Murderer of local woman dies in prison

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A man who brutally raped and stabbed a local woman to death more than 35 years ago died in prison recently, serving out the life sentence he received in the case.

Ernest Tope, 58, formerly of Decatur, Ind., died August 30 of what Amy Lanum, media liaison for the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC), said was end-stage lung cancer. She noted that Tope, who spent much of his sentence at the Industrial Correctional Facility in Pendleton, Ind., was moved to the New Castle Correctional Facility in April.

Tope and a second man, Timothy Heckert, abducted 19-year-old Cheryl Felger from Van Wert on Good Friday, April 12, 1974. Felger, who had graduated in the top 10 of her class at Van Wert High School and was a freshman at Wright State University’s Celina branch, was riding her bicycle home from a friend’s house when she was stopped by the two men, who had been a local bar drinking earlier that evening. Heckert forced the girl into their car and the two men drove her to an isolated barn near Decatur, Ind., where they both raped her before Tope killed her, stabbing her 96 times with a hunting knife.

Tope was sentenced to life in prison after his conviction in Allen County (Ind.) Superior Court for raping and killing Felger, while Heckert was sentenced to 10-25 years in prison on a conviction for second-degree murder and was released after serving 14 years of that sentence.

Tope was denied parole earlier this year following a campaign spearheaded by Felger’s sister, Kay Miller. Felger’s father, Junior, who died in 2009, had led campaigns to deny Tope parole in 1995 (when a change in Indiana law allowed those with life sentences to seek parole), 1996, 2001 and 2006.

The Decatur man was also called a “jailhouse lawyer” in a website story about the fight to deny him parole this year, noting that he was involved in a lawsuit against the IDOC over a ban on pornography for inmates, while also serving as a plaintiff in a suit challenging living conditions at the Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton.