's kind of a social club to a certain extent. Like, they're getting together and kind of having dinner and then doing a presentation. I think we've talked to detectives who presented to them, and they found their suggestions helpful. And so it's kind of like a brainstorm session. I think sometimes in the media they're made out to be, like, solving all these crimes, but they're really kind of acting more as a resource and a sounding board for detectives who feel stuck. Is that fair to say?

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, that's fair to say. So it's sometimes the importance of this society tends to be overstated, but it can be a helpful tool.

[00:55:51] [SPEAKER_00] I think it's like – it's not so much as their importance is overstated more so than people think that they're solving crimes. And I think they themselves would be like, no, we're not. We're just helping people. And I think, you know, as far as they're doing that, that's helpful. So they went to the VDOC Society at the suggestion of Blake's family. The VDOC Society meets, I think, a couple times a year in Philadelphia. They bring in all these retired law enforcement and experts to do presentations.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_00] The detective presents, and then people kind of ask questions who are part of the VDOC Society. So they did a two-and-a-half-hour presentation, and this is what the VDOC Society had to say. They say, keep digging into the burglaries. You know, you haven't eliminated those as being connected. Those might be really important. Keep looking at the burglaries. And retest the evidence. Nowadays, in 2015, touch DNA is now a thing. New technology is a thing.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_00] Keep digging. So, I mean, I have a positive view of the VDOC Society. I just think I sometimes see people be like, oh, give it to them and they'll solve it. And it's like they're not doing the investigation. They're simply a sounding board. Right. So that happens July 23rd, 2016. Just some interesting details about Borges. Apparently, after serving as chief, he served five years as a road officer.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_00] But then he kind of comes back to the investigation side. The Daily Journal on July 24th, 2017 anniversary piece talks about how this case is still a priority. Detective Sergeant Scott Carter is interviewed. Talks about how their whole department takes it really personally. A detective, Ray Tice, is also mentioned in this article. And he's saying that now there's a law out there that requires felony arrests to have to, you know, take the person's DNA.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_00] So at this point, the police chief is Tim O'Sullivan. The call leader reports on Wednesday, July 25th, 2018. This is a story from the Associated Press. They said Blake was smothered and they also talked about how they didn't know if those burglaries were linked. Let's talk about the burglaries. So the burglaries came up immediately in the coverage.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_00] I'm talking the day after the murders, July 25th, 2006. Burglaries are mentioned. Franklin Police Chief John Borges is mentioning them. At the time, it said that there was a burglary two blocks away and that they were trying to see if there was a connection. I'm just going to tell you the whole chronology of how we learned about the burglaries and, like, it's going to go into more details over time. Maybe some of these early details are wrong. I don't know. I'm just presenting to you what's in the media.

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_00] They talk about, you know, a few days later, a few days after the murders, the reports mention tips about a recent string of break-ins in the area. And then it starts being more specific. They're talking two to four break-ins, one on Woodfield Boulevard. Now, they talk about this one being about four houses away from the house on Aberdeen Drive where the murders occurred.

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_00] And this resident called police less than two hours after the murders reported, coming home and saying someone ransacked his house and tore up every room. These are extremely close. I'll tell you how close later, but this is, like, right down the road. Later on, they start saying as many as four burglaries in or near the Brannigan Woods area. Mentioned one just four houses away.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_00] And that one, the one that occurred, that was discovered at least, you know, two hours after the bodies were found. The intruder cut a screen in order to open the window and ransack every room. They talked about how the drawers in the bedroom were all turned out. The kitchen, a steak knife with a wooden handle was left in the office and, of course, collected then. Now we start getting a few more details on some of these possible burglaries.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_00] They talk about how on, I guess, the previous Tuesday, it seems, at 7.52 a.m., the new Franklin Community High School building was burglarized. This is at 965 Brannigan Road. An employee reported that someone broke into the building and stole tools and materials.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_00] It could be, when I look at Google Maps, this could be a 30-minute walk on the roads, but it also seems like there's a field between Brannigan Woods and the school that you could cut through for more direct route. Although, keep in mind, I'm looking in 2026. This area may have changed a lot. I don't know. But on Monday at 6.54 p.m., this is the Woodfield Boulevard robbery or burglary, rather.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00] The resident reported that sometime after 9 a.m., the break-in must have occurred. This indicates to me that this person had left the home by 9 a.m., so it couldn't have occurred before. Found the home ransacked. This is like a minutes-long walk. Like, Aberdeen Drive leads right into Woodfield Boulevard. It's like right there. It's right down the road.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_00] And then 11.46 p.m. Thursday on the 2700 block of Woodfield Boulevard, a resident reported the back door of their home was left open but discovered nothing missing inside. That could be a false alarm. Who knows?

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_00] So we get more information from Paul Bird from the Indianapolis Star in 2007. At this point, February 3, 2007, they publish pictures of some of the stolen goods and information about those goods. This is from the 2500 block Woodfield Boulevard. Burglary occurred in Maine Township East. One of the things stolen was a high school class ring. Class year 1968, a ruby ring.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_00] It had a sort of engraving of a Native American man with the word warriors on it. And it was, the school was Park Ridge, Illinois High School. So that was one thing that was stolen from the house. Another thing were some bicentennial coins with 1776 to 1976 years on them, including a Kennedy, John F. Kennedy half dollar and a Dwight Eisenhower dollar.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_00] And that the last thing is perhaps the most bizarre, but they talk about it was a Tupperware one gallon pitcher, possibly with lemonade in it. And that a person may have been seen in the neighborhood carrying this pitcher around.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_01] That is odd.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, very bizarre. So in 2015, the Daily Journal reports they still believe the burglaries could be connected and they get more in depth on some of this stuff. They talk about there was a specific way the screens were cut in these burglaries. We'll get into that in a minute. But first I should say they kind of quantify the number of burglaries they think are connected. We kind of focused on one in the past.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_00] But at this point they're saying they think a total of five homes were broken into. All within a half a mile of the Dickus home. These burglaries occurred from June 2006 to July 2007. So they continued after the murders. And they all occurred in the daytime. They all occurred on weekdays. And they all left the homes ransacked.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_00] Refrigerator doors left open. Gone through. Food taken. Drinks taken. Small items like jewelry, cash, and coins all taken. And the screens in each home would be cut in a specific way. In a T-shape. Allowing them to get in. And they would not say if that was done in the Dickus home as well. But they really saw that for the first time. The police in Franklin said they hadn't seen that before and they'd never seen it since.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_00] They want to see if anyone would remember that. And of course the VDoc Society was highly interested in that.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_01] Of course.

[01:04:11] [SPEAKER_00] So to wrap this up. This is a case that has really affected Franklin over the years. In the early days some terrible things happened. Like gawkers would come and stare at the house. And even worse alarm company sales people went door to door of that neighborhood. Kind of to the freaked out community. Selling them alarms. Which I think is so classless.

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_00] But also things like local chaplains organized crisis counselors with the Indiana Crisis Assistance Response Team. To come and help community members deal with this. You had C.B. Morgan. The Indianapolis-based developer who built Brannigan Woods. They actually hired more officers to make the people there feel better. From departments outside of Franklin. You had multiple prayer vigils.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_00] I believe the case was featured on America's Most Wanted at the behest of the family. You had editorials where family members were begging people don't forget about our loved ones. We have to solve this. At one point later on students from Mason Clark and Austin Schmidt from the local high school actually teamed up with Christina Blake's mom.

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_00] And made a video that was then shown at Canary Creek Cinemas and online about the video. About the case. I thought that was nice. A man named John Wales would organize a car show in honor of Blake and Chyna every year. And they're just vigils, balloon releases, butterfly releases, everything you can imagine to try to keep it in the minds of people.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_00] The Lamar Advertising Company even gave police free space on billboards along State Road 135 and Interstate 65. Around Marion County and Boone County and then one southbound near the County Line Road. To just basically keep it alive and keep their names on these billboards and keep people thinking about them.

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_00] The reward increased to $25,000 and then more recently according to the Daily Journal just before the news of the arrest increased to $100,000. And nowadays the Franklin Police Chief is Kirby Cochran and he in a statement to the Daily Journal thanked Captain Jeff Doe for his work on the case. So I presume he is now the lead officer. And that is where things stand.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_00] In the future we will be going more into Michael Jerome James, his background and what people know about him. I would really again emphasize my request. If you know something let us know. We're not going to be irresponsible with this information. We protect our sources and we also never strive to disrupt a case. So we want to balance the public interest with ensuring that justice is done and the defendant's rights are preserved and all of that.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_00] But at the very least you can tell us and then we can know it. We want to know. So if you have information, if you have thoughts, if you have theories, if you know someone who might be willing to talk to us, our email is murdersheet at gmail.com. We have experience talking with people in ongoing cases. We know what we're doing and we will protect you. But we want to hear from you.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_00] And I would just say to conclude this, my heart goes out to Sean Dickus, to Christina, Blake's mom, to all of his, all of their friends and family. This never should have happened. It's horrifying that it did. And I hope that some answers at least can be forthcoming at this time. But that is what I was able to glean from a deep dive into what was reported on the case so far.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_00] And continue to tune in to the murder sheet and we will hopefully have even more information for you on this case going forward. We plan to, again, do a deep dive into this one. Thank you all so much. Thank you.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

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[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_01] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

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