Background
Steven Judy was born on May 24th, 1956, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Vernon Eugene and Myrtle Louella Judy, who married in 1954.
He had a troubled early childhood, growing up in a broken home where he frequently witnessed domestic violence.
His father, Vernon, was in and out of jail, and his mother brought her boyfriends home on a regular basis.
By twelve, Steven was shoplifting and experimenting with alcohol and sex.
At age 13, he tricked his way into the Indianapolis apartment of Carol Emig on the pretext of selling Boy Scout tickets.
He attempted to rape and kill Carol, stabbing her 42 times until the blade broke, before finally fracturing her skull with a hatchet and cutting off one of her fingers.
He returned home covered in blood and told his sister that he had been attacked.
She called the police, to whom he confessed.
He was taken to a juvenile detention center and later to Indiana’s Central State Hospital, which had specialized psychiatric facilities for juveniles with severe behavioral and mental problems.
In January 1972, at 15 years old, Steven was fostered out to Robert and Mary Carr and their family in Indianapolis.
Here he lived for about a year until Mary caught him making an obscene phone call.
Mary remonstrated with him, but Steven decided to leave and stole their new car, which he subsequently crashed in Illinois.
In July 1975, Steven assaulted Susan McFadgen.
Fortunately, passersby heard her cries for help before she could be raped and killed.
Steven served less than two years in prison for this assault, and upon release went back to live with the Carr family.
Pamela Barger was his next victim in April 1977.
He forced his way into her car in a parking lot, threatened her with a knife, and kidnapped her.
Fortunately, she was able to escape and provide the police with a detailed physical description of her attacker.
Steven was arrested and spent several months in jail awaiting trial.
Unfortunately, the proceedings resulted in a hung jury, although he served time in prison for violating the conditions of his parole.
His next criminal episode occurred in November 1978, by which time he had graduated to armed robbery.
The store clerk’s son arrived to collect his mother from work just as Steven and his accomplices drove away, obtaining the vehicle’s description and license plate number, which led to their arrest shortly afterward.
The Carr family bonded him out of jail just one week prior to the capital murders.
The Murders at White Lick Creek
On the morning of Saturday, April 28, 1979, three men out hunting for wild mushrooms discovered a woman’s almost naked body at White Lick Creek, near State Road 67 and Mooresville in Morgan County, Indiana, and immediately notified the police.
Detectives working the crime scene soon made three more tragic discoveries: the bodies of three young children submerged in the waters of the creek.
A preliminary examination showed that the adult female had been raped and strangled, and that the three children had drowned.
Police discovered a bank deposit book at the scene containing the victim’s name and address in Indianapolis.
She was identified as 22-year-old Terry Lee Chasteen, a mother of three who resided in Indianapolis with her boyfriend, Jack Lane.
The police contacted Jack Lane and requested that he come to make a formal identification of the bodies.
He was horrified by the news and explained that Terry had been driving his red 1978 Ford Granada that morning.
On his way to White Lick Creek along Interstate 465, Jack spotted his car abandoned on the highway shoulder.
The police impounded the vehicle for forensic processing.
Forensic examination revealed that Terry had been bound with strips torn from her own clothing, sexually assaulted, and strangled.
The three young children had all died of asphyxia resulting from drowning:
- Misty Ann Zollers: aged 5
- Stephen Michael Chasteen: aged 4
- Mark Louis Chasteen: just 2 years old
Terry had been driving the children to a babysitter’s home before reporting for her morning work shift when she was intercepted.
The Investigation and Arrest
At the time of the crime, Steven Judy was driving a distinctively painted red and silver-gray pickup truck, which had been observed by multiple witnesses in the White Lick Creek area.
One witness remembered seeing a matching truck parked at a local construction site, allowing investigators to trace the registration back to Robert Carr.
One motorist described seeing the truck and a blond-haired young man looking under the raised hood of what proved to be Terry’s red Ford Granada.
Another witness saw a man and a young woman inside the red and gray truck.
A third witness observed a blond-haired young man carrying a child under one arm, holding a child-shaped bundle with the other, with a third child walking in front toward the creek.
A subsequent witness saw Steven driving alone in the truck near the murder scene.
Detectives visited the Carr residence, located the red and silver truck, and confirmed with Robert Carr that he had loaned the vehicle to his foster son, Steven Judy, on Friday evening, and that it had not been returned until after 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Given his extensive criminal record, Steven Judy was well known to local law enforcement.
Steven was not at the home when detectives arrived, but was arrested when he returned later that day.
He initially denied any involvement in the murders, claiming he had spent the night with his girlfriend—an alibi she initially corroborated before recanting.
The Trial at Morgan County Superior Court (1980)
Following preliminary committal hearings, the trial commenced on January 1st, 1980, before Morgan County Superior Court Special Judge Jeffrey V. Boles.
The prosecution team was led by G. Thomas Gray and Stephen A. Oliver, while Steven L. Harris served as chief defence counsel.
Steven entered a formal plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
The state presented testimony from 56 witnesses alongside extensive forensic and circumstantial evidence.
However, the prosecution’s central witness became the defendant himself.
Taking the stand, Steven recounted how he had driven his girlfriend home in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 28, 1979, and, not feeling tired, continued driving around Indianapolis.
At approximately 6:30 a.m., he spotted an attractive young woman driving a red car on I-465 near the I-70 West interchange.
He pulled alongside her, pointed urgently at her rear wheel, and motioned for her to pull over onto the shoulder—which she did.
Both vehicles stopped, and Steven approached Terry, claiming she had a loose wheel and offering to repair it.
She accepted his assistance.
Steven retrieved tools from his truck, opened the Ford’s hood, and deliberately disconnected an ignition wire so the engine would fail to start.
He then offered Terry and her three children a ride in his truck, placing them completely under his control.
He drove them directly to White Lick Creek and led them down the embankment to the water.
He instructed the children to go play further along the bank, ordered Terry to undress on the ground, and raped her.
When Terry began screaming, Steven gagged her with fabric torn from her dress, bound her limbs with further strips, strangled her, and threw her body into the creek.
The three children ran back after hearing their mother’s screams.
Steven described his mental state during the act:
“It all seems so unreal, like my head was in a barrel.”
He then picked up each of the three terrified children and threw them bodily into the creek.
Glancing back before walking away, he observed one of the youngsters struggling to stand in the freezing water.
During the trial, Carol Emig took the stand to testify about Steven’s brutal attack on her when he was 13 years old, displaying her left hand, which was missing most of the index finger severed during the assault.
Two court-appointed psychiatrists, Dr. John Kooiker and Dr. Larry Davis, examined Steven in jail and testified that while he suffered from an antisocial personality disorder, he was legally sane at the time of the killings.
The sole defence witness was psychologist Dr. Cathy Spath Widom, who testified that Steven suffered from chronic psychological disorders and was legally insane, basing her conclusions on mental health evaluations spanning fourteen years.
Verdict and Sentencing
The jury—composed of nine men and three women—rejected the insanity defence and found Steven Judy guilty on all four counts of first-degree murder on February 2nd, 1980.
The penalty phase was held immediately following the verdict.
Steven instructed his defence attorney not to present any mitigating evidence, addressing the courtroom directly:
“I honestly want you to give me the death penalty because one day I may get out. If you don’t want another death hanging over your head, I think that’s the only thing you can do.”
The jury returned a unanimous recommendation for the death penalty under Indiana’s capital execution methods.
Jury foreman John Sappington recounted the extraordinary scene, noting that Steven overtly threatened the jurors and the judge:
“He looked at me, and he said, ‘I know where you live, and I know you have a daughter.’”
Sappington asked the jurors whether they wished to deliberate or take an immediate vote; they chose the latter.
“Let’s sit here for a while, so it doesn’t look so bad,” Sappington remarked.
They drank coffee for a brief interval before notifying the bailiff that they had agreed upon a death verdict.
On February 25th, 1980, Judge Jeffrey V. Boles formally sentenced Steven Timothy Judy to death by electrocution.
He was transferred to death row at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
Appeals and Legal Waiver
Steven relished media attention, viewing himself as a celebrity and granting regular interviews from death row.
He petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court for permission to waive his remaining appellate reviews.
On January 30th, 1981, the Indiana Supreme Court unanimously affirmed his murder convictions (5–0) and upheld his death sentence by a 4–1 vote.
His attorney, Steven Harris, continued representing him but accepted that his client refused to pursue further appeals.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sought to intervene by filing third-party motions to halt the execution, but these were dismissed by the courts.
A clemency petition submitted to Indiana Governor Robert Orr was formally denied.
The Execution at Indiana State Prison (09/03/1981)
Steven Judy’s execution was only the fourth carried out in the United States following the resumption of capital punishment with Gary Gilmore in 1977.
It was the first execution in Indiana in 20 years, utilizing the state’s electric chair, which had been constructed in 1913 using oak beams salvaged from the state’s former gallows, a legacy connected to historical short-drop practices in the evolution of the short drop method of hanging.
The chair was ultimately used for 64 executions before Indiana adopted lethal injection, the method first used for Charlie Brooks Jr. in Texas.
The execution was scheduled for shortly after midnight on Monday, March 9th, 1981.
At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Steven showered and dressed in fresh prison clothing.
He was moved to the death-watch cell adjacent to the execution chamber at 3:31 p.m., where he was served a final meal of prime rib, lobster tails, baked potatoes, and salad at 8:00 p.m.; an accompanying request for beer was refused.
Outside the walls of the Michigan City facility, approximately 200 abolitionist protesters maintained a candlelight vigil.
At a counter-demonstration in a downtown park, Mark Chasteen, Terry’s former husband, told the crowd he would gladly throw the switch himself.
Passing motorists honked their horns and shouted slogans outside the prison walls.
Final Moments and Electrocution
Defence counsel Steven Harris recalled:
“About a half-hour before the execution, Steven wavered. Steven told me, ‘If you ever have another client who wants the death penalty, tell them not to do it.’ Then he was cracking jokes again. He said he was going to quit smoking.”
Steven placed a final telephone call to a former girlfriend in Texas.
He accepted an injection of 10 milligrams of Valium from prison medical staff to settle his nerves.
Harris and Steven said their farewells in the holding cell:
“We shook hands. He said, ‘Thanks, this is the right thing, don’t feel bad about it,’ and that was it.”
Harris entered the witness room alongside Steven’s stepfather, Robert Carr; they were the only non-official witnesses present, as media reporters were barred from the execution chamber.
A circular patch of hair was shaved from the crown of Steven’s head, and his right trouser leg was slit open.
At 12:05 a.m., Steven walked steadily into the chamber and sat in the electric chair, where four guards secured the leather straps across his chest, arms, and legs.
The leg electrode was fastened to his right calf, and the leather headpiece containing the brass electrode and saline-soaked sponge was secured over his shaved scalp.
At 12:11 a.m., Steven delivered his final words:
“I don’t hold no grudges. This is my doing. I am sorry it happened.”
Warden Jack Duckworth signaled the executioner.
An initial electrical current of 2,300 volts was applied for 10 seconds, followed by a secondary charge of 500 volts for 20 seconds.
Steven was pronounced dead by the attending prison physician at 12:16 a.m.
Official Statements and Aftermath
Tom Hanlon, administrative assistant with the Indiana Department of Corrections, read an official statement from Governor Robert Orr to waiting journalists:
“Now that this difficult ordeal is over, I am at peace with myself because I know I have met my responsibilities under the law and because I believe justice has prevailed.”
Henry Schwarzschild of the ACLU addressed demonstrators outside the prison gates:
“The governor, the attorney general, the clemency commission, the judges, and the prosecutors involved all have the invisible mark of Cain upon their foreheads. Judy’s consent to his own execution cannot wipe that stain away.
For who would think that our political and legal leaders should follow the wishes of a sick and destructive killer? Like Adolf Eichmann, they say they merely did their duty, and like Pilate, they say, ‘The law took its course and the blood is not on our hands.’ It has been a contemptible spectacle. The State of Indiana tonight is winning a very sorry victory over us.”
The Carr family claimed Steven’s remains, and he was buried at Floral Park Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Terry Lee Chasteen and her children were interred together in Morgan County.
Analytical Commentary
Although the legal outcome was definitive, questions remain as to whether earlier judicial and psychiatric interventions could have prevented the tragedy.
Steven was repeatedly in state custody and under psychiatric evaluation from age 13 following the near-fatal assault on Carol Emig, yet was released multiple times before committing the murders at White Lick Creek.
While numerous individuals endure severe childhood trauma without turning to violence, Judy developed predatory patterns, with estimates suggesting he committed between 13 and 15 sexual assaults during his lifetime.
His execution stands among the notable early cases of condemned volunteers who actively sought capital punishment following the post-1976 resumption in the United States, in contrast to legal traditions in jurisdictions examined in capital punishment in the British Commonwealth and the abolition of capital punishment in Britain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Steven Timothy Judy?
Steven Timothy Judy was a 24-year-old American serial offender who was executed in Indiana’s electric chair on March 9, 1981, for the rape and murder of Terry Lee Chasteen and the drowning murders of her three young children.
What happened at White Lick Creek in April 1979?
Judy disabled Terry Chasteen’s car on Interstate 465, offered her and her three children a ride, drove them to White Lick Creek, raped and strangled Chasteen, and then drowned her three children (aged 5, 4, and 2) in the creek.
Why did Steven Judy demand the death penalty?
During the penalty phase of his trial, Judy instructed his lawyers not to present mitigating evidence and told the jury that if they did not sentence him to death, he would kill again if he ever escaped or secured release.
When was the electric chair built in Indiana?
Indiana’s electric chair was built in 1913 using structural oak timbers salvaged from the state’s dismantled gallows. It was used for 64 executions at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City before the state transitioned to lethal injection.
Why is Steven Judy’s execution historically notable?
Judy was the first person executed in Indiana since 1961, and only the fourth person executed nationwide following the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States after the 1972–1976 Supreme Court moratorium.
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