Read Search for a Slasher, our series on 3 brutal attacks and a 50-year search for answers

In August 1975 Kathie Rottler, her little sister, Sheri, and her friend, Kandice Smith, were taking in the last days of summer. They decided to hitchhike to a popular teen hangout when a man in a station wagon pulled alongside them, inviting them to join him in the front seat.

Everything changed after that.

After he brutalized them and left them for dead in a cornfield east of Indianapolis, the women spent nearly five decades pushing for answers regarding the man's identity.

Finally, the man has a face.

Read the four-part series, Search for a Slasher, here:

Part 1: Three girls hitched a ride to a teen hangout. They never got there.

Part 2: Manhunt begins with a plea: ‘Please find my sister.’

Part 3: ‘Your case is NOT forgotten.’ But it keeps turning up cold.

Part 4: A crack in the case: Can DNA testing give the monster a name?

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Finding the 1975 Indiana Slasher took nearly 50 years