The Murders of the Osborne Family

From time to time I come across a case that I know, no matter what, it is the next one that I want to compose. This is just such a case. I have to say that I was really surprised that I had never heard of this case since it took place in my home, and lifelong state of Indiana. I cannot even say how exactly I came across something about it recently.

We have all seen the cases that by legal standards are not necessarily “solved” but by police and community standards they are. We most often think of the cases such as O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony, two cases in which the defendant was charged, taken to trial and later acquitted. From a legal standpoint those murder cases are unsolved. However, the police, prosecutors and much of the community at large feel differently and believe the person responsible simply got away with murder. Then you have the cases of murder/suicide. Some of those are more disputed at times, more often by family members who in some cases just cannot bring themselves to believe their relative killed other people and then killed themselves. It is not that the occasional case does not come up where it is discovered that the case was only made to look like a murder/suicide, but as a whole most of those cases are just as they had appeared. Yes, once again, by a legal standard one could look at those cases and state they were “unsolved” because no one had been given their right to a trial and no one had been convicted. But, in those cases, they can most generally be proven one way or another prior to the any kind of media announcement, or if it had been taken to trial. Then there seems to be the case against Calvin Perry III.

On Monday September 19, 1983 thirty-five year old Dan Osborne did not show up for work at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel where he worked as an editor. A co-worker decided to go to the house and see if anything was wrong. It was said that after looking through a window and believing he saw the body of Dan's wife, Jane, laying on the floor he went and notified the police. When investigators arrived not only did the find the body of thirty-four year old Jane, but also the bodies of her husband, Dan and their eleven year old son, Ben. They also found the couple's two year old daughter Caroline. She had apparently been roaming the home while the rest of her family had been killed. It was reported very early that it appeared that Caroline had been beaten, sexually assaulted and left for dead.

What I think is most important about this case is the information that was released prior to there being any suspect. This was big news in the Fort Wayne area. I read one article that was released some thirty years after the murders that stated that everyone was talking about this crime, everywhere, well, at least in Fort Wayne. First, I think that is important because that means there were few people, if any, in the area that did not hear about the crime and likely the details. This can make a breeding ground for false confessions. Not only can investigators “feed” a suspect information, when a crime is this infamous and so much has been released to the media a “suspect” already knows many of the details. Secondly, I find it interesting to see what information is released when the crime is first discovered and what information is released after a suspect is within investigators grasps. For example, I become suspicious when initial reports will say that there are no signs of forced entry and then when a suspect emerges and later taken to trial suddenly there is evidence that the perpetrator had forced their way into the crime. I become even more suspicious when suddenly the evidence reveals that the forced entry was exactly as the defendant has stated.

Along with reports of what investigators found at the Osborne home and their assessment of what had occurred, there were also reports of at least two other attacks that had occurred within the same neighborhood within the week leading up to the murders. Police were sketchy on the deals of one saying that they were not looking into that case as being related to the Osborne family but neighbors were not happy that it had not been released to the public prior to the murders. The second attack had occurred on September 15^th, just two days before the medical examiner would believe the Osborne family had been murdered. In this attack a man, who sources would not name, had claimed to have been beaten in the head and chest with a baseball bad. The man described his attacker as being a white man with dark hair and a mustache.

One thing that really bothered me about this case from the get go was the fact that it appeared that at least initially police were relying on information they say they had obtained from two year old Caroline. Some reports stated she was “barely two” but to be fair I am uncertain if that was not just a way of adding dramatic words in their articles to garner that much more sympathy. While you and I may have as much sympathy for a “two year old” who lost both her parents and her brother and in the process had been assaulted herself as we would for someone “barely two” it is still a tactic often used in these sorts of things. So, we have a two year old child who by all accounts has been victimized herself and left in a home with the bodies of her family and police thought not only was it prudent to interview her, but that the information she gave would be accurate. I cannot say that I know many, if any two year olds who could have verbally expressed very much that would have made sense, let alone be completely truthful that have not been traumatized as this child had. Add to this is the fact that by their own assessment by the time the family was even discovered it had been well over forty-eight hours since the attack occurred. So now they are taking a two year old child who has been victimized, kept in a home with the bodies of her family going on three days and they think the information they retrieve is going to be reliable. That being said I found only a few things that were interesting that it appears that Caroline shared. She had allegedly told investigators that the person who attacked her was “light-skinned” (and yes this was quoted in the articles as being her exact words) and they had hit her with a fist and shined a flashlight in her eyes. First keep in mind that this is information that was published within days of the murders and long before any suspect emerged. I find it difficult to believe that a two year old would understand or know what it meant to say a person was “light-skinned,” let alone in 1983 when articles were still saying “the black” when referring to a person. I will get more into that in a bit. Considering the fact that her entire family had been murdered I do not want to say that the child was not beaten or even hit by the perpetrators fist but the first could have been a relative term and the second I am unsure could have verified. Do not take this as me not saying that the child was not victimized or harmed because I do believed that to have occurred. I am simply saying that between the media's need to make dramatic things more dramatic, the police wanting to find the person responsible by any means necessary and everyone's ability to take a word and have it mean what they want it to, things may not have been as cut and dry as they had been stated.

Then in January of 1984 everything changed. An eighteen year old boy by the name of Calvin Perry III was arrested after allegedly breaking into the home of a seventy-eight year old woman. He would be charged with two counts of rape and two counts of burglary in that case. But, according to investigators within hours Perry was confessing to not just this crime, but the murders of the Osborne family, the sexual assault and beating of Caroline as well as at least fourteen other crimes that involved assaults, rapes and burglaries. Investigators would claim that these confessions came after he had waived his right to an attorney and seven hours after he entered a preliminary “not guilty” plea for the initial crimes he was charged with he was charged with the murders of the Osborne family.

According to police, who allegedly video taped at least some of the confession, Perry stated that he entered the house through a kitchen window, found a wooden baseball bat in the basement and went to the parents' room. He claimed Jane woke up when he hit (and killed) the family dog. He then struck her and raped her. He claimed Ben was in a sleeping bag in his parents' room and he woke up. He went on to claim how he had hit Ben and then continued to sexually assault Jane. Through all of the articles that I read through that discussed portions or all of his alleged confession not on pertained any information on how he allegedly murdered Dan. Now, common sense says Dan would have been the first person to be attacked considering he would have been the biggest threat to the perpetrator.

On January 16, 1984 Calvin Perry III was officially charged with the murders of the Osborne family and the beating and sexual assault of Caroline Osborne. He was charged with three counts of murder, three counts of felony murder, and one count each of rape, child molesting and burglary. The following morning Calvin Perry III was found hanging in his jail cell in the Allen County jail. According to jail officials while he was not in solitary confinement he was in a cell alone. At four that morning, the last alleged bed check, he was fine. It is not clear when he was checked on again but when he was found he had allegedly tied his bed sheet to bars on a window and had committed suicide. There was at least one note that said “I didn't kill nobody.” Some reports allege there was more than one note. The coroner reported that his died around six that morning.

Calvin Perry's death cause racial outburst among the community. There were calls for an investigation and those who believed then, and now, that his death was not a suicide, but murder. A minister who had visited with him at the jail apparently often was quoted as saying that Perry had told him that the confession he had given had been forced and coerced and that he feared for his life at the jail.

It was not until after his death that more details were released about his alleged confession but evidence was eventually found. While the confession allegedly stated that he entered the home through a kitchen window it was said that investigators would later find a screwdriver that was used to make entry and pry marks found on the “door” matched indicating point of entry. They would also state, apparently after Perry's death that he had taken a lie detector case based on his confession and passed. I also found one report, keep in mind it was only one so I cannot verify that it was correct, that Dan Osborne's wallet and credit cards had been found in Perry's home. Now, I have to question this information based on the fact that there were so many questions after Perry's death as to his guilt in this crime that I would think that this information would have been shouted from the highest mountaintop as fast as it could have been, if in fact it was true. I just find it extremely odd that this information was only found in one article.

Here are some other issues that I have.... First there was the report that two year old Caroline had described the attacker as being “light-skinned.” There was nothing “light-skinned” about Calvin Perry. Now, of course as I stated earlier I likely would not have put a lot of stock in what Caroline had stated to begin with because of her age, as well as the trauma she had suffered. However, the investigators apparently did or they would have not released the information as they had. Then there is another issue with the alleged confession based on the information that I found. Initial reports stated that Jane had been beaten, not with the baseball bat, but with bare hand and a portable radio. While the radio was mentioned in articles after Perry's arrest the information he allegedly gave about the murders indicated he told investigators that he had used the bat. Now, lets talk about the bat for a second. It was in the initial reports as being found within the home at the time the bodies were discovered but nothing ever stated if investigators ever determined where the bat had come from. Keep in mind that there were several articles written within the first few days of the discovery and then there seemed to be nothing until Calvin Perry was arrested almost four months later. My point in this is that according to the alleged confession Calvin, who lived about three blocks away with his mother, stated he had found the bat in the basement of the home. Sure, we have all seen cases in which strangers enter a home and find a weapon of convenience within the home but it really is not all that common. The medical examiner had determined they believed the murders had occurred on Friday September 17^th and the fact that the victims were found allegedly in bed (although I admit the report that Dan's co-worker saw Jan's body through a window seems odd), indicates that the attack occurred sometime in the middle of the night. This would be an indication that the perpetrator would have likely known there would be a confrontation within the home at that hour. Add to this that the confession indicates that after going to the basement of the home Perry had gone straight to the master bedroom, also indicating that he expected some sort of confrontation to take place. I believe the question then becomes why would he have not gone prepared instead of looking for a weapon within the home.

Of course with the death of Calvin Perry the investigation was stopped and little more was looked into, including determining what kind of motive he would have had to commit the crime. I found no information as to just exactly how Calvin Perry was apprehended after the attack on the elderly woman or what information led investigators to him. But if we are to believe his story, and this is what investigators and those still in law enforcement in Fort Wayne Indiana tend to want us to do, then aside from this single attack on the elderly lady and these three murders, Calvin Perry committed at least fourteen other crimes. Now, nothing I read that talked about these other crimes either before his death or after said anything like “including an attack with a baseball bat near the area within a week of the murders of the Osborne family.” The attacks that were mentioned in earlier articles were never discussed again.

As I stated earlier Calvin Perry's death cause some severe racial tension within the community and I have to say I can understand why. When this crime occurred I was about eleven years old living in the inner-city of Indianapolis about two hours south (maybe a bit longer then) of Fort Wayne. I have often believed that it was the fact that I not only began school after Brown v. The Board of Education was passed preventing segregation in public schools, but also living in the large city that blinded me to how race was often looked at even still in 1983. Of course as a young white girl I obviously knew from an early age that I looked different than African American children but it was just not an issue for me. As I grew older I realized that it had been more of an issue for my parents who had not only grown up during segregation eras but one of my parents was raised in a community that was not very diverse when it came to race. I suppose that I never understood then, nor do I now, how or why race is ever an issue with the core being of a person. This is probably why when I came across a New York Times article (which in fairness was probably originally from the Fort Wayne newspaper) published just after Calvin Perry had died in January of 1984 I was taken aback by some of the wording. It would say “the young black,” not “the young black man.” The article seemed almost forced to call Calvin by his name the few times that it did, because sometimes it left out the word “young” and simply said “the black.” Again, it did not say “the black man,” it said “the black.” It was almost as if that article was supposed to tell me all I needed to know about the guilt of Calvin Perry simply because he was “the black.” Oh, and of course let us not forget to mention that it was also noted that the Osborne's were “white” but even still that was only mentioned once compared to the three to four times “the black” was used to refer to Calvin Perry. It left me with little to ponder about why there would have been racial tensions in Fort Wayne at that time.... of course there was!!

With all of the conflicting information that is available in this case I think one of the things that bother me the most is not necessarily the continued insistence by law enforcement that Calvin Perry was guilty of the crime but the fact that it seems that fewer questions are asked about this case today. I saw one blog that stated without question that Calvin Perry was guilty of this crime and made several racial comments of their own throughout the discussion. And to be fair it bothers me that Calvin Perry is listed as a murderer on the Internet site Murderpedia. Casey Anthony is not there, neither is O.J. Simpson (although it appears he can be found in an article pertaining to the murders of Ronald Goldman and Nichole Brown-Simpson). Of course some can argue that both Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson were found not guilty by juries but other cases are listed there without the alleged perpetrator making their way to court. In a court of law a person is to be considered innocent until proven guilty and just saying that someone is guilty does not make it so.

This case died when Calvin Perry died. Law enforcement decided they had a confession and that was the end of it. Even better for them Calvin Perry died before they would have to absolutely prove their case to a jury. I am not going to sit here and tell you that Calvin Perry was absolutely innocent or even absolutely guilty of this crime but it appear that justice was not served. It was not served to Calvin Perry; it was not served to Dan Osborne, his wife or his son; and it was not served to the survivor, Caroline Osborne, of this tragedy.