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Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge

Published: February 10, 2005
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Mike Simons for the New York Times
John Neace outside the Penn Villa
apartment building in Crothersville,
Ind., where his 10-year-old
daughter, Katlyn Collman, apparently
stumbled on someone with
methamphetamine; her body was
found in a lake days later. Mr.
Neace hopes to buy the apartments,
bulldoze them and build a
playground in his daughter’s memory.
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Associated Press
Katlyn Collman, shown
in an undated photograph.
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The New York Times
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(Page 2 of 2) By nightfall, scores of volunteers were combing the countryside, on A.T.V.'s and on horseback. A state trooper found her body on Jan. 30 in a creek that runs off Cypress Lake, 18 miles up Interstate 65. For local residents, who presumed Katie had been abducted by a stranger, the tragedy deepened with the arrest on murder charges of Charles Hickman, 20, a fixture in front of his family's trailer on Crothersville's main street, just across from the Dollar General and Penn Villa. Known as Chuckie, Mr. Hickman had a couple of curfew violations as a juvenile but no police record as an adult. The children who used to shoot baskets with him at the high school hardly recognized the wan face of his mug shot. According to an affidavit submitted by the F.B.I., Mr. Hickman told investigators that Katie saw people producing or using methamphetamine at the apartments, "so they decided to scare her with the hope that she would be intimidated enough to keep her observations to herself." Mr. Hickman, according to the affidavit, said he took Katie to the creek in a borrowed pickup truck. "Hickman stated first that Collman tried to run away and fell into the creek, but also said that he might have 'bumped' her into the water," the affidavit read. "In any event, Hickman watched, left the area with Collman's unmoving body still in the creek." Two others, including the truck's owner, Timothy O'Sullivan, and a 17-year-old whose name is being withheld, have been arrested on charges of lying to the police, who continue to search for co-conspirators. Sgt. Jerry Gooding of the state police, spokesman for a multi-agency task force of 50 officers, said they had combed through only 20 percent of some 500 leads so far. In an interview, Mr. Hickman's mother, Sandy, acknowledged that her son had been addicted to drugs, including meth, for perhaps two years, but said he had falsely confessed to involvement in the crime for fear of being killed himself. "He shook his head and he goes, 'No, Mom' - he looked me in the eye, and he never looks me in the eye," Ms. Hickman said of her jailhouse conversation with her son on Sunday. "I'm scared for the whole town. If they don't stop this drug stuff, it's going to happen again." Indeed, the authorities say that up to 90 percent of recent crime in these parts is tied to drugs, mostly methamphetamine, a powerful and addictive stimulant that can be made from cold medicine and farm chemicals. In Jackson County, which includes Crothersville, meth-related arrests skyrocketed to 116 in 2004 from 29 in 2002. There have been 187 methamphetamine labs seized in the county since the first two were found in 1998, as lab seizures statewide climbed steadily to 1,549 last year from 177 in 1999. "If we had a brothel move into town, people would close it down instantly," said the Rev. Jon Pearce of the First Baptist Church here. "If we had an X-rated movie house come, it'd be gone within a week. But this has been here. It is a monster. We didn't know what kind of monster it was." Lifelong residents say Crothersville has been changed, like a child coming of age. Marty Hoevener said he checks what his 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter are wearing each morning, for fear of having to describe them to the police. Marsha Fink, a bank teller, said, "my doors are locked now." Mr. Pearce is ordering lights for the alley behind his church's gym, and no longer lets children wander out during activities. People who had been frustrated with the local police are thrilled that the task force, including county, state and federal agencies, continues to camp at the firehouse, with seemingly new resolve to stamp out drugs. "Anyone who tells themselves it's not a problem in their area is fooling themselves," said Sergeant Goodin. "Are we stupid enough to think we got them all? No way. It's something we're going to stay on." Neighbors who had not spoken for decades now meet to discuss plans for the playground; Katie's father even met with Chuckie's sister and two uncles, telling them, "I want you to wave at me as you always do." Some 1,600 people paraded through the funeral home over two days to pay their respects. Everywhere, the beatific grin in her school picture beams from buttons, T-shirts, and framed funeral programs. In the Neaces' trailer, a large painted version is propped on the ice box, behind a ceramic angel and under a butterfly balloon. Near midnight Monday, after his wife and mother-in-law had gone to sleep, Mr. Neace sat in his worn beige recliner, staring at his daughter's smile. "I thought, now's my time, finally I'm alone, I can do a little grieving," Mr. Neace recalled. "I wanted to cry. I didn't have the tears. I looked over here, and I caught myself smiling at her."
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