Richard Tope

Cheryl Felger's Story

UPDATE: Ernest Richard Tope died of lung cancer on August 30, 2012. Mr. Felger got his dying wish, as Tope never stepped outside prison walls before his death. We thank everyone who submitted a petition to keep Tope in prison until he served his full life sentence. Justice has been served.

Good Friday 1974

By April 1974, the Felger family fully understood the meaning of pain and tragedy. In 1970, Mrs. Felger, a wife and mother of two teenage daughters, was driving to Indiana to pick up her work schedule. When she left her home in the small town of Van Wert, Ohio, which is near the Indiana border, it was a clear winter day. While she was driving back home, a snowstorm hit. At some point, Mrs. Felger lost control of her car and crashed. She would die instantly from the impact. Mr. Felger would get the call from police and was forced to make the drive to identify his wife’s body. Four years later, he would make a similar drive. To identify the body of his murdered daughter.

April 12, 1974, Good Friday, was a typical night in the Felger home. Cheryl, age 19, had made dinner for her father and 17-year-old sister Kay. After her mother’s death, Cheryl assumed many of her mother’s duties, including cooking dinner. When dinner was over, Cheryl was preparing to bike to a friend’s house prior to a night out on the town.

Mr. Felger had spent the four years since his wife’s death trying to be both a mother and father to his daughters while working full-time. He had done a wonderful job. Both his daughters did well in school and had great futures. Cheryl had recently graduated from Van Wert High School and was among the top 10 students in a class of 270 seniors. She was now a freshman at the Wright State University branch near Celina, Ohio. She did not know what she wanted to do, but everyone who knew her was sure she would be very successful. Cheryl kissed her father goodbye, said goodbye to her sister and left on her bike for her friend’s house.

While Cheryl was biking to her friend’s house, Ernest Richard Tope and Timothy Lee Heckert were on their way to Ohio from Decatur, Indiana. Heckert, a former Van Wert resident, was planning on visiting his brother. Tope and Heckert were the complete opposite of Cheryl Felger. They were regularly in trouble and were well know throughout Decatur for their bad behavior. They had no future and spent most of their time drinking. Prior to the trip to Ohio, they had spent the entire day drinking. According to Heckert, “Tope and I would ride around and drink on many occasions.” Their bad behavior would reach a whole new level when they crossed paths with Cheryl Felger.

A Vicious Rape and Murder

Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., Cheryl Felger left her friend’s house to go home and change clothes prior to a night out with friends.

A short time earlier, Heckert and Tope had left a local Van Wert bar, where they were drinking and playing pool.

Heckert’s car had continual muffler problems. On their way out of Van Wert, they pulled into the Clark Gas Station to reattach the muffler and get gas.

Heckert got some gloves out of the trunk and began to work on the muffler while Tope went to the restroom.

While under the car, Heckert stated “I saw a girl go by while under the car and I did not know anything about her, but the bike had a flag on it and she was wearing blue jeans.”

Tope and Heckert then left the gas station with Tope driving Heckert’s car. They drove towards town for three blocks and then turned around to go to Decatur. As they neared an intersection, they saw Cheryl Felger on her bike. Tope then told Heckert he wanted to go see a relative and turned onto the street where Cheryl was riding her bike. Tope then told Heckert, “Let’s pick her up and have a little fun.”

Tope pulled the car in front of Cheryl’s bike. Heckert stated, “I told her to get in the car in a rough voice and opened the door. She offered some resistance and I used force to put her in the front seat.”

Tope and Heckert then took back roads back to Decatur. Heckert stated, “I knew who she was by this time. I asked her name and she answered, “‘I am Cheryl Felger.’”

Heckert stated Cheryl asked, “Why has it got to be me?”

Heckert then states, “There were acts of natural and unnatural sex relationships in the back seat of the car. We did not stop the car. I drove while Tope was with her and he [Tope] drove while I was in the back with her.”

Heckert stated Cheryl did not try to escape because he and Tope told her when they got to Decatur, they would release her.

Tope and Heckert then began to talk about what they were going to do with Cheryl. Heckert claims they talked in a muffled voice and, with the bad muffler, Cheryl could not hear them in the back seat.

Heckert states, “Finally, she asked what we were going to do and started crying.”

Heckert states he told Tope to let her go and Tope stated, “I’m going to kill her, as I want to know how it feels to kill somebody.”

Tope then pulled the car into a small driveway next to a barn in a lonesome part of Adams County.

Tope took a hunting knife from the glove compartment, walked around the car and took Cheryl out of the car by the arm.

Heckert stated, “She tried to get away and I saw her run, but he [Tope] pulled her back. I saw her go to the ground and I saw his hand go up and down. Tope was in his stocking feet, as his shoes were on the floor of the front seat of the car. I heard a faint scream. I did not look back or get out of the car. I saw Tope coming back to the car and he was breathing heavy. He told me she was dead. I saw the knife in Tope’s hand with blood on it.”

Tope and Heckert left the scene and proceeded back to Decatur. At the first bridge, Tope threw the knife into a little creek. They continued on and went to a trailer park, where Tope washed his hands off in a lake. After arriving back in Decatur, Tope washed his hands again as well as his shirt at a car wash. They both also washed the car thoroughly. Tope asked Heckert for a cigarette because he had lost his package of Pall Malls.

Two days later Tope came to Heckert’s with close friend Danny Thornton. He asked Heckert if “any police officers had contacted me.” Heckert told him “no” and Tope said if they do, tell them they were fishing with Thornton.

Heckert would be arrested the following Wednesday after his car was identified by witnesses at the original crime scene in Van Wert.

A Father’s Pain

Mr. Felger believed something might be wrong that Friday night after a trip to downtown Van Wert. On his way home, he saw a bike resembling Cheryl’s leaning against a telephone pole. When he arrived home he asked his daughter Kay if her sister was home. She said no and he sent her to look at the bike. It was Cheryl’s bike and Kay brought it home. It was later learned that someone driving by found the bike lying on the ground in the middle of the road and leaned it against the telephone pole.

Mr. Felger left early for work around 11 p.m. and stated, “I looked every place she might be up town. Nobody had seen her.” Since the bike was neatly standing up next to the telephone pole, he had no reason to suspect foul play. When Mr. Felger arrived home from work the next morning and Cheryl was not there, he was very concerned. Mr. Felger first learned of the possible whereabouts of his daughter from a Fort Wayne television newscast. The newscast said a body had been found in a field. He immediately drove to the houses of the two friends that Cheryl was supposed be with the prior night. Neither one of them had seen her. He called Van Wert police and the Adams County Sheriff and made the drive to Indiana, just as he had done to identify his wife. When he arrived, he identified the body as that of his 19-year-old daughter Cheryl. She had been stabbed 96 times.

The Trial

Soon after Heckert’s arrest, he agreed to testify against Tope. In exchange for his testimony, he was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and a sentence of 10-25 years in prison, which could not be suspended. Heckert detailed all the facts of the case to the jury from the initial kidnapping to the murder.

Coroner Dr. C.H Pan also testified. He stated Cheryl had sustained six different types of wounds. They consisted of

• 10 superficial slashing wounds
• 10 superficial stab wounds
• 58 deeper stab wounds
• One bad horizontal slash wound across the chest cavity
• 15 superficial wounds on her hands
• Two penetration wounds that struck body organs

Pan also made it clear that Cheryl did not die quickly. “She died less than one half hour after receiving the lung wounds,” stated Pan. “Those wounds were inflicted with great force.” He also said Cheryl died of “loss of blood,” made worse by the chest wounds, which would have made it difficult to breathe.

The prosecuting attorney had a massive amount of evidence, including the murder weapon, the missing pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, the footprints of Tope in the mud at the murder scene as well as blood evidence. They also had a prisoner who testified that while in the Adams County Jail he heard Tope say to another prisoner, “I killed that bitch.”

Some of the most damning evidence may have come from Tope’s good friend Daniel Thornton. On Easter Sunday, two days after the murder, Tope went to Thornton and told him that “I am in a lot of trouble. We killed that girl from Van Wert.” Thornton told how Tope read the newspaper and watched the TV newscasts and kept saying, “We might get out of this yet. They have no new clues.” He described how Tope retraced the murder scene with Thornton in the car and tried to find the lost pack of cigarettes and the murder weapon he had thrown off the bridge. On the way home, Thornton stated that Tope told him, “I had to do it. I’m the only guy around Decatur that’s big with red hair and I was afraid she might identify me.” Thornton said once they got home and Tope realized Heckert’s car was towed away by police that Tope went to the sheriff’s office, where he made a statement and went with a deputy to search for the knife.

A jury had no trouble convicting Tope of the murder. The death penalty was not an option at the time of Tope’s crime. Under Indiana law, Tope received a life sentence, with no chance for parole. Unfortunately, laws change.

Continued Injustice

Although Heckert pled guilty to second-degree murder for the brutal rape and murder of Cheryl Felger, and received a sentence of 10-25 years, he was released after serving only 14 years. Since then, he has been brought back in at least twice for unrelated crimes.

A few years after Tope’s conviction, Indiana law changed, making Tope eventually eligible for parole. Cheryl’s family would be forced to relive Cheryl’s horrific rape and murder again and again and again. Tope has come up for parole in 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2006. Fortunately, each time, he was denied parole.

To make matters worse, Tope is rumored to now be a “jailhouse attorney.” In 2006, Tope gained national attention when he somehow managed to sue the Indiana Department of Corrections so he and the other Indiana inmates could get pornographic magazines in prison. In his filing, Tope had the audacity to claim, “Ernest Tope has also, in the past, sent and received mail of a sexual nature from adult friends of the opposite sex. The mail contains written descriptions of sexual acts and the writings are now prohibited by the [new] policy.” Keep in mind, Tope is a vicious RAPIST and MURDERER. The last thing he should be thinking about is pornography.

A Dying Wish: No Parole

Cheryl’s father fought tirelessly every time Tope came up for parole. Sadly, Mr. Felger passed away two years ago. His dying wish was that his daughter’s killer never be released.

Ernest Tope is a ticking time bomb. He abducted an innocent woman riding her bike, raped her and stabbed her 96 times. He then left her to die a rural field. There is no doubt she suffered for up to one half hour, scared and alone. In addition, Tope did everything possible to cover up the murder and has never shown remorse. He even had the nerve to sue the state so he could have access to pornography in prison.

Tope has now been given two breaks. First, when the death penalty was not available at the time of the crime. The second was when state law changed and made him eligible for parole. If Tope gets a third break and is put back on the streets, it would clearly endanger society. It would also be a complete injustice to Cheryl Felger and her family. To further the interests of justice and to protect the community, we believe Ernest Tope should serve his Maximum Sentence of LIFE for his incredibly brutal and violent crimes.