Missing Indiana girl found dead in Cass County

A man paroled in March after serving more than 26 years for killing a Kansas boy was expected to be charged with murder in the death of a 16-year-old northern Indiana girl, a prosecutor said Thursday.\nInvestigators found the body of Stephanie Wagner in a northwestern Cass County field Wednesday night. The suspect in her death, Danny R. Rouse, 51, a dishwasher at the same restaurant where she worked, told them where to look and confessed to killing her, police said. An autopsy was scheduled for Thursday.\nRouse, who was living in Monterey, Ind., was arrested and held without bond at the Cass County jail. Cass County Prosecutor Kevin Enyeart said he expected to charge Rouse later Thursday.\nRouse and Wagner left the Indian Head Restaurant in Winamac Tuesday at about 10:30 p.m., police said. Her mother reported her missing about six hours later, and the Cass County Sheriff's Department Wednesday afternoon issued an Amber Alert, which said she was last seen with Rouse.\nHer body was found Wednesday night about a mile from where police discovered her abandoned car in her hometown of Royal Center, about 50 miles southwest of South Bend.\nCass County Sheriff's Detective Tom Wallace testified at a probable cause hearing Thursday that Rouse admitted strangling Wagner and then stabbing her.\nPolice took Rouse in for questioning when he showed up for work Wednesday. He told Cass County deputies he was driving along a highway when his vehicle began making funny sounds. He pulled over, and Wagner stopped to see if she could help, Wallace said. That is when "a feeling came over him," he told police.\nCass Superior Court Judge Thomas Perrone said the probable cause hearing would continue Friday morning, when bond was expected to be set.\nRouse was released in March from a Kansas prison, where he had been serving time for the 1979 murder of a 5-year-old boy.\nHe was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of Jason Learst at a Wichita, Kan., apartment, The Wichita Eagle reported Thursday. Rouse also was convicted of stabbing the boy's mother, Kathryn Crowley.\nWagner had withdrawn from Pioneer High School in 2005 and was being home-schooled, her friend Megan Mannies said while posting fliers with Wagner's picture Wednesday. Wagner had been pursuing a high school diploma and enjoyed her job at the restaurant, Mannies said.\n"She is a blast," Mannies told the Pharos-Tribune. "She is funny. She's hilarious. She's my best friend in the whole world."\nDuring Rouse's jury trial in Kansas, witnesses testified that Rouse and Crowley drank beer and smoked marijuana while watching television at Crowley's apartment. Crowley rejected a verbal sexual advance, after which he stabbed or cut her with a knife 12 times, according to court testimony.\nThe attack ended when Crowley collapsed and pretended to be dead. Kansas police said Rouse then went to Jason's bedroom and cut the boy's throat as he slept.\nRouse pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial, but a jury convicted him of first-degree murder.