Police in Indiana discovered the identity of a serial killer who stalked the state’s highways 30 years ago searching for victims.
Officials with the Indiana State Police as well as the FBI and the Elizabethtown, Kentucky police department held a press conference Tuesday at 11am to identify the “I-65 Killer,” who was also called the “Days Inn Killer.” Representatives of the agencies named Harry Edward Greenwell to be the killer, claiming they used “investigative genealogy” to confirm the man’s identity.
The daughter of Jeanne Gilbert, one of the victims, spoke during the press conference about her mother and her hopes that those affected have found some justice. Police also released a photo of the killer from a previous, unrelated crime.
The killer was active in 1987 and 198 in Indiana and Kentucky, during which time he raped and killed three women at motels along Interstate 65. Similar crimes occurred in Minnesota and Illinois but have not been officially linked to the I-65 Killer.
All of the women who were attacked worked as clerks in those hotels.
In 1990 a woman working at a Days Inn in Columbus, Indiana was sexually assaulted and stabbed, but she managed to escape her attacker. She provided police with details of her attacker, describing him as about 6 feet tall with greasy, grey hair and a beard spotted with grey flecks. She claimed he had been wearing a flannel shirt, blue jeans, and that he had lime green eyes.
The FBI has been searching for the killer since his spree in the late 80’s.
