A neighbor thought it odd that he hadn’t seen the couple leave their house that morning.
The pair — both in their 70s — was often seen walking the narrow street in the tree-lined neighborhood of single-family homes on Indianapolis’ northwest side.
“They did everything together,” he told detectives.
The last time he’d seen either of them was two days earlier when the woman was getting out of a pickup before going inside.
“This is really gut-wrenching for this community… it’s a quiet area,” Officer Tommy Thompson told media gathered on Jan. 17, yards away from the couple’s brick, ranch-style home.
What police found inside sent shockwaves through nearly four decades of Forest Manor Middle School students.
That’s where her former students say Mary Marjory Ogle (known to them as Marge Embry) was changing lives.
Mary Ogle pictured with her student Rashawne Millen. Circa early 2000’s.
“She really saved me,” said Rashawne Millen, who attended Forest Manor from 2003-05. “She kept me out the streets.”
The now-shuttered Indianapolis public school was a home away from home for Millen and others, because of their math teacher. She often took Millen to church and spent extra time helping her grasp mathematics when she struggled.
The small-in-stature math teacher didn’t shy from raising her voice to advocate for her students. In 1988, when the state was revamping its standardized testing, she was at the forefront pushing the Indiana Department of Education to create something that would prepare her pupils for their futures.
“She was so different from any other teacher I have ever come across,” said Millen, who now owns a knitting business. “She was my family.”
Her former students were devastated to learn how the woman who cared so much about them died.
Inside the home on Questend Drive South, police found the retired math teacher lying on her back in a rear bedroom partly covered with a sheet and suffering severe head trauma. She’d been bludgeoned to death with a hammer.
When police announced their suspect, it strained belief.
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Her husband, Terry Ogle, was the former Forest Manor Middle School Principal. He was hired by Indianapolis Public Schools in 1978. His future wife was hired in 1970. Both retired in 2006 before the school closed a year later.
Terry Ogle was a prominent figure in and around the city and within education spaces. In 1988, he was voted on the Superintendent’s Principle Advisory Committee for IPS. He pursued his doctoral degree. Ogle was awarded the ‘Drum Major Instinct Award’ at the 37th Annual IUPUI Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner in 2007.
“In the decades I knew them both, I’ve never known Doc to show the slightest hint of anger. Not in front of me anyway,” said Dominic Dorsey, who attended Forrest Manor Middle School from 1995-98 and credits the couple for his pursuits in the education field.
When Ogle was arrested in his wife’s brutal killing hours after being treated for slitting his left wrist, many former students were struck by the violent reality.
“I make zero excuses, but uncharacteristic is an understatement. He never spoke above a whisper,” Dorsey said. “He always struck me as someone with insurmountable patience and quiet wisdom that he imparted freely and often.”
Mary Ogle, known formally as Marge Embry, was featured in an IndyStar article discussing her students and I-Step.
Indianapolis Algebra Project
The educator couple formed the Indianapolis Algebra Project, a non-profit providing students mathematics literacy at Forest Manor Middle School in 1991.
Millen was a part of the Indianapolis Algebra Project and said she was hurt and speechless after learning what happened on Questend Drive South.
“I am just so conflicted to believe this is the reality of what they started,” Millen said.
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Dorsey served on the board of the nonprofit and as president for many years. He said the group has been a tight-knit unit for the better part of a decade.
“Dr. (Terry) Ogle was my principal and first consistent Black male professional role model. Mrs. Embry was the first teacher who I honestly felt gave a damn about me,” Dorsey said. “Whereas other instructors seemingly wrote me off.”
Dorsey said Embry taught him to embrace being a multi-modal learner. She let him eat lunch in her classroom while working with him until he “got it.” So much so that he was able to become a math tutor himself.
Just like Millen, Embry took a personal stake in Dorsey’s life that extended beyond the middle school math classroom.
When he pursued education, Dorsey spent several summers developing curriculum sitting on Marge’s living room floor. After she married, that work moved to “Doc’s kitchen table.”
‘Small but mighty’ math teacher who ‘didn’t play’
A picture of Mary Kuhns with her 8th grade math teacher, then known as Marge Embry, and two other students circa 1988.
Forest Manor Middle School was located in the same neighborhood with the same name on the city’s east side before closing in 2007. The neighborhood, which is divided by East 38th Street, has a history that predates the many students who entered Embry’s classroom.
In the 1960s Black families purchased homes in the area. Over the next few years, many white residents sold their homes and left. To ease tensions, Forest Manor United Methodist Church founded the Forest Manor Neighborhood Association in 1967 and a generation of diverse students graced the school’s halls.
Coleen McKinley attended Forest Manor in 1982. Embry was her math teacher.
Even though Embry was just as tall as her, McKinley said the woman was someone she could look up to.
“I remember her being a strong woman,” McKinley told IndyStar. “She was one of a kind. She truly cared for her students and had a passion for teaching.”
Another former student, Mary Kuhns, said Embry’s encouragement made students like her want to succeed. She attended Forest Manor from 1986-88.
The year she was in Embry’s math class, Kuhns scored higher on the city-wide Algebra exam than anyone else. She was an 8th grader scoring higher than high schoolers.
“Ms. Embry came across as tough, but she had a good sense of humor, which worked for an inner city school teacher,” Kuhns told IndyStar. “She was small but mighty.”
Mary Ogle pictured in front of students in a classroom inside a year book from the school year of 1987-1988.
That same toughness is what pushed hundreds of children over the years before Embry’s retirement. Crystal Kenney attended Forest Manor and was in Embry’s class in 2004. She said the teacher was a sweet lady who “didn’t play either.”
Forest Manor Middle School served grades 6-8 and was opened to relieve overcrowding in the area’s IPS elementary schools. It closed in 2007 and its building has been repurposed throughout the years.
Dorsey said he hadn’t spoken to either Embry or her husband in recent years. He doesn’t know what could have happened for this to be the outcome of their story. But, like dozens of students who’ve spoken about Embry since her death, Dorsey has fond memories.
“Marge was the sweetest, tiny little white woman with an inexplicable Brooklyn accent, smack dab in the middle of Indiana who hit you with a disarming ‘sup,'” Dorsey said.
Jade Jackson is a Public Safety Reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at Jade.Jackson@IndyStar.com and follow her on X, formally Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Decades of students remember slain Indianapolis teacher who ‘didn’t play’