ANDERSON, Ind. — There’s no closure for Betty Dietrich and her family but there is relief.

All sensed some comfort Thursday when they received the news that a man’s body discovered a month ago had been confirmed as that of Roy Parmley, the man sought by police for killing Dietrich’s granddaughter, Amanda R. Wiles.

“We know positively that he is dead,” she said. “We don’t have to be afraid, look over our shoulders. But I can’t say it gives us closure because I don’t think we’ll ever have that. It won’t bring Mandy back. We can never have her back.”

Dietrich’s 31-year-old granddaughter was shot and killed June 9 by Parmley. Parmley had terrorized Wiles and her mother, Terri, who was the man’s estranged girlfriend. In the early morning hours of June 9, Parmley entered the Wiles home near Lapel and tied up the women before shooting Amanda Wiles in the face.

Hunters found Parmley’s body in early August near his Lapel home. It is believed he committed suicide.

DNA results have proven that the decaying body was that of the 53-year-old Parmley, Madison County Sheriff Ron Richardson said Thursday.

“This will hopefully help us begin to try to move on with our lives,” Dietrich said.

The DNA obtained from a rib and femur bone matched Parmley’s DNA. In the absence of an identical twin to Parmley, there was a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that the partially decomposed body was indeed Parmley’s, Richardson said.

The Sheriff’s Department investigators previously submitted items from the crime scene, Parmley’s home and blood drops from a cornfield for DNA comparison tests. Those items also had the same DNA.

The June 9 attack took place at Amanda Wiles’ Lapel-area home that the two women were sharing after Terri Wiles had broken off the relationship with Parmley a few days earlier. Both came home early that morning to find Parmley inside.

According to Terri Wiles’ account of the shooting, Parmley bound the women’s hands and feet with duct tape, tied them together with a wire and tied that wire to the home’s stove door. Parmley told Terri Wiles that he would “take away something dear” to Terri Wiles before shooting Amanda Wiles while the two were still tied together.

Parmley’s body was found just before 4 p.m. on Aug. 5 by two hunters, nearly two months after Parmley went missing immediately after the shooting. After shooting Amanda Wiles, he told Terri Wiles he would kill himself, according to police accounts.

Richardson said the case has been a very significant one for the sheriff’s department, involving nearly every nearby public safety agency.

“We are so grateful for all of those agencies, the community’s support and everyone who reached out to help in the case,” Richardson said. “First and foremost we are thinking of the family first with this discovery. Even as we bring closure to the case for us, it is something the family will live with forever. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Terri (Wiles) and (Dietrich) and their family.”

Richardson said the many of the detectives were consumed with the case, working countless hours on the investigation looking for either a body or evidence leading to Parmley’s whereabouts, following both the option of Parmley being alive and on the run or dead after carrying out his threat of suicide.

“This case will be with us for a long time, too,” he said. “We cannot find any other law enforcement agency with another case like this where a child was killed in front of a parent over a broken relationship. It was emotional time for the family, the community and everyone involved.”

Amanda Wiles’ best friend since elementary school, Elisha Hernandez, echoed the sentiments of Dietrich.

“We got some relief after the body was found but until we knew for sure it was him we still had some fear,” she said. “And maybe it will put a little bit of closure to the situation even though the pain and sadness won’t go away. I thought as each day goes by it would get easier; but every day I still ask, ‘Why? Why did this horrible thing happen?’”

The body was found in the 6400 block of County Road 100 South nestled within several trunks of trees in a fence row approximately 250 to 300 yards south of the roadway, Richardson said.

Investigators found clothing and boots on the body matching the description of what Parmley was wearing at the time of the shooting and as described by Terri Wiles. Also, jewelry on the body matched the jewelry that Parmley was known to wear and the hair on the body was gray in color and tied back in a ponytail, similar to how Parmley often wore his hair.  

Terri Wiles told investigators that Parmley had two shotguns and a pistol with him.

In the hands of the body was a shotgun. A second shotgun was leaning against the tree behind the body. Next to the body was a handgun of the same make and caliber that Parmley owned. The serial numbers from the firearms found with the decomposed body were sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. One of the shotguns had been sold to Bridget Parmley, Roy Parmley’s deceased wife, on Dec. 22, 1999. The pistol found was sold to Roy Parmley on March 3, 2011.

There was no information available about the second shotgun.

The body — which had no identification cards on it — was transported to Ball Memorial Hospital and then to the Indiana University Pathology Center. On Aug. 6, an autopsy was performed and a section of the rib bone and femur were removed and submitted to the Indianapolis Regional Laboratory for DNA Testing.

Madison County Coroner Ned Dunnichay received the lab results and confirmed the body was Parmley’s.

Diane Wilson, a friend and former coworker of Amanda Wiles’, said the confirmation is a blessing for the Wiles family.

“I’m just glad that the unknown is now known,” she said. “It gives peace for the family and everyone. My heart does go out to (Parmley’s) mom and his family too. This was a tragedy on both sides.”

Todd Armstrong, who worked with Amanda Wiles and has been one of Mandy’s Wish organizers, agreed, saying the news was like a “double-edged sword.”

“No one is condoning what Roy did,” he said. “But his family is hurting because of it. Yes, I’m glad that he was found dead so Terri (Wiles) won’t have to relive that experience in court. But I’m also saddened for his family. They are innocent in all this and have had to go through hell because of Parmley’s actions.”

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