Jeanne M Gilbert

A woman is discovered dead from gunshot wounds
In the early morning hours of March 3, 1989, 34-year-old Jeanne M. Gilbert was working the night shift as a clerk at the Days Inn in Remington, Indiana. A recently divorced mother of two, she was also a bookkeeper at a local oil supply company to support her family. That night, the quiet of her shift was shattered when the inn was robbed. When law enforcement arrived, they found the cash drawer pried open and $247 missing. Jeanne was gone, though her purse and keys were left behind in an office.

Later that morning, a grim discovery was made about 19 miles away. Jeanne's nude body was found in a frozen ditch on the side of a rural county road near Brookston, Indiana. She had been shot three times with a. 22 caliber weapon. The investigation revealed she had also been sexually assaulted. There were scrapes on her body, leading investigators to believe she may have been dragged from a vehicle. The uniform she was wearing when she was abducted has never been found.

For decades, Jeanne's murder remained a cold case, a source of pain and unanswered questions for her family and the community. Her death was linked to a string of similar attacks along the I-65 corridor, perpetrated by a suspect dubbed the 'I-65 Killer' or the 'Days Inn Killer.' These crimes included the murder of another hotel clerk, Peggy Gill, on the very same night as Jeanne's abduction and murder, and the 1987 killing of Vicki Heath in Kentucky. Another woman was sexually assaulted in Columbus, Indiana, in 1990 but managed to survive, providing a crucial description of her attacker.

Years of investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Indiana State Police and the FBI, followed. Ballistics matched the weapon used in both the Gill and Gilbert murders, and later, advancements in DNA technology linked the murders of Heath and Gilbert and the sexual assault in Columbus to a single unknown perpetrator. Despite these connections, the killer's identity remained a mystery.

Finally, in 2022, a breakthrough was announced. Through the use of investigative genealogy, which combines DNA analysis with genealogical research, authorities were able to identify the man responsible for the series of brutal attacks. The suspect was named as Harry Edward Greenwell, a man with an extensive criminal history. However, justice in a courtroom would never be served for his victims. Greenwell had died in 2013, taking the full story of his violent crimes with him to the grave. The identification, however, provided a long-awaited, albeit bittersweet, sense of closure for the families who had waited over three decades for answers.