Ada Haradine (3 of Clubs, Indiana)

Ada Herodine was a quiet woman who lived a quiet life in a quiet neighborhood with her family. It was the kind of neighborhood that lulls you into believing it's immune to evil.
Yes, a mother six months before and 50 miles away in Argus, Indiana, had been attacked in her home in front of her girls and taken away by a crazed killer still on the loose at the time. But if that news even reached Ada in Elkhart, Indiana, it surely felt a long way off as she worked outside in the yard one warm May day in 1985.
A next-door neighbor waved to Ada. Another passed her on his afternoon walk at 310.
She opened the mailbox and there was a ski magazine that had come. As I'm pulling out, backing out of the driveway, she holds up the ski magazine like, you know, summer's coming.
By 3.20, Ada was gone. Nobody's seen anything and there were people out that day.
Everybody said, oh yeah, it was a nice day, really warm and we were out. I seen her in the backyard.
I talked to her across the fence. Just seemed so out of whack.
I mean, that's not the type of neighborhood where you get abductions. It was a high-dollar neighborhood.
A lot of influential people lived there. Everything was as it's supposed to be.
Your purse was there, all of those things, nothing to indicate

that there had been any sort of a crime or struggle there.

We hadn't been there too long

when the main detective from the Elkhart Police Department came in.

Immediately, his reaction was not one of concern particularly.

He said, oh, they probably had an argument and she just went off someplace. And all four of us said, no, that's not Ada.
She's not like that. Our problem was we didn't have any idea what had happened to her other than she wasn't there.
As the people were interviewed, we realized that we didn't know anything. It's hard to have a direction when you're directionless.
They basically told us a few days into it, we don't have any good suspects in this case. I think we kind of resolved ourselves to the fact that it happened,

and I just prayed and prayed and prayed that somebody would find her body.

It took three years.

But some 10 miles away in a densely wooded area, someone did eventually find Ada.

My dad said, we've got some news about your mom, I need to talk to you about it.

And he said, they found your mom's remains. And it floored me.
I think part of you always thinks you're going to see her again until somebody tells you you're not. The mystery of where Ada had been was finally solved.
But finding her only compounded the questions. Questions about what happened the last day she was seen.
The noise in the house has always bothered me. And I always thought it was somebody in there and they got caught and they couldn't get out.
So they had to sit up there and wait. And then whatever happened, happened.
Questions about how Ada ended up where she was in the condition they found her. If she had clothing, where's her belt buckle? Where's the eyelets on the shoes? Where's the buttons? None of that stuff shows up.
So you got to assume she's probably naked at that spot. And questions about what was really happening in Ada's life before someone took it.
I always thought we were a perfect family. And, you know, the old they get, nobody's perfect.
No family is perfect. The facts are strange.
This case is full of weird stuff. The players, even stranger.
Obviously, it's still unsolved. But again, all we can do is try.
Well, I think it's wasted effort, not effort. In my experience, digging in and asking questions has never been a wasted effort.

And it certainly wasn't in the case of Ada Herodon.

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