Sarah Knisley has visited the grave of her sister, Laurel Jean Mitchell, dozens of times in the nearly 50 years since she was sexually assaulted and murdered in North Webster, Ind. But a visit to the cemetery in February 2023 was different.
That time, Ms. Knisley, 62, took balloons that she had decorated with a handwritten inscription: “We got him.”
The suspects in her killing had finally been arrested and charged.
The police investigated the killing over decades, but they were unable to solve it until last year, when DNA testing provided the missing link and led to the arrests of two men. They had been suspects for years.
It was the first step toward closure for Ms. Knisley. This week came one more.
One of the men, Fred Bandy Jr. of Goshen, Ind., 69, was convicted on Tuesday of first-degree murder in the killing of Laurel, 17. He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison at a hearing on Oct. 22.
The other person charged in the case, John Wayne Lehman, of Auburn, Ind., who will turn 69 on Thursday, pleaded guilty in August to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder. The plea deal, which is expected to be finalized on Friday, carries an eight-year sentence.
Lawyers for the two men declined to comment.