Indy Film Fest: The Girl in the Yellow Scarf
This journalistic exploration of one of Indiana's most notorious unsolved murders is an eye-opening look at one city's racist past, and the intertwining of justice and healing.
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I make no bones about the fact I prefer documentaries that are journalistic exploration of a topic or fly-on-the-wall observations than the political screeds that have become more common in this day. “The Girl in the Yellow Scarf” is very much part of that former type, an investigation of one of Indiana’s most notorious unsolved murders, and indeed plays like an hour-long TV news report.
That’s unsurprising, since its author is Carol Jenkins, a celebrated local journalist formerly with WISH-TV who produced and directed this film, and also penned an earlier book on the case about Carol Jenkins of the same name.
Jenkins was a 21-year-old Black woman who was brutally stabbed to death on one of the main thoroughfares of Martinsville, Ind., in 1968, not long after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a big news story at the time, but police failed to arrest anyone.
Martinsville was notorious as a “sundown town” — one of many cities through the U.S. where it was made explicitly known to Black and brown people not to be within town limits after sunset, or they might face threats or worse. Jenkins’ murder, while walking about on a rainy day trying to sell Colliers encyclopedias, brought that legacy of repression straight into the sunlight of changing public opinions.
Finally in 2022, the case broke when Kenneth Richmond, a man with a long history of abuse and violence, was arrested after his daughter, Shirley McQueen, reported to authorities that she had been with her father and another man. They had been following Jenkins around in their car and finally jumped out and stabbed her in the heart with a screwdriver. The girl was given $7 by her father — one for each of her years at the time — to be silent.
Chapman was the leading reporter on the case when it broke, the only one trusted by McQueen to talk about her dad’s crimes. But then Richmond died a few months later, before he could be put on trial and convicted. And McQueen was never able or willing to identify the other murderer.
Chapman interviews all the principles, including Jenkins’ sister, Paulette Davis, and stepfather, Paul Davis, who spent the rest of his life craving justice. He passed himself not long after Richmond’s death, the other assailant’s identity remaining unknown to him.
Jenkins’ best friend, Paula Bradley, gives especially devastating testimony, since she was actually in Martinsville with her that day selling books. Because she is a light-skinned Black woman, she feels guilt that she was not targeted in the same way Jenkins was.
The film looks at various other figures who could be suspects, including a pair of youths who admitted following Jenkins around in their car to scare her. There’s also the curious case of James “Harley” Smith, a local miscreant who authorities had assumed was deceased — until Chapman tracked him down in Florida and interviewed him.
“The Girl in the Yellow Scarf” has a feeling of urgency, despite more than 50 years passing since Jenkins’ death. It works less as a whodunit, acknowledging that the other killer will probably never be found, and more as a healing balm, putting a bow on a very sordid piece of Hoosier history.
It also looks at the current day in Martinsville, trying to atone for its racist past, and Rushville, Jenkins’ hometown, which was earlier to take a hard look at its community and try to do better.
This documentary looks back on a terrible tragedy with a sober eye, but also provides a sense of hope to carry us forward.
Martinsville
Carol Jenkins
Sandra Chapman
Paulette DAvis sister
paulam bradley best frined
Collier’s Enclycopedia’
1968
Don and Norma Neal people who let in house
stabbed in heart
Dennis Goins, basketball player, family friend
James Harley Smiths uspect
WISH TV
Paul Davis stepsister
Shirley McQueen tipper?
Kenneth Richmond dad killer 2002
Russell Harrelson