AP News, February 25th, 2007
A 51-year-old man told his daughter that he killed her mother, leading authorities to charge him with the 1990 killing, police said.
Prosecutors on Friday charged Rodney Boesel of Gary with murder in the death of his former wife, Donna Boesel, then 22, said Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez.
Authorities said the confession came as Alicia Boesel, 19, was looking at a machete in his home.
"He said, 'What are you doing looking at that? You don't know what to do with that," Alicia Boesel said at a news conference. "Then he told me he was going to slice my throat with it like he did my mother."
After five hours of questioning, he told detectives he had choked his wife, but did not use a knife, authorities said. "He said, 'I knew this day was coming. My life is over,'" Detective Shaw Spurlock said.
Rodney Boesel waived his rights, police said. It wasn't known if he had an attorney. It was not immediately known if he was being held in jail; a call to jail officials was not answered.
Donna Boesel's twin daughters, Alicia and Ashley, were only 3 years old when she died. Throughout their childhood, Rodney Boesel told them she abandoned them by running off with another man, Alicia Boesel said.
Hunters found her skeletonized body two years later. Decomposition prevented the coroner from determining a cause of death, but it was ruled a homicide.
When Alicia Boesel was 16, her father placed her in the custody of child welfare and she began asking questions. She eventually learned that her mother was dead.
When Alicia had no place else to go, she moved back in with her dad.
"I had strong suspicions my father did it," she said.
