Logansport, Ind. ? A convicted murderer from Kansas accused of the recent killing of an Indiana girl is being questioned in two northern Indiana murders committed in the mid-1970s.

Danny R. Rouse, 51, of Monterey, is being held in Cass County on charges that he murdered 16-year-old Stephanie Wagner of Royal Center on Oct. 31. Rouse worked in the same restaurant as Wagner, whose body was found in a Cass County field. She had been strangled and stabbed.

Rouse, who was paroled from a Kansas prison in March, now is being questioned in connection with the October 1975 death in Fulton County of 26-year-old Lela Donnelly Hildebrandt, police said Wednesday.

Indiana State Police Detective Tony Frawley confirmed that investigators were looking at Rouse as a possible suspect based on some information he gave while in prison.

According to published reports after Hildebrandt’s death, she was found dead in her car just off of a state highway in Fulton County, some 40 miles south of South Bend.

Authorities first believed Hildebrandt died of massive head injuries suffered when her car veered off the side of the road and into a tree, but a coroner ruled the death a homicide after gunshot pellets were found in her skull. At the time, police said a shot was fired within 10 feet of her car.

State Trooper Mark Senter said Wednesday that investigators began looking into Rouse’s possible connection to the Hildebrandt shooting more than five years ago, while he was still in a Kansas prison. He said Rouse was unwilling to talk with investigators.

Rouse, who had been serving time for killing a 5-year-old boy and leaving the child’s mother to die in 1979 in Wichita, was paroled to Indiana in March to live with his brother.

Senter said police also are looking into Rouse’s possible connection to another Fulton County homicide, the 1974 death of Nellie Mikesell. She was sitting in her home when a shot from a rifle was fired through the living room window and struck her in the head.