A cold case investigator linked a Westville inmate to a fifth Gary cold case killing, charges allege.
Edward Russell Jr., 65, was charged Monday with murder in the March 7 or 8, 2001, stabbing death of Tonya Armstrong.
Hobart Police Assistant Chief Nick Wardrip wrote Armstrong’s death had “come up” in an interview with Russell as he was investigating his potential involvement
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in four different cold case Gary killings from 2002.Charges were unsealed against Russell earlier this year in those deaths.
In Armstrong’s death, Wardrip wrote that DNA from her fingernail clippings from her right hand linked Russell and an “unknown, unrelated person,” documents allege.
Gary Police responded on March 7, 2001, to an apartment building on the 500 block of E. 5th Avenue after Armstrong’s then-boyfriend came home from work and reported her missing.
The next morning, police responded again after the landlord unlocked an apartment across the hall after he hadn’t seen the tenant – a different man – in a couple weeks. The landlord found Armstrong’s body in a closet, charges state.
She was found stabbed in the chest. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Documents state that Russell worked as a “maintenance man” for the landlord, his then-brother-in-law, and had keys to the building, charges allege.
Armstrong’s relatives told police in 2002 that Russell “frequented” the apartments and both he and Russell were “drug abusers,” Wardrip wrote.
A witness called police to say he said he saw Russell at a doctor’s office with his “right hand bandaged,” possibly about a month after her death.
Armstrong’s boyfriend told Wardrip in June that she used “crack cocaine” at the time of her death, charges state. He could not pick Russell in a lineup, the affidavit states.