MERRILLVILLE â Seemingly anyone you could ask who knew Joe Bova agrees on what kind of person he was: an ordinary, peaceful man who loved his family, largely kept to himself and stayed out of trouble.
No one seems to have any idea why somebody would kill the 43-year-old labor official â especially in such a violent, extraordinary fashion.
Yet that s exactly what happened on the morning of Sept. 13, 1989.
About 6:04 a.m. that day, Bova walked out of his Merrillville home at 6686 Massachusetts St. and climbed into his 1974 Ford pickup truck. Bovaâs wife, Sharon, was in the home s kitchen at the same time.