The 71-year-old Seattle man arrested last week in connection with the 1957 murder of a 7-year-old Illinois girl has a history of sexually abusing young girls, according to documents filed in King County District Court.
Jack Daniels McCullough, a former policeman in two Western Washington cities, was arrested Wednesday at his home. He did not attend a court hearing Saturday at the King County Jail because he is in the hospital, said Judge Eileen Kato. A bail hearing was rescheduled for Monday.
The affidavit of probable cause, however, paints a picture of a man who, when he was growing up, allegedly molested a female relative as well as girls who lived in his neighborhood in the town of Sycamore, Ill., about 70 miles west of Chicago.
After he moved to Washington state as an adult, the papers also say he was fired from the Milton Police Department after he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage runaway and pleaded guilty to unlawful communication with a minor.
A former wife told authorities that McCullough took nude photos of women for a photography business that didn't seem to make any money, and that she found nude photos of a young female relative taped to the bottom of a drawer, the papers said.
The affidavit was supposed to be sealed, a King County District Court clerk said Friday. However, the document was available online Saturday.
McCullough also worked at the Lacey Police Department, according to the affidavit. Most recently he has been working as a night watchman at a retirement home in North Seattle where he lives with his wife.
McCullough was a suspect in 1957 when Maria Ridulph, 7, disappeared from a Sycamore street about a block from where McCullough lived with his family. He was 18 at the time and fit the description of the young man who approached Ridulph and an 8-year-old friend as they played outside near their homes.
The man, who called himself "Johnny," offered to give them piggyback rides. Maria agreed, the papers said. Her friend left to get mittens, and when she returned, the man and Maria were gone. (Seattle Times)