MURDER
CASE #: 2015-21
Joseph Smedley
Status:
Open
Date of Offense:
Date of Offense:
Jurisdiction:
Offense Location:
Griffy Lake, Bloomington, Indiana
Summary:
The family of Joseph Smedley, who was found dead in a lake in 2015, still want answers about a mysterious text message and a backpack full of rocks.
Vital Statistics
Circumstances of Offense:
The explanation, however, made no sense to Vivian. There was no indication that her brother was depressed or suicidal. There weren’t even that many rocks available at Griffy Lake — she tried to collect 66 pounds of rocks herself and couldn’t find enough. In order for the suicide-by-drowning theory to work, it meant Joseph would have needed to walk 45 minutes from his house, load a backpack full of rocks, and then step off a bridge into 5 feet of water. Joseph was 5 foot 7 inches tall and could have easily stood on the bottom of the lake.
Additional Details:
When Vivian awoke on Sept. 28, she had a strange text message from Joseph saying that he was leaving the country in order to protect her. The message asked her not to call, instead promising that he would be in touch as soon as he was settled. Vivian assumed it was another one of Joseph’s pranks — he didn’t even have a passport — and she texted back with another reminder to pay the landlord. Phone calls to Joseph went to voicemail, but she didn’t worry until she found out from the landlord that her brother had never been by to pay what he owed. IU Bloomington police conducted a welfare check and found that Joseph hadn’t attended classes that day and he wasn’t at his home. The rising panic was briefly quelled when police called Vivian to tell her that her brother was in jail, but it was just a clerical mistake. The next day, Sept. 29, Joseph was declared to be a missing person. The Lake Just two days later, a fisherman on Griffy Lake in Bloomington found the badly decomposed body of a male with binoculars tied around his neck. It was Joseph, and an initial autopsy report listed his cause of death as drowning. Two months later, the completed autopsy had a shocking determination for cause and manner of death: suicide by drowning. Not only had Joseph’s body been in the lake, he had apparently been weighed down with a backpack full of 66 pounds of rocks.
Case Last Updated:
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