On July 17, 2006, three young people were killed in a cornfield in Pike County, Indiana. Twenty years later, the county's current prosecutor is still remembering their names.

Spencer White, Keela Lynch and Rebekah Acorn were shot, beaten and stabbed near Pecan Flats on the White River. A fourth young person, Cameron White, was with them. He was badly hurt, but he survived.

Current Pike County Prosecutor Darrin McDonald posted a statement about the case this month, on the 20th anniversary of the murders. He said he still thinks about the three victims every day.

"On July 17, 2006, three young people were murdered in a cornfield in our county. I want to say their names, because they still matter, and because I look at their faces every day," McDonald wrote. "Spencer White. Keela Lynch. Rebekah Acorn."

McDonald said he keeps three portraits of the victims on a bookcase in his office. He wrote that Keela and Rebekah did not know the man who killed them. They had simply come along with friends that day.

"Keela and Rebekah did not even know the man who killed them; they had simply come along with friends. Wrong place at the wrong time. That is the particular cruelty of it," McDonald wrote.

Cameron White managed to get his brother's cell phone and call for help, even though he was gravely hurt. Then-Sheriff Todd Meadors reached him in time, with help from local farmers who knew the area.

"There was a fourth young person in that field, Cameron White, and thankfully he survived," McDonald wrote. "In the middle of something monstrous, ordinary Pike County people did something heroic."

The suspect, Nicholas Harbison, ran after the killings. Police searched for him for more than two weeks. The manhunt drew national attention, and Harbison was featured on America's Most Wanted.

Harbison was caught in August 2006 at a trailer in Gibson County, Indiana. He was with his girlfriend. Det. W.W. George confronted Harbison alone and unarmed, and talked him into surrendering.

"I remember the manhunt, more than two weeks, a case that drew national attention, ending in another stretch of brutal heat when Nicholas Harbison was finally taken into custody," McDonald wrote. "Det. W.W. George, alone (and unarmed as the circumstances happened), confronting and apprehending the fugitive wanted for murder, talking him into surrender."

McDonald also credited then-victim advocate Chelsa Knepp and Court Bailiff Ron Myers for standing by the three families through every hearing.

Prosecutors first sought the death penalty, at the families' request. McDonald wrote that he believed then, and still believes now, that the families' wishes mattered more than his own opinion.

But long appeals in death penalty cases can drag on for years. McDonald wrote that the families came to see that as another form of cruelty. They agreed to let Harbison plead guilty instead.

"They graciously agreed to allow Nicholas Harbison to plead guilty with a sentence of three life terms without parole, plus fifty years," McDonald wrote.

McDonald grew up on 9th Street in Petersburg in the 1980s. He wrote that back then, some people believed Pike County was a place where you could get away with anything.

"We are not that county anymore," McDonald wrote. "We have had four total murder cases in the twenty-plus years since 2003, and every one of them got everything this office had, each resulting in a conviction with sentences ranging from 55 years to life."

McDonald closed his statement by saying the fight for the victims continues, twenty years after the murders.

"Twenty years later, still fighting. Spencer, Keela, Rebekah and Cameron still matter. God bless their families," he wrote.

The case was first reported by WEHT Evansville, a Nexstar Media station covering the Evansville and Henderson, Kentucky area.

This story has no direct South Texas connection. El Tejano is reporting it as part of its national news coverage for South Texas readers.