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Sad, A employee from my company got killed, Please pray for her family
- Dec 23, 2008 at 5:22 PM
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ames D. Wolf Jr. Post-Tribune correspondent
VALPARAISO - Two rural Valparaiso-area men accused of beating a convenience store clerk to death during a Friday night robbery have been charged with murder and robbery.
Steven M. Jorden, 19, and Bruce W. Guess, 18, are each scheduled for an initial hearing at 1 p.m. today.
Judge Raymond Kickbush will preside in Porter County Superior Court. The two men are being held without bail.
Barbara Jean Heckman was killed Friday night at Luke Oil service station and One Stop convenience store on U.S. 6 in Liberty Township.
Sheriff's deputies responding to a 11:25 p.m. hold-up alarm found Heckman, 42, of Portage dead on the bathroom floor from repeated blows to the head from a hammer.
They were met the scene by James Reeves, who had gone to the scene with wife, Sherry Reeves, after Heckman had called them because she needed a key to close the business.
According to police reports, the Reeveses arrived about 11:20 p.m. and while the wife went in, Reeves saw a skinny man dressed in dark clothes exit with a garbage bag and go to the north side of the One Stop store, by the Dumpsters.
When his wife came out and said she couldn't find Heckman and suspected a robbery, James Reeves drove around to the back of the store while his wife went in to call police.
He found an unoccupied dark minivan with garbage bags in it as Jorden approached him and asked what was happening.
Reeves said he recognized Jorden because the man was around the store while his wife was working, and he told Jorden that the store had been robbed.
After Reeves went back into the store and found the victim, Jorden and the van were gone. However, Reeves led police to Jorden's residence. Police found garbage bags full of coin rolls, cigarettes and lottery tickets under the porch of the trailer and there was blood on the door.
A woman who said she was Jorden's live-in girlfriend said he and Guess borrowed the van to "go see someone" at 9:30 p.m., then returned at 11:30 p.m.
Jorden was pale, sweaty and out of breath and appeared to be scared, she told police. He left about midnight, saying he was sorry and loved her.
When police found him, he told them that he and Guess had lured Heckman into the bathroom, where he said Guess struck her in the head three times with a hammer.
The sheriff's department is declining to comment on the case until the autopsy report is done.
Jorden also has previous convictions from June 2007. County records show that he has convictions of battery, auto theft and aiding a crime that stemmed from the beating of a Valparaiso man.
According to Guess' MySpace page, he attended Lake Station Edison Junior-Senior High School from 2002 on and attended Chesterton High School in 2005.
The page also has pictures of Guess allegedly drinking alcohol and references to "gangsta" lifestyle and a previous incarceration.
Funeral arrangements for Heckman are pending at the Rees Funeral Home, Olson Chapel, in Portage.
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OMG that is sooo scary and sad. Do you work there????
- Crashmonster1
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