Years of leads and an on-and-off police investigation eventually led cold case investigators to a Westville inmate now linked to four 2002 Gary homicides.
Witnesses told Gary Police nearly a quarter century ago that Mary Ann Wrencher was in the process of breaking up with Edward Russell, Jr. when she died.
Russell, now 64, has been charged with four counts of murder in the Feb. 9, 2002 death of Mary Ann Wrencher, and the Feb. 8-12, 2002 deaths of Leonard Johnson, Barbara Hall and Curtis Hall.
He has been transferred to the Lake County Jail.
Russell’s lawyer Derrick Julkes declined comment Monday, saying he just got assigned to the case. A court hearing is scheduled April 9 before Judge Samuel Cappas.
State records show Russell is serving a 22-year sentence in Westville for a March 2, 2016 robbery in South Bend.
Hobart Police Assistant Chief Nick Wardrip of the FBI’s Gang Response Investigative Team (GRIT) reopened the case.
Back in 2002, Wrencher’s son told Gary Police that Russell had dated Wrencher for two years.
Wrencher, 43, of 815 Kentucky St., was last seen with her boyfriend and another woman.
She was found stabbed to death just after 9 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2002 near the back door of her house, where the killer dragged her after the assault, police said. She had been partially covered with a garbage can, according to Post-Tribune archives.
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She was stabbed in the chest, neck, shoulder, and fingers. Her death was ruled a homicide.
“Russell is over here clowning again,” the sister said Wrencher told her on the phone at 4 a.m. “He’s kicking in my door. I put him out because I didn’t want him to be smoking cigarettes in the living room.”
One witness, who was ill with the flu, said she woke up briefly around 1 a.m. while Wrencher was kicking Russell out for smoking. She went back to sleep. When she woke up at 7 a.m., Wrencher was gone.
She called Wrencher’s sister, asking where she was, adding there was blood on the sidewalk.
The sister called Wrencher’s son, who went to check on her with his girlfriend. They found her body.
The son described Russell’s distinctive gold diamond “nugget” class ring that was found “near a puddle of blood.”
A month earlier, his mother told him Russell “choked,” “slapped,” and “put her into an asthma attack,” the affidavit states.
The other witness said she witnessed Russell hitting Wrencher in January 2002 after the woman was “picking on him.” Wrencher had an asthma attack and the other woman called for paramedics.
The second woman told police Russell gave Wrencher cash that night. She left briefly to buy crack cocaine.
Wrencher told Russell she wanted his stuff out and “sounded serious” that she was breaking up with him, the woman said. She left that night.
She told officers that she saw them argue in the handful of times she was at Wrencher’s home but didn’t see any “physical violence.”
A third woman told police in 2002 that Russell was at Wrencher’s home the night she died.
She was on the phone with Wrencher when she heard Russell say, “open this (expletive) door,” the affidavit states.
Wrencher told her she didn’t have a ride to leave. The woman “stayed in the phone” for another 10-15 minutes. It went quiet, and she hung up.
She learned the next morning that Wrencher was found dead.
A fourth woman told police in 2011 that Wrencher called her saying Russell was trying to get in the house.
“Why are you not opening this door,” she heard him say. “So it’s like this now?”
The woman recalled how she heard Russell threaten to kill Wrencher in 2001. She added he was “very controlling” and said “no one else loved her,” charges state.
Wrencher’s son told Wardrip in February 2019 that Russell was “quiet” but “would do stuff to his mother when no one was around,” Wardrip wrote.
Wrencher said Russell once tied her to a chair, poked her with a knife, and threatened to burn the house down, the son said.
The son said he believed Russell committed the triple homicide first because his mom had some of Johnson’s coins.
Russell disappeared after Wrencher’s death, didn’t attend her funeral and moved to South Bend, he said.
Gary Police responded in July 2001 to the home after Russell battered her, the son added. According to the police report, Wrencher said she kicked out others smoking crack with Russell.
Officers wrote Russell punched, dragged, choked, beat her. She hit her head on the sidewalk. One saw windows Russell allegedly broke out in the past.
Wrencher told them she was “relieved” they arrested Russell, who said he told her “the devil” told him to kill her.
“He can’t stop the devil,” the affidavit states.
He got probation for the incident.
Barbara Hall’s Minnesota relatives called police late Feb. 12, 2002 begging them to check on her welfare.
Hall, 59, had missed essential life-giving dialysis treatments, so something must be very wrong, family members said.
Ten hours later, the first officers to arrive at 820 Virginia St. were finally clearing the scene after technicians finished collecting evidence from the bloody aftermath of a deadly assault on Hall, her son, Curtis, and Johnson.
All three were stabbed multiple times with 20-inch garden shears, coroner’s officials said.
The three were pronounced dead at the scene about 10:30 p.m., although they could have been dead for several days, investigators said.
Russell and Johnson worked on cars together, charges state. After the murders, Johnson’s 1982 Oldsmobile was stolen.
Police found it abandoned on Feb. 10, 2002 by the Michigan border. A McDonald’s receipt from 9:23 a.m. Feb. 9 was inside. At the time, Russell had a relative who lived in Michigan.
No fingerprints were found.
A hotel attendant identified Russell “loitering” before another car was stolen from a nearby gas station.
Police found that car, a 1997 Chevrolet Lumina, on the 1700 block of Hayes Street in Gary.
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Police arrested Russell on Feb. 11, 2002 after a chase in St. Joseph County near South Bend in another stolen vehicle.
Larry Whitehead, who has since died, said he saw Russell in the Lumina around that time.
When police interviewed Russell in St. Joseph County after the four killings, he had cuts in his hands.
Victim Barbara Hall was in a downstairs bedroom of the two-story brick building. Her son, Curtis, 42, was dead in an upstairs bedroom, police said.
When relatives on the scene insisted a third person lived at the address, then-Detective Cpl. Bill Fazekas and Patrolman Donald Rosenski searched the garage and found 71-year-old Leonard “Mr. Red” Johnson lying on the floor partially under a car. A broken screwdriver was nearby.
Police found shoe prints and nearly a dozen partial palm prints.
DNA analysis from the Wrencher scene in 2004 and 2010 found a mix of two people, but was otherwise inconclusive. Russell, Johnson, Barbara Hall and her son could be “included or excluded.”
No blood was detected on three knives, shoes, or a seat found in a truck.
Police interviewed Russell in Westville in March 2025.
“Did they ever catch the dude,” Russell asked of Johnson’s death. He mentioned a last name, McFarland.
Wrencher was “doing a lot of drugs” and a man called for his “money,” he said.
He claimed he only smoked crack once and was trying to help Wrencher get sober. He claimed her son was giving her drugs.
He broke up with her due to her drug use, he claimed and moved to South Bend.
He denied arguing with Wrencher about smoking in the house. He denied having a ring.
Russell brought up the March 8, 2001 death of Tonya Armstrong multiple times.
Wardrip redirected the conversation to the triple homicide. Russell denied involvement, saying one of Johnson’s girlfriends may have set him up.
He denied that he had “problems” with any of the triple homicide victims.
Johnson’s son later told Wardrip he discovered their bodies.
The neighbors saw a “mechanic” that “used crack” go back and forth “taking property” from the home days before the bodies were discovered.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter did not clarify why the case lapsed for more than two decades. A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for further comment.
“We recognize the significance of these charges, particularly given the length of time since the original investigation. To preserve the integrity of the judicial process, we cannot provide further comment while the case is pending, however, we believe there could be more victims,” Carter said in a statement.
He requested that anyone with information to contact Wardrip of the Lake County Prosecutor’s Homicide Task Force at 219-900-4388 or via email at [email protected].
“Our office remains committed to ensuring justice is pursued with care and diligence,” the statement concluded.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.