National attention on April Tinsley murder generated 60 tips to further investigation

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Days after a 24-year-old cold murder case received another round of national attention; detectives across Indiana have been busy following up on leads generated from the spotlight.

On August 24, America’s Most Wanted featured the death of April Tinsley , who was eight-years-old when she was abducted on April 1, 1988.  The girl’s body was found in Dekalb County days later; she had been molested and suffocated.

Since the show aired, the Fort Wayne Police Department got 59 tips regarding the case.  Some of those were collected via email, called in or made in person to investigators at the FWPD and the Allen County Sheriff’s Department.  A total of 44 tips came from AMW’s tip-line.

One of the lead detectives on the current case told NewsChannel 15 that a team of city, county, state and federal investigators are working closely together to gather information on about 30 suspects identified through the tips.

“That [number] is huge especially for the detectives who have, over all these years, just been [getting] one tip at a time over two or three months… Now they have plenty of work to do,” FWPD spokesperson Officer Raquel Foster said. “Just having [AMW’s] presence in the city and the information trickling out created or stirred [and] revived that investigation, so it was extremely helpful,”

Investigators have been attempting to collect DNA from each potential suspect since Monday. 

A complete DNA profile of Tinsley’s killer exists from previous evidence collected but has not matched any searches of profiles available across the county.