Sixty-nine year old Fred Bandy, Jr. was sentenced to life in prison by a Noble County Circuit judge Tuesday in connection to the 1975 murder of an area teenager.
Bandy and his co-defendant John Wayne Lehman, also 69, were charged in early 2023 with the abduction and murder of 17-year-old Laurel Mitchell from Kosciusko County.
Bandy was linked to the long-cold case by DNA. He was convicted of murder on Oct. 9 in a bench trial before Noble County Judge Michael Kramer.
Earlier this month, Lehman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement. He was sentenced to eight years in prison on Oct. 11.
Mitchell left her job at a church camp in North Webster on August 6, 1975 of that year. Her body was found the next day nearly 20 miles away in the Elkhart River in Noble County.
The cause of her death was drowning, and ruled a homicide.
The two men had been identified by witnesses as having confessed to the crime on separate occasions over the years.
