Eight young girls were abducted and murdered in a terrifying wave of killings that gripped America’s Midwest during the 1980s. Their bodies were left in isolated locations while the perpetrator remained at large.
More than 40 years later, a new DNA breakthrough could help investigators solve one of the region’s most disturbing cold cases.
The victims included 12-year-old Tina Marie Harmon, 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison, seven-year-old Dawn Hendershot and Debbie Smith, who was just 10. Debbie disappeared from a packed Ohio carnival, and her mutilated remains were later found beside a riverbed.
The violent deaths devastated the girls’ families and left investigators struggling to determine whether the cases were connected.
Now, renewed forensic testing has revived the investigation into Debbie’s murder. The latest work has raised hopes that advances in DNA technology could identify her killer and perhaps shed light on other unsolved murders that have haunted northeast Ohio for decades.
Debbie disappeared on June 25, 1983, while visiting a carnival in Massillon, Ohio, with her mother, Linda Smith, and her teenage brother, David.
The 10-year-old had been riding the Tilt-A-Whirl with David when Linda briefly stepped away to buy drinks for her children.
When she came back, Debbie had vanished.
David was unable to say where his younger sister had gone, prompting a frantic search throughout the carnival. The family eventually hurried home, hoping Debbie might have returned by herself. She had not.
In the summer of 1983, Debbie Smith had just completed fifth grade at Bowers Elementary School. She lived at her grandparents William and Grace May’s home with her mother and her two brothers, David and 14-year-old Michael. Debbie was attending a carnival with her mother and brother when she suddenly disappeared.
Investigators are now revisiting Robert Buell, who was a suspect in 1983. Buell was executed in 2002 for kidnapping and strangling 11-year-old Krista Harrison in Marshallville in 1982. He had also been convicted of raping two women and, after his death, was linked by DNA to the 1981 murder of 12-year-old Tina Harmon, who was last seen in Lodi.
Four girls were killed between 1981 and 1983 in Stark and Wayne counties: 12-year-old Tina Marie Harmon of Creston in October 1981; 11-year-old Krista Lea Harrison of Marshallville in July 1982; and seven-year-old Dawn Hendershot of Massillon in September 1982. Each disappeared before being found dead.
Police organized an extensive search involving about 200 officers, firefighters and volunteers. They questioned carnival employees, examined vehicles belonging to amusement operators and searched nearby roads, buildings, railroad tracks and riverbanks.
Linda was terrified because Debbie had juvenile diabetes and needed insulin injections twice a day.
For nine days, search teams combed the area in the desperate hope of finding the missing girl alive.
Then investigators made a discovery that destroyed the family’s remaining hopes.
On August 6, 1983, a canoeist changing clothes near the Tuscarawas River came across badly decomposed human remains about 15 miles from Debbie’s home.
Investigators compared hair recovered from the remains with hair taken from Debbie’s comb, finding a match. Experts later confirmed the victim’s identity.
A Smithsonian expert concluded that Debbie had suffered a stab wound through her second rib, an injury that may have pierced her heart. Her throat had been cut, and investigators also considered the possibility that she had been strangled.
Pieces of wax were found beneath her remains, and a similar substance was discovered nearby. Investigators also suspected that Debbie may have been sexually abused.
In August 1983, a canoeist found Debbie’s body in a wooded area near the Tuscarawas River near Bolivar in Tuscarawas County. Investigators say someone stabbed her to death. Investigators searching Buell’s Franklin Township home in October 1983 seized five white candles, a carton of white candle wax and a carton of orange-white paraffin
Investigators also took two unopened cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon from Buell’s fridge. Beer cans were found near Debbie’s body. An affidavit described a canoe trip Buell took along the Tuscarawas River two weeks before Debbie’s disappearance. Her body was found near a canoe livery
Buell was convicted in Krista’s abduction and murder and sentenced to death in 1984. He wasn’t charged in Debbie or Tina’s slayings. A few months ago, Dadisman sent some of Debbie’s clothing, along with other items found at the crime scene, to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, but DNA testing did not produce a match to Buell or anyone else
Whoever had taken Debbie had left her family with a nightmare that would endure for decades.
Her uncle, Terry May, remembered her as a ‘happy-go-lucky’ child who loved coloring, playing outside and visiting the park. ‘She was a wonderful little girl,’ May added, ‘Beautiful little girl, ambitious, active all the time.’
But Debbie’s murder was not the only case haunting northeast Ohio.
Tina Harmon disappeared from Creston in October 1981, while Krista Harrison vanished from Marshallville in July 1982. Seven-year-old Dawn Hendershot was killed in Massillon in September 1982, with her neighbor, Donald Maurer, subsequently convicted of her murder.
The killings fueled fears that a predator could be targeting young girls across the region. Investigators began comparing cases, searching for similarities that might reveal whether one person was responsible for multiple attacks.
By October 1983, attention had turned to Robert Buell, a 43-year-old Akron planning department employee suspected of involvement in the murders of Debbie, Tina and Krista.
Buell had already been implicated in separate abduction and rape cases involving two adult women. He pleaded no contest in those cases and received a lengthy prison sentence.
Investigators searching his home discovered candles and quantities of wax, raising questions about whether the substance could have played a role in Debbie’s abuse. Beer cans found near her remains and an account of a canoe trip Buell had taken along the Tuscarawas River shortly before her disappearance also attracted attention.
But despite the suspicions, Buell was never charged with Debbie’s murder.
However he was convicted of Krista’s abduction and murder in 1984 and sentenced to death. Prosecutors presented DNA evidence including carpet fibers linking Krista’s clothing and remains to Buell’s home and van.
Buell maintained his innocence in the girls’ murders, insisting that the real killer remained at large.
Yet before his execution in September 2002, he told witnesses, including Krista’s parents: ‘I didn’t kill your daughter.’
His claims did little to settle the questions surrounding the other cases.
Around the time Debbie vanished, a chilling pattern of abductions were occurring all over Ohio. Kimberly King, 12, disappeared from Warren, Michigan. In 1979,Tiffany Papesh, 8, was abducted from Maple Heights; her body was never found.
Kelly Prosser, 8, kidnapped and murdered in Columbus in September 1982 and the same happened to Gloria Pointer, 14, in Cleveland in December 1984.
Lastly Marilyn, Sissy Reeb was just 13 when she was brutally murdered in 1985.
Years later, true-crime author James Renner raised a controversial alternative theory in his 2008 book, The Serial Killer’s Apprentice.
Renner suggested that a male relative who lived with Buell at the time might have been responsible for some of the killings, specifically referencing Harmon and Harrison. He said the relative resembled Buell, had access to his vehicle and potentially had access to materials used as evidence.
James Renner, a true-crime author wondered if a relative of Buell who was living with him at the time of the slayings and resembled Buell may have played a part in the slayings of four other girls around the same time (Marilyn Reeb who was also murdered at 13 is not pictured)
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Renner also said the relative had described conversations about driving around looking at young women and discussing abductions.
The theory has not been proven, and investigators have not established that the relative was responsible for any of the murders.
In 2009, authorities reopened Tina’s case and subjected evidence to DNA testing. The results matched Buell’s DNA, with Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray reporting that the probability of a coincidental match was approximately one in 96 trillion.
Prosecutors said the findings supported their conclusion that Buell had acted alone.
But Debbie’s killer remained at large, leaving her murder among the enduring mysteries of the period.
Now, a renewed investigation has offered fresh hope.
In October 2024, Massillon police revisited Debbie’s case after being contacted by the Porchlight Project, a nonprofit established to help solve cold cases with promising investigative leads.
The organization has supported investigations involving previously unsolved murders, including the 1987 killing of 17-year-old Barbara Blatnik, in which genetic genealogy helped investigators identify a suspect who died before he could stand trial.
Massillon police declined the organization’s offer of direct assistance but decided to carry out additional forensic testing of evidence recovered during Debbie’s investigation.
Detective Shaun Dadisman later confirmed that DNA testing of clothing and other items had failed to identify a match for Buell or anyone else.
The results did not identify a killer, but they have given investigators another reason to revisit evidence collected more than 40 years ago.
The possibility that Debbie’s killer could still be alive remains on the table.
‘That is true. It’s very possible,’ Dadisman said.
Renner said he thinks the exclusion of Buell in the newest DNA testing lends credence to his theory of Buell’s relative potentially being involved in the deaths of Debbie, Tina, and Krista. He said he has long pushed for Stark and Wayne county investigators to take a closer look at Buell’s relative, who is alive and living in southern Ohio.
Buell’s DNA was linked to Tina, which means he was present and had some interaction with her, Renner said.
‘But I don’t think he acted alone,’ Renner said of Buell. ‘And my suspicion is (Buell) was not the one that actually was carrying out the murders of these girls.’
The Porchlight Project remains willing to help fund genetic genealogy testing if investigators believe it could advance the case.
Dadisman has pledged to continue working on the investigation.
‘When I began investigating this case, I had a daughter the same age as Debbie when she was abducted, so it goes without saying, these acts of violence on children break my heart,’ he said.
‘Although several family members are deceased, I believe justice still needs served here on earth.’
For Debbie’s surviving relatives, the prospect of finally learning who killed her has remained elusive for more than four decades.
Her mother and grandparents died without knowing what happened to the little girl who disappeared during an ordinary family outing.
Now, as investigators revisit the evidence with modern forensic techniques, there is renewed hope that the mystery could finally be solved.