NEVER FORGOTTEN
The residents of the west side Indianapolis neighborhood, known as Mount Jackson, awoke on the morning of Sunday, October 4th, 1970 to disturbing headlines in their Indianapolis Star, “Newspaper Carrier Stabbed To Death."
The day before around four in the morning, ten year old, four foot four, redheaded Jerry Michael Bayles, known as Mike, woke up and began to get ready to cover his fifteen year old brother’s, Indianapolis Star paper route. Gordon was ill that morning, and Mike was eager to jump at the chance to run the paper route. Gordon, known as Bud, started the route just six weeks earlier to help his parents out. The trucking company, which Gerald Bayles, (Mike’s father) worked for had been on strike. The family of six, had been living off of their mother’s paycheck from the Steak n Shake restaurant she was working at.
A few times, when the family was without food, Mike would take money he earned from helping on the paper route and buy brownies and bread for his family so that they would have something to eat.
Mike had been doing small jobs for change at the local laundry mat and Burger Chef. He took out the trash, swept floors and returned empty soda bottles. He was a good kid, always willing to help others. By all accounts Mike was a quiet, shy, and a friendly boy that always wore a smile. He had dreams of joining the army when he grew up.
Mike was an AAA traffic guard at the Indianapolis Public School #50, (Nathaniel Hawthorne) where attened fifth grade. His post was at the corner of West Washington Street and Warman Avenue, along with an adult Crossing Guard known as Miss Kelly.
It was a bit cool that Saturday morning, the temperature was fifty five and there was a slight breeze. Mike gathered up the collection money he had collected the night before, $21 and some change, the double canvas paper bag, and rode off on the bike.
He rode from the two-story double at 2830 West Jackson Street and headed towards Harris Avenue, then up to West Washington Street to the newspaper's circulation office.
The circulation office was a small white wood sided shack located in the alley behind the Clark Gas Station at 2502 West Washington Street.
Mike looked up to his big brother Bud. The fifth grader had been tagging along with him since Bud had started the route, in the mornings, during the summer, and on a few mornings before school had started. Mike knew the route well, and how long it would take to finish the route.
The plan was Mike would meet Bud when he got to his house, and Bud was going to help Mike finish the route that morning.
Mike gathered up the forty eight papers, put them in the canvas shoulder bag that he hung over the handle bars of the green female sting ray bike and left the circulation office around 5:17am(1). It would take Mike less than five minutes to travel the half mile back to his first stop.
Between 5:10 to 5:15 am(1), a filling station manager (The witness) at the Star Petroleum and Service Station at XXX West 16th Street, had left his residence at XXX South Harris Avenue and headed north on Harris. It would take him roughly one minute to drive to the intersection of South Harris and West Washington Street.
Mike left his first paper at the Indiana National Bank Branch which sat at the corner of West Washington Street and Harris Avenue. As Mike rode across the street to the next delivery, 12 South Harris Avenue, (the residence of William Johnson), the witness hit or all most hit Mike as he rode across Harris. The witness slammed on his brakes. The abrupt stop caused the the witness’s coffee to spill, which set the witness off. The witness was known to have a history of an ill temper toward females and children, along with being an alcoholic.
Roughly between 4:45am to 5:00pm(2)., Mrs. Thomas P. Baker of 40 South Warman Avenue, heard a scream and saw a speeding car leaving the alley south of Washington Street and to Harris Avenue. A female residence at the beginning of Mike’s route, also reported hearing a scream and tail lights leaving north on Harris, at this noted time.
Mike never made it to the third stop at 16 South Harris Avenue.
Now the story of Mike becomes unclear. Little, if anything is known about what happened next. What we do know is that the bike's chain was off, and the rear fender was dented into the tire. The bike and the canvas bag, full of 46 unfolded papers, were left in the yard of Mr. Johnson’s house. We have to speculate that The witness, in a fit of rage. grabbed Mike and forced him into the car. Either The witness hit the bike with the car as Mike rode across the Harris, causing the rear fender to be dented in, or The witness kicked the fender while Mike was on the bike or after the bike was on the ground. The witness was known to carry a kitchen knife in his car at all times.
The witness drove towards West Washington Street; this was the last time Mike was seen alive. The time was 5:25am (1).
With only an hour before sunrise, the Bayle’s phone began to ring at 6:30 am. Some subscribers were calling to complain that they hadn't received their morning paper.
Bud went to investigate and find his brother. He didn’t have far to go. Just two blocks from his home he found the canvas paper bag and the bike. Mike had been missing now for just over an hour. Bud returned home and told his parents what he had found. The Bayle’s called the Indianapolis Police, to report Mike missing. They were told to wait and see if he returned and if not then call them back. Bud returned to 12 South Harris, pulled the bike’s fender away from the rear tire, replaced the chain, picked up the remaining papers, and finished the route that Mike had started.
Time went by slowly. Gerald Bayles, with his two other sons John and James, along two of his friends began to search for Mike, but had no success.
At 8:55 am, Marion Adkins III (a local farmer, from Shirley) was driving his tractor east on West County Road 550 South, in the rural south west corner of Henry County. He was returning from feeding his livestock. Approximately one-fourth of a mile east of Indiana State Road 109 and only 300 yards from his driveway, Mr. Adkins saw the body of a young boy in a drainage ditch, hidden amongst four foot tall weeds.
At 9:25 am, Officer Glenn Cupp of the Knightstown Police Department arrived and found the nude body of the young boy laying face up alongside the road in the ditch. Officer Cupp reported that the boy was dragged leaving heel marks in the gravel 15 feet, from the center of the road to the ditch that lay on the south side of the road. There was a wound or gash along his abdomen, possibly made by a knife. The boy’s body was still warm and only clad in socks.
The Henry County Coroner, David L. Estell, estimated that the time of death to be 6:30 am. Coroner Estell stated that death was due to internal hemorrhaging (internal bleeding) and that the boy was not sexually molested. It was reported that the boy had received eight superficial wounds to his lower abdomen and one to the back of his neck, with bruises to his neck and right arm.
At 1:00 pm, the Bayles family heard on a local radio station the description of the body of an unidentified boy found in eastern Indiana. The description of the body found matched closely to that of Mike. Mr. Bayles called the State Police. A Trooper was dispatched to the Bayles' residence; he was given a photo of Mike. The Trooper returned from the Couden Funeral Home in New Castle to the Bayles residence about 6 pm and told the Bayle’s family they needed to make a more certain identification. Mike’s body was identified at 9:00 pm by his father, there was no mistaking that the boy was Mike, his red hair was the identifier.
On Sunday the witness called the Indianapolis Police Department, perhaps to see what they knew after seeing the headlines in the Indianapolis Star. He told the police that he had witness the abduction of Mike the previous morning. He stated that as he approached the alley way south of Washington Street on South Harris a dusty green or blue Rambler pulled out of the alley and blocked South Harris at an angle. He stopped his car, heard a scream, and saw a man that he described as a possible Caucasian or a Hispanic male. He was around five foot ten, 180 to 185 pounds, in his twenty’s, and wearing a dark colored work jacket and pants. He was holding a small boy and dragging him towards the car. The man was holding Mike by his arm with his left hand and pressing a long white handle knife against the back of Mike's neck with his right hand. The witness said he asked "What the hell are you doing with the kid?" The man turned and replied. "That's my kid and he's running away. I'm taking him home." The witness stated the he told the man it was a terrible way to treat a child. He stated he tried to get the license plate, but the plate was dust covered and was able to see the county prefix of 49 with the letters, E, F or P and a combination of five and eight. The witness stated there was a second man in the car with what appeared to be, close cropped hair.
The witness was given a polygraph test, passed and gave an alibi to the police.
A short time after Mike’s abduction, the witness’s seven year old daughter had witnessed her father placing a blood covered knife in a bag and placing it in a hole in a wall at their residence at XXX South Harris. She has stated that her father threatened her life if she ever spoke of what she saw. The family abruptly moved to Florida with little belongings to their name.
The witness family later returned to Indiana and lived at a campground outside of New Castle, Indiana.
In 1986 or 1987 the old the witness residence at XXX South Harris was set fire. The witness daughter reported to the police about the knife, her father’s threats, and his involvement in Mike’s abduction and murder, but they were more concerned about her safety than her story.
Over the years the witness had told family members of murdering the “paperboy” and even mentioned it on his death bed in 2013.
The second autopsy was performed the day Mike was to be laid to rest, and nothing new was found.
The weapon and Mike’s clothing (black jeans, black tennis shoes, yellow shirt with pinkish stripes and blue fingertip windbreaker) have never been found.
At the time, a suspect was a known pedophile by the name of Robert Eugene Schmidt. He was on work release from Central State Mental Hospital, less than a block from the Bayles’ residence and was arrested in Arizona and brought back to Indianapolis.
A Grand Jury found little to nothing to charge him with for the abduction and murder of Mike, Schmidt was sent to the Beatty Mental Hospital in Westfield in early 1971, and then later released.
Schmidt was the prime suspect till recent events.
Mike rests at the Summit Lawn Cemetery in Westfield, one row behind his Mother and Father.
Most of Mike’s family still survives, his older brother John and sister Carol, nephew Travis, niece Sonja and Mike’s Cousin Elizabeth (Bayles) Smith and others.
And you ask who am I? No one really, just someone who cares.
I have been asked by many people the same questions, “Did you know Mike?”, “Did you know the Bayles’ family?” My answers to these questions are the same, a simple “NO”. But I wish I did. Then the question, “Why are you doing this for someone you don’t know?” The answer to that question is “I don’t know, just know I have to.”
In October 1970, I was just a 13 year old eighth grader at Indianapolis Public School #98 on the far east side of Indianapolis. This was 18 miles from Mike’s West Jackson Street home.
On that Sunday morning, I read the headlines about Mike. I cut out the article and placed it in a scrapbook which I kept of newspaper stories I found of interest.
Monday morning in my Homeroom I asked a fellow classmate to collect and bring me in the articles from the Indianapolis Star. My family received only the Indianapolis News at the time. I would pay ten cents for the small articles and 25 cents for the larger ones. Over the weeks I kept up with the nightly news stories, read the articles I had and placed them in my scrapbook.
In my pocket I carried the sketch, of the suspect that the witness gave to the Police. A few of my neighborhood friends and I would ride our bikes looking for the suspect, the car, and Mike's clothes. The woods and field in our Northeastwood neighborhood were never so searched and watched so closely before.
But then the articles stopped, the nightly news stories ended, and as kids often do we/I move onto other adventures and different objects took my interest.
In time, my scrapbook was lost in one of many moves; the name of Jerry Bayles was lost in my memory. However, the story was not.
Over the years, working in various children’s homes as a Child Care Worker, 25 years as an Emergency Medical Technician on Wishard and Bloomington Hospital Ambulance Services, and years of cave rescues, I never forgot the tragic story of the paperboy who was abducted and murdered.
For years, off and on, I would do web searches; send email inquiries off to different internet websites, but never found the story again.
October 2013, I felt a bit nostalgic and was going through my old grade school yearbooks looking at the comments left and all the signatures of my old friends and classmates. There on one of the last pages was a name I did not recall and it was in my handwriting. Whose name was this?
I Googled the name and was brought to the Indiana State Police web page of their cold cases.
In bold print was the name Jerry Michael Bayles. The name of the paperboy I had forgotten. I copied the page and started a file folder. I did more searches and came up with many out of town and out of state newspaper articles, those too I copied and filed.
I took a guess at the grade school that Mike may have attended, Indianapolis Public School #50, which was near to his home. I did a search on Classmates.com and found that a Nikki had posted class pictures from 1970. I did a search for her on Facebook and found her, I wrote her a message asking her if she knew Mike, and I waited.
I continued my search of Bayles on Facebook and found Mike’s brothers James and Gordon, and their children. I sent messages to each and waited.
I did a search of the Polk’s Indianapolis City Directories and found Mike’s address. I wrote emails off to the Indianapolis Star, the Indiana State Police, and to my old friend the Director of Marion County Homeland Security. Who forwarded my email to the Commander of the Indiana State Police. I sent an email to a friend at the Law Enforcement Academy, and he to forward my emails off to his friends at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and to the Indiana State Police.
With what little information I had I started the Facebook page and a web page. Then Nikki replied to me, along with many of Mike’s old classmates and friends. She sent me pictures of Mike from her School #50 yearbook and commented on what she remembered of Mike.
The State Police replied to my email and a meeting was set up with Detective Scott Jarvis of the Pendleton Post.
In November, I went to find and visit Mike. I started at the back of Summit Lawn Cemetery in Westfield. I walked up the north side, then down the south side. The day was cloudy and grey. Then I saw the name "Bayles" on a stone. The sky cleared and the sun came out. I walked up to it and it was a marker for Mike's parents. I said “hello” and saw in the next row behind them was a small granite marker, it was Mike’s. I knelt down at it and cried. Why I don’t know. I spent an hour at his grave site, talking to him, and there I gave my word, swore on Mike’s grave that I would never give up looking for who put him there, that I would keep his name alive and never again would I forget his name. I placed a stone on the marker I brought from home, painted on it were Mike’s initials, “JMB”. On the fence line was a vine of Bittersweet; I cut a twig of it off and placed it under the stone.
That night as I was drifting off to sleep I swear I heard a child's voice saying "thank you", three times in a row.
Things started to look good. Travis Bayles, son of James and Mike’s would be nephew contacted me. The Ronda’s daughter, Mike’s would be niece contacted me. The picture of Mike’s short life was being filled in.
Because the Indiana State Police still had the case as active, there was very little information that Detective Jarvis could give me. However, I did have the location of were Mike was found.
I started weekly trips to the Indiana State Library to copy the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News articles from their micro film files.
Detective Jarvis and I kept in touch with the information that I found.
I talked with Mike’s older brother John on the phone. The conversation was meant for finding out what type of kid Mike was, and not to talk about what happened to him. I wanted background information on Mike. The call ended up being an hour long and John told me he knew who did it, that it wasn’t the “mental patient”, but a next-door neighbor. Raymond Eastes, John said, was going through a divorce at the time, and had threatened to kill his wife and kids. One of his kids was a friend of John’s. He said didn’t live at the house on West Jackson where the Bayles lived, but in a town that started with an “M”, near were Mike was found.
John also spoke that Eastes knew things about the abduction and murder of Mike before the Bayles family knew of it. John still swears he was the one who abducted Mike and murdered him.
I visited the sight were Mike was found back in 1970. It used to be a gravel road with a ditch, but now it is a paved road with a small dip on the side and open fields on the north and south side.
I sent off a letter to the farmer who found Mike. Along with the letter I put map with a mark where Detective Jarvis and I believed was the correct location. The map was returned along with a note saying that it was the correct location.
I posted a comment on the Facebook page, that the farmer had confirmed the location of where Mike was found. The farmer’s family asked that I remove his name from the Facebook page, and said that the family did not want anything to do with the page. I did what they asked.
Now eight months later, I've made contact with Detective William Carter of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. He was unable to find any information on Mike’s case in the files for 1970 or in the old cold case files, nothing at all.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is currently not active in the case; all files and evidence were turned over to the Indiana State Police at the time of the arrest of Schmidt. (The initial suspect from Central State.)
Jerry Michael Bayles friends and classmates still remember him, his family still loves him, and they all have thanked me again and again for all I have done.
You ask what I want to gain for my effort and time. I want nothing but what has already been given to me by the Bayles’ family, “Thank you”. That is my reward.
On Sunday July 20th, 2014 at 1:21pm, (43 years, 9 months, 17 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes since the reported time of Mike’s abduction) I received a phone call from the witness’ daughter. Before I had the chance to ask any questions regarding her father as the witness to Mike’s abduction she tells me her father, the witness, was the one who abducted and murdered Jerry Michael Bayles, the paperboy. I literally when to my knees and cried. For the next hour she tells me of stories of possible other murders her father may have commented over the years and the abuse she received from him. She told me of the threats of killing her if she ever spoke of the knife she saw or a word of him killing the Mike the “paperboy”.
After the call I emailed Detective Jarvis of the Indiana State Police, and with the witness’ daughter’ statement the final investigation into the senseless murder of a 10 year old boy was coming to a close.
I have kept my word to Mike. He isn’t forgotten and I helped a friend I never met or really knew.
(1) These times are based on the report the witness gave to police on October 4th, 1970 as to be the witness to the abduction of Mike.
If we base the abduction off the reported time the witness said the man drugged Mike into the car of 5:25am and the Henry Coroner’s time of death of Mike of 6:30am. This would give the witness one hour and five minutes to murder Mike and drive the forty-seven to fifty-five minute drive to the location Mike was found.
(2) These times are based off the time when Mrs. Thomas P. Baker heard a scream and saw the tail lights on South Harris Street from her residence at 40 South Warman Avenue.
If we base the abduction off the time Mrs. Thomas P. Baker reported hearing a scream of 4:45am to 5:00am and the Henry Coroner’s time of death of Mike of 6:30am. This would give the witness fifty to one hour twelve minutes to drive the forty-seven to fifty-five minute drive to the location Mike was found.
The day before around four in the morning, ten year old, four foot four, redheaded Jerry Michael Bayles, known as Mike, woke up and began to get ready to cover his fifteen year old brother’s, Indianapolis Star paper route. Gordon was ill that morning, and Mike was eager to jump at the chance to run the paper route. Gordon, known as Bud, started the route just six weeks earlier to help his parents out. The trucking company, which Gerald Bayles, (Mike’s father) worked for had been on strike. The family of six, had been living off of their mother’s paycheck from the Steak n Shake restaurant she was working at.
A few times, when the family was without food, Mike would take money he earned from helping on the paper route and buy brownies and bread for his family so that they would have something to eat.
Mike had been doing small jobs for change at the local laundry mat and Burger Chef. He took out the trash, swept floors and returned empty soda bottles. He was a good kid, always willing to help others. By all accounts Mike was a quiet, shy, and a friendly boy that always wore a smile. He had dreams of joining the army when he grew up.
Mike was an AAA traffic guard at the Indianapolis Public School #50, (Nathaniel Hawthorne) where attened fifth grade. His post was at the corner of West Washington Street and Warman Avenue, along with an adult Crossing Guard known as Miss Kelly.
It was a bit cool that Saturday morning, the temperature was fifty five and there was a slight breeze. Mike gathered up the collection money he had collected the night before, $21 and some change, the double canvas paper bag, and rode off on the bike.
He rode from the two-story double at 2830 West Jackson Street and headed towards Harris Avenue, then up to West Washington Street to the newspaper's circulation office.
The circulation office was a small white wood sided shack located in the alley behind the Clark Gas Station at 2502 West Washington Street.
Mike looked up to his big brother Bud. The fifth grader had been tagging along with him since Bud had started the route, in the mornings, during the summer, and on a few mornings before school had started. Mike knew the route well, and how long it would take to finish the route.
The plan was Mike would meet Bud when he got to his house, and Bud was going to help Mike finish the route that morning.
Mike gathered up the forty eight papers, put them in the canvas shoulder bag that he hung over the handle bars of the green female sting ray bike and left the circulation office around 5:17am(1). It would take Mike less than five minutes to travel the half mile back to his first stop.
Between 5:10 to 5:15 am(1), a filling station manager (The witness) at the Star Petroleum and Service Station at XXX West 16th Street, had left his residence at XXX South Harris Avenue and headed north on Harris. It would take him roughly one minute to drive to the intersection of South Harris and West Washington Street.
Mike left his first paper at the Indiana National Bank Branch which sat at the corner of West Washington Street and Harris Avenue. As Mike rode across the street to the next delivery, 12 South Harris Avenue, (the residence of William Johnson), the witness hit or all most hit Mike as he rode across Harris. The witness slammed on his brakes. The abrupt stop caused the the witness’s coffee to spill, which set the witness off. The witness was known to have a history of an ill temper toward females and children, along with being an alcoholic.
Roughly between 4:45am to 5:00pm(2)., Mrs. Thomas P. Baker of 40 South Warman Avenue, heard a scream and saw a speeding car leaving the alley south of Washington Street and to Harris Avenue. A female residence at the beginning of Mike’s route, also reported hearing a scream and tail lights leaving north on Harris, at this noted time.
Mike never made it to the third stop at 16 South Harris Avenue.
Now the story of Mike becomes unclear. Little, if anything is known about what happened next. What we do know is that the bike's chain was off, and the rear fender was dented into the tire. The bike and the canvas bag, full of 46 unfolded papers, were left in the yard of Mr. Johnson’s house. We have to speculate that The witness, in a fit of rage. grabbed Mike and forced him into the car. Either The witness hit the bike with the car as Mike rode across the Harris, causing the rear fender to be dented in, or The witness kicked the fender while Mike was on the bike or after the bike was on the ground. The witness was known to carry a kitchen knife in his car at all times.
The witness drove towards West Washington Street; this was the last time Mike was seen alive. The time was 5:25am (1).
With only an hour before sunrise, the Bayle’s phone began to ring at 6:30 am. Some subscribers were calling to complain that they hadn't received their morning paper.
Bud went to investigate and find his brother. He didn’t have far to go. Just two blocks from his home he found the canvas paper bag and the bike. Mike had been missing now for just over an hour. Bud returned home and told his parents what he had found. The Bayle’s called the Indianapolis Police, to report Mike missing. They were told to wait and see if he returned and if not then call them back. Bud returned to 12 South Harris, pulled the bike’s fender away from the rear tire, replaced the chain, picked up the remaining papers, and finished the route that Mike had started.
Time went by slowly. Gerald Bayles, with his two other sons John and James, along two of his friends began to search for Mike, but had no success.
At 8:55 am, Marion Adkins III (a local farmer, from Shirley) was driving his tractor east on West County Road 550 South, in the rural south west corner of Henry County. He was returning from feeding his livestock. Approximately one-fourth of a mile east of Indiana State Road 109 and only 300 yards from his driveway, Mr. Adkins saw the body of a young boy in a drainage ditch, hidden amongst four foot tall weeds.
At 9:25 am, Officer Glenn Cupp of the Knightstown Police Department arrived and found the nude body of the young boy laying face up alongside the road in the ditch. Officer Cupp reported that the boy was dragged leaving heel marks in the gravel 15 feet, from the center of the road to the ditch that lay on the south side of the road. There was a wound or gash along his abdomen, possibly made by a knife. The boy’s body was still warm and only clad in socks.
The Henry County Coroner, David L. Estell, estimated that the time of death to be 6:30 am. Coroner Estell stated that death was due to internal hemorrhaging (internal bleeding) and that the boy was not sexually molested. It was reported that the boy had received eight superficial wounds to his lower abdomen and one to the back of his neck, with bruises to his neck and right arm.
At 1:00 pm, the Bayles family heard on a local radio station the description of the body of an unidentified boy found in eastern Indiana. The description of the body found matched closely to that of Mike. Mr. Bayles called the State Police. A Trooper was dispatched to the Bayles' residence; he was given a photo of Mike. The Trooper returned from the Couden Funeral Home in New Castle to the Bayles residence about 6 pm and told the Bayle’s family they needed to make a more certain identification. Mike’s body was identified at 9:00 pm by his father, there was no mistaking that the boy was Mike, his red hair was the identifier.
On Sunday the witness called the Indianapolis Police Department, perhaps to see what they knew after seeing the headlines in the Indianapolis Star. He told the police that he had witness the abduction of Mike the previous morning. He stated that as he approached the alley way south of Washington Street on South Harris a dusty green or blue Rambler pulled out of the alley and blocked South Harris at an angle. He stopped his car, heard a scream, and saw a man that he described as a possible Caucasian or a Hispanic male. He was around five foot ten, 180 to 185 pounds, in his twenty’s, and wearing a dark colored work jacket and pants. He was holding a small boy and dragging him towards the car. The man was holding Mike by his arm with his left hand and pressing a long white handle knife against the back of Mike's neck with his right hand. The witness said he asked "What the hell are you doing with the kid?" The man turned and replied. "That's my kid and he's running away. I'm taking him home." The witness stated the he told the man it was a terrible way to treat a child. He stated he tried to get the license plate, but the plate was dust covered and was able to see the county prefix of 49 with the letters, E, F or P and a combination of five and eight. The witness stated there was a second man in the car with what appeared to be, close cropped hair.
The witness was given a polygraph test, passed and gave an alibi to the police.
A short time after Mike’s abduction, the witness’s seven year old daughter had witnessed her father placing a blood covered knife in a bag and placing it in a hole in a wall at their residence at XXX South Harris. She has stated that her father threatened her life if she ever spoke of what she saw. The family abruptly moved to Florida with little belongings to their name.
The witness family later returned to Indiana and lived at a campground outside of New Castle, Indiana.
In 1986 or 1987 the old the witness residence at XXX South Harris was set fire. The witness daughter reported to the police about the knife, her father’s threats, and his involvement in Mike’s abduction and murder, but they were more concerned about her safety than her story.
Over the years the witness had told family members of murdering the “paperboy” and even mentioned it on his death bed in 2013.
The second autopsy was performed the day Mike was to be laid to rest, and nothing new was found.
The weapon and Mike’s clothing (black jeans, black tennis shoes, yellow shirt with pinkish stripes and blue fingertip windbreaker) have never been found.
At the time, a suspect was a known pedophile by the name of Robert Eugene Schmidt. He was on work release from Central State Mental Hospital, less than a block from the Bayles’ residence and was arrested in Arizona and brought back to Indianapolis.
A Grand Jury found little to nothing to charge him with for the abduction and murder of Mike, Schmidt was sent to the Beatty Mental Hospital in Westfield in early 1971, and then later released.
Schmidt was the prime suspect till recent events.
Mike rests at the Summit Lawn Cemetery in Westfield, one row behind his Mother and Father.
Most of Mike’s family still survives, his older brother John and sister Carol, nephew Travis, niece Sonja and Mike’s Cousin Elizabeth (Bayles) Smith and others.
And you ask who am I? No one really, just someone who cares.
I have been asked by many people the same questions, “Did you know Mike?”, “Did you know the Bayles’ family?” My answers to these questions are the same, a simple “NO”. But I wish I did. Then the question, “Why are you doing this for someone you don’t know?” The answer to that question is “I don’t know, just know I have to.”
In October 1970, I was just a 13 year old eighth grader at Indianapolis Public School #98 on the far east side of Indianapolis. This was 18 miles from Mike’s West Jackson Street home.
On that Sunday morning, I read the headlines about Mike. I cut out the article and placed it in a scrapbook which I kept of newspaper stories I found of interest.
Monday morning in my Homeroom I asked a fellow classmate to collect and bring me in the articles from the Indianapolis Star. My family received only the Indianapolis News at the time. I would pay ten cents for the small articles and 25 cents for the larger ones. Over the weeks I kept up with the nightly news stories, read the articles I had and placed them in my scrapbook.
In my pocket I carried the sketch, of the suspect that the witness gave to the Police. A few of my neighborhood friends and I would ride our bikes looking for the suspect, the car, and Mike's clothes. The woods and field in our Northeastwood neighborhood were never so searched and watched so closely before.
But then the articles stopped, the nightly news stories ended, and as kids often do we/I move onto other adventures and different objects took my interest.
In time, my scrapbook was lost in one of many moves; the name of Jerry Bayles was lost in my memory. However, the story was not.
Over the years, working in various children’s homes as a Child Care Worker, 25 years as an Emergency Medical Technician on Wishard and Bloomington Hospital Ambulance Services, and years of cave rescues, I never forgot the tragic story of the paperboy who was abducted and murdered.
For years, off and on, I would do web searches; send email inquiries off to different internet websites, but never found the story again.
October 2013, I felt a bit nostalgic and was going through my old grade school yearbooks looking at the comments left and all the signatures of my old friends and classmates. There on one of the last pages was a name I did not recall and it was in my handwriting. Whose name was this?
I Googled the name and was brought to the Indiana State Police web page of their cold cases.
In bold print was the name Jerry Michael Bayles. The name of the paperboy I had forgotten. I copied the page and started a file folder. I did more searches and came up with many out of town and out of state newspaper articles, those too I copied and filed.
I took a guess at the grade school that Mike may have attended, Indianapolis Public School #50, which was near to his home. I did a search on Classmates.com and found that a Nikki had posted class pictures from 1970. I did a search for her on Facebook and found her, I wrote her a message asking her if she knew Mike, and I waited.
I continued my search of Bayles on Facebook and found Mike’s brothers James and Gordon, and their children. I sent messages to each and waited.
I did a search of the Polk’s Indianapolis City Directories and found Mike’s address. I wrote emails off to the Indianapolis Star, the Indiana State Police, and to my old friend the Director of Marion County Homeland Security. Who forwarded my email to the Commander of the Indiana State Police. I sent an email to a friend at the Law Enforcement Academy, and he to forward my emails off to his friends at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and to the Indiana State Police.
With what little information I had I started the Facebook page and a web page. Then Nikki replied to me, along with many of Mike’s old classmates and friends. She sent me pictures of Mike from her School #50 yearbook and commented on what she remembered of Mike.
The State Police replied to my email and a meeting was set up with Detective Scott Jarvis of the Pendleton Post.
In November, I went to find and visit Mike. I started at the back of Summit Lawn Cemetery in Westfield. I walked up the north side, then down the south side. The day was cloudy and grey. Then I saw the name "Bayles" on a stone. The sky cleared and the sun came out. I walked up to it and it was a marker for Mike's parents. I said “hello” and saw in the next row behind them was a small granite marker, it was Mike’s. I knelt down at it and cried. Why I don’t know. I spent an hour at his grave site, talking to him, and there I gave my word, swore on Mike’s grave that I would never give up looking for who put him there, that I would keep his name alive and never again would I forget his name. I placed a stone on the marker I brought from home, painted on it were Mike’s initials, “JMB”. On the fence line was a vine of Bittersweet; I cut a twig of it off and placed it under the stone.
That night as I was drifting off to sleep I swear I heard a child's voice saying "thank you", three times in a row.
Things started to look good. Travis Bayles, son of James and Mike’s would be nephew contacted me. The Ronda’s daughter, Mike’s would be niece contacted me. The picture of Mike’s short life was being filled in.
Because the Indiana State Police still had the case as active, there was very little information that Detective Jarvis could give me. However, I did have the location of were Mike was found.
I started weekly trips to the Indiana State Library to copy the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News articles from their micro film files.
Detective Jarvis and I kept in touch with the information that I found.
I talked with Mike’s older brother John on the phone. The conversation was meant for finding out what type of kid Mike was, and not to talk about what happened to him. I wanted background information on Mike. The call ended up being an hour long and John told me he knew who did it, that it wasn’t the “mental patient”, but a next-door neighbor. Raymond Eastes, John said, was going through a divorce at the time, and had threatened to kill his wife and kids. One of his kids was a friend of John’s. He said didn’t live at the house on West Jackson where the Bayles lived, but in a town that started with an “M”, near were Mike was found.
John also spoke that Eastes knew things about the abduction and murder of Mike before the Bayles family knew of it. John still swears he was the one who abducted Mike and murdered him.
I visited the sight were Mike was found back in 1970. It used to be a gravel road with a ditch, but now it is a paved road with a small dip on the side and open fields on the north and south side.
I sent off a letter to the farmer who found Mike. Along with the letter I put map with a mark where Detective Jarvis and I believed was the correct location. The map was returned along with a note saying that it was the correct location.
I posted a comment on the Facebook page, that the farmer had confirmed the location of where Mike was found. The farmer’s family asked that I remove his name from the Facebook page, and said that the family did not want anything to do with the page. I did what they asked.
Now eight months later, I've made contact with Detective William Carter of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. He was unable to find any information on Mike’s case in the files for 1970 or in the old cold case files, nothing at all.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is currently not active in the case; all files and evidence were turned over to the Indiana State Police at the time of the arrest of Schmidt. (The initial suspect from Central State.)
Jerry Michael Bayles friends and classmates still remember him, his family still loves him, and they all have thanked me again and again for all I have done.
You ask what I want to gain for my effort and time. I want nothing but what has already been given to me by the Bayles’ family, “Thank you”. That is my reward.
On Sunday July 20th, 2014 at 1:21pm, (43 years, 9 months, 17 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes since the reported time of Mike’s abduction) I received a phone call from the witness’ daughter. Before I had the chance to ask any questions regarding her father as the witness to Mike’s abduction she tells me her father, the witness, was the one who abducted and murdered Jerry Michael Bayles, the paperboy. I literally when to my knees and cried. For the next hour she tells me of stories of possible other murders her father may have commented over the years and the abuse she received from him. She told me of the threats of killing her if she ever spoke of the knife she saw or a word of him killing the Mike the “paperboy”.
After the call I emailed Detective Jarvis of the Indiana State Police, and with the witness’ daughter’ statement the final investigation into the senseless murder of a 10 year old boy was coming to a close.
I have kept my word to Mike. He isn’t forgotten and I helped a friend I never met or really knew.
(1) These times are based on the report the witness gave to police on October 4th, 1970 as to be the witness to the abduction of Mike.
If we base the abduction off the reported time the witness said the man drugged Mike into the car of 5:25am and the Henry Coroner’s time of death of Mike of 6:30am. This would give the witness one hour and five minutes to murder Mike and drive the forty-seven to fifty-five minute drive to the location Mike was found.
(2) These times are based off the time when Mrs. Thomas P. Baker heard a scream and saw the tail lights on South Harris Street from her residence at 40 South Warman Avenue.
If we base the abduction off the time Mrs. Thomas P. Baker reported hearing a scream of 4:45am to 5:00am and the Henry Coroner’s time of death of Mike of 6:30am. This would give the witness fifty to one hour twelve minutes to drive the forty-seven to fifty-five minute drive to the location Mike was found.