Gregg Olsen spent two years retracing Eli Stutzman’s footsteps
prior to and after Danny Stutzman’s death for the book, “Abandoned
Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession and Amish
Secrets.”
He made several trips to Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Ohio,
all places Stutzman set foot before and after he abandoned his
son’s 9-year-old body in a ditch near Chester.
Olsen, like Thayer County Attorney Dan Werner and former sheriff
Gary Young, believe there’s more to Eli Stutzman’s story.
The book might leave that impression. It talks of how Danny’s
mother, Ida Stutzman, died in a suspicious barn fire while she was
pregnant with a second child.
The Amish don’t believe in talking to law enforcement and didn’t
question, but always suspected, foul play in Ida Stutzman’s death,
Olsen said.
Afterward, Stutzman left the Amish community, his son in tow,
and revealed he was gay.
He had gone to Texas and was later convicted of killing a
roommate in the spring of 1985. He left the boy with a foster
family in Wyoming for six months. He fetched him, saying they were
going to Ohio’s Amish community for Christmas. Danny never made it
there.
After dumping his body in Chester, Eli Stutzman visited a
boyfriend in Mound Ridge, Kan., authorities said.
Eli Stutzman told Amish relatives Danny died in a car wreck in
Utah. Relatives later found out the truth.
Olsen said he has a pile of letters Stutzman wrote to relatives,
lying about Danny’s whereabouts.
“I have one letter where he was pretending to be Danny after he
had been dead for four months,” Olsen said.
Stutzman said he found his son dead in his vehicle while the two
were driving to Ohio from Wyoming. He had reportedly developed a
respiratory condition and Stutzman, at the time, said he had become
scared and discarded the body for God to take.
“It’s one story that doesn’t go away. He’ll always be ‘Little
Boy Blue’ to everybody forever,” Olsen said.
The book, published in 1990 and re-released in 2003, became a
New York Times Bestseller.
“It’s one of the all-time mysteries. I wish there was somebody
in Thayer County that said we should take a look at this,” Olsen
said Thursday. “Forensic science has changed in 20 years. Maybe
they’d find something this time around.”
Reached at his Fort Worth, Texas home, Eli Stutzman, now 55,
would not comment. He was released on parole in March 2002 from a
1989 murder conviction.
