Police: Plot to kill woman 'popped into' suspects' heads

INDIANAPOLIS -- Katelyn Wolfe's violent slaying had little to do with money, revenge or any of the reasons that police usually encounter. Her accused killers, investigators said Friday, just wanted to know what it felt like.

Jordan Buskirk, one of two men held in connection with her slaying, described it as "just something that popped into their heads," Linton police detective Joshua Goodman said in court documents detailing the charges.

"Jordan Buskirk explained that he and Randal Crosley had previous conversations about forcing themselves on a complete stranger for at least a week," Goodman wrote. "The initial plan was to rape and then murder.

"Jordan Buskirk explained that it was just something that popped into their heads. He advised that it just crossed their heads to try to do it."

Police in Linton, a town of 5,400 about 90 miles southwest of Indianapolis, said Buskirk and Crosley were drug dealers and had delivered Valium to Wolfe hours before they allegedly abducted and killed her.

"He explained that they were not targeting Katelyn Wolfe, but they were just going to target somebody," Goodman wrote. "Jordan Buskirk explained that the opportunity was just there for Katelyn Wolfe."

While these types of killings don't happen often, they typically have some type of sexual motivation such as in this case, said Kenna Quinet, an associate professor of criminal justice at IUPUI.

"There aren't many sex-motivated homicides every year," she said. "This is rare, especially for two males of their age to kill a woman of her age."

Buskirk is 26, Crosley is 25, and Wolfe was 19.

Both men's previous history with Wolfe, as well as their willingness to work together, may have also played into their possible motivation, Quinet added.

"Some of the most horrific crimes occur when two people get together," she said.

Wolfe was last seen about 2 a.m. on June 6 walking near a Dairy Queen in Linton. The teen's last cellphone or computer activity came about an hour later, police said, and her father reported her missing later that night.

Police used phone records showing people with whom Wolfe had been in contact in the hours preceding her death, according to court documents, to target individuals to interview about her disappearance. Crosley was one whose number appeared in Wolfe's records, and police interviewed him and Buskirk on June 7.

The two men's willingness to volunteer that they had supplied drugs to Wolfe, police said, led them to believe the pair was withholding information that would be more seriously incriminating.

A search of Buskirk's 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer yielded drugs, cash and a partial roll of duct tape, according to the Greene County court documents. Monday, conservation officers searched a lake in nearby Sullivan County after a shoe was seen floating on the water's surface.

They found Wolfe's body bound in duct tape and rope, with an anchor attached.

Confronted with evidence discovered by police, according to court documents, Buskirk on Monday described in detail his and Crosley's role in abducting and killing Wolfe. The pair on June 4 bought handcuffs, position restraint straps and other items at an adult novelty store in Terre Haute, he said. They also went to a sporting goods store, he told police, and purchased a rope and 20-pound weight.

The pair kept the items in Buskirk's trunk, police said, waiting for what seemed to them the right time to carry out their plan.

After making an initial delivery of Valium to Wolfe about 8 p.m. June 5, the suspects contacted her and made arrangements to meet her near her home in the early hours of June 6.

After picking her up, the two men tried to pin her down and rape her, police said, but a struggle ensued in the car as Wolfe resisted.

She tried to bite the men, Buskirk said, and Crosley struck her in the face several times. When the struggle grew more intense, the two men choked her with a rope until she stopped moving, Buskirk said. The cause of her death, an autopsy found, was asphyxiation.

The last Facebook and text messages sent from Wolfe's cellphone on June 6 were actually typed by the men who killed her, detectives said.

"Trying to party looking for fun,'' it reads. "Out on a walk with creeps that keep driving by."

Buskirk and Crosley were held without bond Thursday in the Greene County Jail in Bloomfield, facing charges that include murder, confinement, conspiracy to commit rape and drug dealing. Their initial court hearing is scheduled for today.

Buskirk's attorney, Jacob Fish, declined to comment Thursday on the charges. It was unclear if Crosley has an attorney.