Accused 1957 Killer: Train Ticket Proves Nothing

Despite the fact that a recently unearthed, unused train ticket led to the arrest of Jack Daniel McCullough for an unsolved 1957 murder, the 71-year-old is sticking with his original story. "I have an iron-clad alibi," McCullough tells the AP from a Seattle jail. "I did not commit a murder." McCullough still claims he traveled to Chicago on the day in question to take military medical exams, and thus could not have murdered 7-year-old Maria Ridulph in Sycamore, 50 miles away.

McCullough says the ticket was unused because he got a ride to Chicago from his stepfather instead of taking the train. He says he hitched a ride with someone he'd just met back to Rockford, about 40 miles from Sycamore, then called home to ask his stepfather to come pick him up. Records do show that a two-minute collect call was made from a Rockford payphone to his home that evening at 6:57pm. "How am I involved in a kidnapping at 6pm in Sycamore?" he asked. "A fifth-grader can figure this out." McCullough says investigators can further verify his alibi by checking military personnel records at the National Archives repository in St. Louis. Click for the full interview. (More Jack McCullough stories.)