Family of woman murdered by suspected serial killer has waited 17 years for justice

<p>Cecilia Bowman will never forget the phone call she received nearly 18 years ago. It was just a quick check-in like so many others with her oldest daughter. They talked about things like friends, bills and family — and it ended the way most of their conversations did. "We said, 'I love you,'" Bowman recalled, "and that was it." The date also is etched on the Bloomington woman's heart: July 11, 2007. That was the last time she talked to her adult daughter Carma Purpura. Just hours later, Purpura, 31, of Indianapolis, was murdered at the Flying J truck stop on the southside of Indianapolis. "It give you peace," Bowman said of their final conversation, "having that as your last words." Early the next morning, in a seemingly unrelated murder investigation more than 300 miles away in Tennessee, police searched the cab of a semi-tractor trailer driven by Bruce Mendenhall, a long haul trucker from southern Illinois. The Nashville detectives quickly found evidence connecting Mendenhall, who had stopped in Indianapolis the previous evening, to the murders of Purpura and as many as five other women in 2007. Since then, Purpura's family has waited for answers, justice and closure. That agonizing limbo is finally coming to an end. Mendenhall — a suspected serial killer already convicted for two murders in Tennessee — is scheduled to go on trial Tuesday in Marion Superior Court. Mendenhall, who has been held at the Marion County Jail since 2021 as legal maneuvers delayed his trial, has entered a plea of not guilty. His attorney didn't respond to requests for comment. Bowman said she won't be in the courtroom. She attended one of Mendenhall's trial in Tennessee with her other daughter to show support for the victim's family. That was enough for her. "I don't want to look at her remains. I don't want to look at pictures or hear what he did to her," she said. "I don't want to remember Carma that way." Bowman said she prefers to remember her first-born as the sweet, loving and forgiving person she was. "If she were alive," Bowman said, "I know she would forgive Bruce Mendenhall." Family of murder victim wants to remember her life, not death Purpura's sister, Jessica Ervin of Clayton, will represent the family at the trial. Ervin, 47, said she stepped up to help shield her parents from Mendenhall and the trial. The trial in Tennessee prepared her for what to expect from the twice-convicted killer. "He didn't show any visual signs of much empathy or anything like that. And I wouldn't expected anything different," she said. "I can't wrap my mind around anyone that could do something like that, so I won't let that get to me." Like her mother, Ervin prefers to remember all the good time they shared as sisters and best friends who grew up playing in the woods behind their home in Hendricks County. "She was 21 months older than me. She got the height, like six-one, blond, tall, gorgeous," Ervin said. "She was the type of person that you walk in the room and everybody just, their jaws dropped ... She had a heart of gold. She really did." Purpura also was an accomplished artist who studied at Herron School of Art + Design after attending Cascade High School. A drawing she made in sixth grade that was selected for an exhibit in Washington, DC, now hangs on the wall in Ervin's home along with other drawings and paintings made by Purpura. After finishing school Purpura worked as a commercial artist, Ervin said. One of her projects was designing stylized images to adorn packets of plant and flower seeds. "She was fun loving, always smiling for sure," Ervin said. "And she had two gorgeous kids that are just amazing and as beautiful as she was." Purpura's life wasn't always smooth sailing. She got pregnant in high school and later, as a single mother, struggled at times with addiction. Ervin is quick to make it clear the latter, in her opinion, had "nothing whatsoever to do with how she died." After her sister was killed, Ervin adopted Purpura's daughters. Both are young adults now. The entire family is hoping the trial resolves their many unanswered questions and lingering grief, while putting Mendenhall behind them. "This happened 17 years ago. How long can you repeat this over and over and over again?" Ervin said. "That's been the worst part for all of us. Eventually, you know, closure become very sloppy." Starts and stops on road to justice retraumatized grieving family Purpura's family has been traumatized time and time again since her death, with each new development reopening a painful, lingering wound. "What an outrageous story to even fathom," Ervin said. "This has been torturous. It's been nothing less than a nightmare for 17 years." The heartache began with the unexpected call in 2007 revealing Nashville police had found items belonging to Purpura and blood in Mendenhall's truck. Even though police hadn't located her body, that evidence and statements Mendenhall made to police in Tennessee were enough for then-Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi to charge Mendenhall with murder in 2008. "Until they found her I still held out some hope," Bowman said. "But for the most part, the police told us they were certain that she was dead by the amount of blood" in Mendenhall's truck. The family finally got to bring Purpura home in 2016 after skeletal remains found along a highway in Kentucky south of Louisville were identified through a DNA match. Authorities had been holding the bones and teeth since 2011, but for some reason DNA samples the family provided shortly after Purpura disappeared had not made it into a national database. Since then, the family has endured another eight-year wait for Mendenhall to face justice. "Closure for me will be when we know for sure that he cannot ever get out and do this again," Bowman said. "I have forgiven him and I believe God is the ultimate judge, however, he should never be on the streets again." This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Suspected serial killer charged in 2007 Indy murder finally facing trial</p>