SYCAMORE, Ill. — Bond was set at $3 million Thursday for a Seattle man charged in the 1957 kidnapping and slaying of a 7-year-old girl that paralyzed an Illinois community and led to a massive search effort.
Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, made his initial Illinois court appearance Thursday in DeKalb County Circuit Court via closed-circuit television from county jail, and he was appointed a public defender, the (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle reported Thursday.
McCullough, who was charged earlier this month in the kidnapping and death of Maria Ridulph, a onetime neighbor of his in Sycamore, waived his right to extradition and was returned to Illinois on Wednesday, the day authorities exhumed the girl’s long-buried remains for re-examination.
McCullough, who has denied killing the girl, did not enter a plea during the bond hearing, and the judge set Aug. 8 as his next court date. DeKalb County Public Defender Regina Harris declined to comment after the hearing.
Maria’s abduction in December 1957 made national headlines, with President Dwight Eisenhower and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reportedly asking for daily updates on the investigation. Thousands of people joined in the search for the girl and fearful parents in Sycamore kept their children locked indoors for months. Maria’s body was found a few months later about 120 miles from her home.
McCullough was then named John Tessier and lived in Sycamore. Although he matched the suspect’s description, he had an alibi. It was the same one he gave during a July 7 jailhouse interview with The Associated Press — that he could not have abducted the girl because he had traveled to Chicago that day for military medical exams before enlisting in the Air Force.
McCullough became the focus of the investigation again last year when a high school girlfriend of his discovered an unused train ticket to Chicago behind a framed photograph.
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