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lexivon · 17 days

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This is absolutely so fucked up. Most definitely one of the most brutal murders I've ever read about.

Keith Dardeen and his wife, Elaine, lived in a mobile home just outside Ina, Illinois, with their 2-year-old son, Peter. At the time, Elaine was also pregnant with their second child, a daughter. Keith worked as a treatment plant operator while Elaine worked in an office supply store. In their free time, they played in the musical ensemble at a local Baptist church.

The area the young family lived in had been becoming increasingly violent and the couple wanted to move somewhere safer for their children. Keith was very protective of his family and only wanted what was best for them. On one occasion, he refused entry to the home to a young woman who asked to use their phone.

On the 18th of November, 1987, Keith didn’t show up to work for his shift nor had he called in sick, something which was very out of character for the reliable worker. When Keith's supervisor called his home, there was no answer. He decided to call up Keith's parents, but they too were unable to get a hold of him.

Keith's parents called police and arranged to meet them at Keith's home with the spare key. They slowly opened up the front door and were met by a scene that traumatized even the most seasoned detectives. Elaine, Peter and a newborn baby girl lay deceased on one of the beds. Elaine and Peter had been bound and gagged and then beaten to death with Peter's own baseball bat which had been a gift from his father. During the senseless attack, Elaine had given birth to a baby girl, but instead of giving her mercy, the killer beat her to death too.

Keith was nowhere to be seen, and detectives surmised that he had killed his family and then fled. They noticed that his car was missing from the driveway, only adding more to to heir suspicions. However, the following day, Keith’s body was discovered in a field approximately a mile from the trailer. Keith had been shot three times and his penis had been chopped off.

His car would later be found parked outside the local police station. The inside was spattered with blood, indicating that Keith had been killed or mutilated there. As news of the murders circulated around the area, residents were left even more fearful than they already had been. There was a rise in gun and security system sales as people sought to protect themselves.

Detectives were stumped to find a motivation. Nothing in the home had been stolen, and there were no extramarital affairs or enemies that could hint at a revenge motivated killing. The murders were so brutal that some detectives even theorized that the crime was the was work of a cult trying to appease the devil.

The most promising lead came when serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells claimed he had carried out the killings along with around 70 other unsolved murders. While he was linked to a number of these murders, detectives could never definitively link him to the Dardeen murders. He often gave statements which didn’t match with the evidence.

Sells claimed he met Keith at a gas station and was invited back to the home for a threesome with himself and Elaine, something which his family and friends completely refuted. They said that Keith was a family man, and rarely even opened the door to strangers never mind invite them inside.

To this date, nobody has ever been charged with the murders of the Dardeen family.

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lexivon · 2 months

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