On December 15, 1978, 16-year-old Susan Marie Huling was one of four members of the Huling family murdered in their rural home near Clearwater, Minnesota. The family was asleep when an assailant entered and shot each victim in their beds; Susan was shot in the head while sleeping in her bedroom. Her mother Alice Huling and siblings Wayne, 13, and Patti, 12, were also killed. A younger brother, Billy, survived by pretending to be dead after the killer fired twice at him and missed.

Four days after the killings police arrested Joseph Donald Ture Jr on unrelated stolen-vehicle charges and found a ski mask, a toy Batmobile and a metal rod in his car. Billy later identified the toy as his, last seen on the kitchen table the night of the murders, and the rod matched bruises on Alice Huling’s body. Decades later, while serving time for other violent crimes, Ture allegedly confessed the Huling killings to fellow inmates; in 1999 he was indicted and at trial witness testimony and forensic links to items found in his possession led to a guilty verdict in 2000 and four consecutive life sentences.

Was anyone in the Clearwater area at the time aware of suspicious visitors or unusual activity around the Huling home in mid-December 1978?