By KEVIN NEVERS

The source of the information on the location of Lorraine Kirkley’s remains is her murderer himself, David Malinski.

Porter County Prosecuting Attorney James Douglas told the Chesterton Tribune today that, in an interview conducted at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City on Sept. 16, Malinski revealed the site where he buried Kirkley after killing her in July 1999.

That interview—at which Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brian Gensel was also present—culminated approximately 18 months of occasional conversations between Malinski and an unspecified official at the prison in which Malinski apparently was steeling himself to tell his secret.

Douglas said that he had been aware of those conversations, would now and then hear from the official, and described his own talks with that official like this: “‘We think he’s going to give it up. Are you going to give him anything?’” Douglas would say no. “‘Well, we think he’s still going to give it up.’”

He and Gensel interviewed Malinski for around 90 minutes, Douglas said, and spent most of that time discussing the location of the body. Malinski’s motivations and the details of Kirkley’s kidnapping, torture, and murder were not generally part of the discussion. Douglas did say that, as he understood Malinski, Kirkley’s body was already buried by the time Malinski torched her Ford Explorer early on the morning of July 24, 1999, in a LaPorte County cornfield, three days after kidnapping Kirkley from her Center Township home and transporting her to his Westchester Township home.

Douglas declined to specify where Malinski indicated the grave would be found except to say that it is in a wooded area. No one, Douglas added, has yet walked the site, and at the moment a team of forensic experts—including an anthropologist—is being assembled to supervise excavation. Douglas would not say when the excavation would commence.

Douglas characterized Malinski’s demeanor at the interview as “sincere” and “calm.”

Was he remorseful?

“Oh, absolutely,” Douglas said. “He expressed remorse for all the pain he’s caused to everybody, especially the family.”

Did Malinski ask for anything in return for telling his secret?

No, Douglas said.

Douglas noted that Malinski himself did not personally invite him and Gensel to the prison. Rather, the interview was arranged by a middleman.

Malinski is currently serving a 155-year sentence. In addition to Kirkley’s murder, he was convicted in February 2000 of one count of criminal deviate conduct, one of criminal confinement, one of auto theft, and two of burglary.

Malinski did not testify at his trial but his attorneys tried unsuccessfully to persuade the jury that Kirkley’s body was never found because she was still alive: that Malinski and Kirkley had been lovers who planned to abscond, that Malinski helped her to stage her disappearance, and that at the last moment he decided not to join Kirkley as she made a new life for herself.

In fact Malinski appealed his conviction partly on the grounds that Kirkley’s body was not introduced into evidence, but in September 2003 the Indiana Supreme Court rejected his appeal and observed in its ruling that enough other evidence had been introduced to support the charge of murder.

Posted 9/22/2005