A person linked to a sequence of sexual assaults in central Indiana greater than 30 years in the past by his DNA on an envelope for a utility invoice fee was sentenced Friday to 650 years in jail, prosecutors mentioned.
Steven Ray Hessler, 59, of Greensburg, was convicted March 3 of 19 felony costs for crimes in opposition to 10 victims between 1982 and 1985.
The costs included two counts of rape, six counts of illegal deviate conduct and three counts of prison deviate conduct and one rely of theft.
Investigators mentioned Hessler, masked and armed, would break into houses in the midst of the evening and would rape, bind and sexually torture his victims. He eluded authorities by wiping down the crime scenes and stealing objects he had touched.
Shelby County Prosecutor Brad Landwerlen mentioned that Hessler additionally struck a male sufferer with a gun, sending the person right into a coma for months. The sufferer "for years now has been confined to a wheelchair," Landwerlen mentioned.
The prosecution was made harder, Landwerlen mentioned, as a result of a earlier process drive had arrested and charged one other native man with the primary few assaults in 1983. In an odd flip of occasions, that man turned out to be Hessler's cousin, he mentioned.
The case obtained a break in 2020 when a detective requested prosecutors if they'd pay for samples to be despatched to an organization that makes use of the identical form of DNA testing that resulted within the seize of the Golden State Killer. Testing narrowed down the case to Hessler, linked to a DNA pattern left at one scene. DNA from the utility invoice envelope matched it.
Authroties executed a search warrant at Hessler's residence within the early morning hours on August 17, 2020, and "stumble on a gold mine," Landwerlen mentioned. Investigators discovered pictures stolen from one sufferer, and computer systems which confirmed that he had been monitoring down 4 different victims.
"Steven Ray Hessler is likely one of the most evil, harmful, sadistic predators that I've had the pleasure of prosecuting in my 30+ 12 months profession," Landwerlen mentioned. "He derived nice pleasure from his unnecessarily brutal strategies of terrorizing and sexually torturing his victims. I promised the victims early-on that my aim could be that he go to jail the remainder of his life, and all concerned are very joyful that we now have achieved that aim."
Protection legal professional Bryan Cook dinner in closing arguments mentioned, "It is a scorching mess of a case the state has."