In the dead of a winter night on January 16, 1991, a traveler named Jack Fansler made a grim discovery at a northbound rest area on Interstate 65 in Boone County. Inside the men's restroom, he found the Reverend William Harvey Radcliffe, a 39-year-old man, clinging to life in a pool of his own blood. He had been shot in the back of the head at point-blank range. Fansler, a former U.S. Navy Corpsman, recognized the smell of blood and rushed to call for help.
Despite his efforts to comfort the dying man, Radcliffe would not survive his injuries.
The investigation into the brutal slaying of Reverend Radcliffe fell to Boone County Sheriff Ern Hudson and his deputy, who quickly sought the assistance of the Indiana State Police. The case was not an isolated incident but was connected to a multi-county crime spree that included hotel robberies. The initial focus of the investigation soon turned towards three individuals: Gerald Bivins, Gary Kevin Robertson, and James M. Warren.
In a significant break in the case, Gerald Bivins was taken into custody and, during a closed probable cause hearing on February 22, 1991, he identified Robertson and Warren as the men responsible for the minister's murder. Bivins claimed the two had tossed the murder weapon, a. 38 Colt Revolver, from the Peter Mills Bridge into the Wildcat Creek. Divers were able to recover the firearm from the location Bivins described. However, the investigation took another turn as law enforcement began to question Bivins's level of involvement in the violent crime spree.
Despite his initial cooperation and testimony against his alleged accomplices, investigators began to build a case against Gerald Bivins himself. On March 7, 1991, after only forty minutes of deliberation, a jury found Gerald Wayne Bivins guilty on all six charges against him, including the murder of Reverend William Harvey Radcliffe. The prosecution successfully argued that Bivins had senselessly killed the minister, not out of fear or desperation, but simply 'to see what it felt like.'
