Local Murders

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Police Investigate Deadly Stabbing In Altoona

Huntington County, 2009

WGAL-TV

updated 8:48 a.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 6, 2009

SHIRLEY TOWNSHIP, Pa. - State police are investigating the weekend shooting deaths of two half sisters.

The bodies of 22-year-old Christine McWhorter and 31-year-old Beatrice Daniels, both of Mount Union, were found at about noon Saturday in an apartment in Shirley Township, Huntingdon County.

The county coroner said both women died of single gunshot wounds to the head and neither showed signs of struggling.

Bedford County November 9, 2008 Karen Gerholt John Gerholt

EVERETT - John Gerholt faces trial for criminal homicide in Bedford County after Tuesday's preliminary hearing for the Nov. 9 shooting death of his estranged wife.

Three prosecution witnesses presented a chilling description of Gerholt's actions leading up to the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Karen Gerholt in the parking lot of the McDonald's in Everett where she worked.

Willard Clark of Everett testified that he was inside the restaurant near a window when he ''saw a guy running up through the parking lot as fast as he could'' while carrying something in his hand.

Clark said he then saw a woman in the parking lot ''ducked down real quick.''

Clark said he heard what sounded like two shots and later saw the woman lying on the ground.

Trooper John Brown of the Bedford barracks was the first to respond. When he arrived, he saw Gerholt kneeling over a woman who was lying on her back, bleeding profusely.

''The male said, 'I shot her. I shot her. I shot her by accident,''' Brown testified.

When Trooper Terry Summers, lead investigating officer for the case, arrived shortly after, Karen Gerholt was not breathing.

John Gerholt told him that he had taken his gun, which he used to hunt turkey and deer, to the McDonald's to scare his estranged wife.

She had filed a protection- from-abuse order against him days before the shooting.

Summers said Gerholt told him over and over the shooting was accidental and it wasn't like a TV shooting where the actor has no remorse.

An autopsy report stated that the mother of three died from a single gunshot wound that caused damage to her heart, lungs and liver.

A second fired shell was found jammed in the barrel of the sawed-off shotgun found on the scene, according to Summers.

He also described a surveillance video from the nearby Wal-Mart. The video showed Gerholt purchasing a hacksaw at the store and taking it out to his vehicle, which he moved several times before parking it behind large containers and walking around McDonald's. He said the video shows Gerholt paused briefly between the two businesses before running toward the McDonald's parking lot.

Gerholt's court-appointed attorney Tom Dickey told Magisterial District Judge Brian Baker the prosecution had not proven enough key elements in the case to move further.

''There's no evidence here today that shows this unfortunate incident was anything but an accident,'' Dickey said.

Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins agreed to drop only the charge of second-degree murder.

Gerholt, 38, faces charges of criminal homicide, simple assault, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, carrying a prohibited offensive weapon, possessing an instrument of a crime, and being a person not allowed to carry or use a firearm, due to the PFA order against him at the time.

Higgins said his office is seriously considering pursuing the death penalty in the case.

The next step is a formal arraignment in about six weeks.

Altoona Mirror 11/11/08

UPDATED: Story corrected to reflect Karen Gerholt was the mother of three children.

EVERETT - Among new information released Monday about a weekend murder at the McDonald's here were witness statements describing Karen Gerholt, 24, crouching beside her car as a man identified as her estranged husband, John Lewis Gerholt, 38, ran toward her with a sawed-off shotgun.

The young mother of three died soon after John Lewis Gerholt shot several rounds from his Hopkins and Allen 12-gauge gun Sunday afternoon, police said.

''We believe she was on her break at that time and was outside,'' investigating officer Trooper Terry Summers said.

Public information officer Trooper Dave McGarvey said police were still trying to piece together the events leading up to the shooting.

''We're trying to establish a timeline up to the time of the crime itself,'' McGarvey said.

It has not been confirmed yet whether the two, who were married for six years, were involved in a dispute at the time of the shooting.

''We're still in the process of ironing out what occurred,'' Sgt. Robert Johnson said.

Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins said police responded to a ''shots fired'' call shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday. The first officers on the scene found Karen Gerholt lying on her back near her vehicle, with John Lewis Gerholt kneeling over her. He had taken off his shirt and placed it over her body.

Karen Gerholt was pronounced dead at the scene by Bedford County Coroner Sam Gordon.

Police said Gerholt spoke to Summers while waiting in a police car at the scene and claimed he took the shotgun to McDonald's in order to scare his wife after she called him earlier in the day to say she wished he was dead. Gerholt said the gun went off accidentally and that he did not mean to hurt her.

He is being held at Bedford County Jail without bail. He was charged with criminal homicide and several other offenses, including simple and aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and weapon-related charges, including being a person not permitted to possess a firearm.

Police said Gerholt was not permitted to carry weapons because of the Protection From Abuse order against him, which was requested by Karen Gerholt and issued about two weeks ago.

Several witnesses told police they saw a man identified as Gerholt running through the parking lot toward the victim. Some heard two shots fired. Others saw Karen Gerholt crouching beside her car as Gerholt ran toward her.

The Gerholts were married for six years and were separated but not divorced. They have two children ages 4 years and 18 months. Gerholt was in the process of adopting his wife's 8-year-old child from a previous relationship.

Karen Gerholt had recently moved to Hopewell after previously living in Huntingdon County, police said.

She is the daughter of Carolyn (Brown) McConaughey of James Creek and Dean Lemin of Hopewell. She was raised in Hopewell and attended Tussey Mountain School District.

A preliminary hearing for Gerholt is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 19.

Higgins said the district attorney's office will find justice for the crime.

''On behalf of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the family and loved ones of Karen Gerholt, especially her young children, and I give you my commitment that the Office of the Bedford County District Attorney will do everything in its power to ensure that justice is served and that this man is held accountable for taking this young life.''

An autopsy on Karen Gerholt was scheduled Monday at Conemaugh Hospital.

Mirror Staff Writer Wendy McCardle is at 946-7520

Altoona Mirror 11/10/08

EVERETT - A domestic dispute turned tragic Sunday when a McDonald's employee was shot by her husband in the parking lot where she worked.

Police said Karen Marie Gerholt, 24, was talking to her husband, John Lewis Gerholt, 38, outside the restaurant on Route 30 in Everett when the shooting took place.

John Gerholt, a Mount Union resident, killed his wife with a sawed-off shotgun about 3:30 p.m. while customers were inside, state police at Bedford said.

Officers arrived to find Karen Gerholt dead at the scene. They took John Gerholt into custody outside the restaurant without further incident.

''Nobody in the restaurant was hurt, and there were no customers in the parking lot at the time,'' said Trooper David McGarvey, a public information officer with state police at Hollidaysburg.

Investigators will return to the restaurant in the Bedford Square Plaza today to determine the events leading up to the shooting.

State police at Bedford plan to release additional information at a press conference this morning.

Bedford County Coroner Sam Gordon and District Attorney Bill Higgins also are assisting with the investigation.

Gerholt was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Brian Baker Sunday evening and was charged with criminal homicide.

Karen Gerholt originally is from Hopewell. It wasn't clear whether she was living with her husband in Mount Union.

The McDonald's closed early Sunday and a manager referred all calls to owner Steven Delamater of Chambersburg.

Delamater was unavailable for comment.

Brent Nelson, a Clearville resident and employee at the Sac's convenience store across the street, said news of the shooting came as a shock.

''You wouldn't expect that in a place like this,'' he said. ''It's upsetting and kind of scary.''

Ripeng Zheag was working at Dragon Chinese Restaurant in the plaza when he saw several police cars pull into the McDonald's.

He ran to the Weis grocery store next door to find out what had happened.

''I thought it was something small, but when I found out it was a shooting, I was a little bit surprised,'' said Zheag, who moved to Bedford County three weeks ago.

''I was surprised it happened in Bedford,'' he added. ''People here are usually very nice and it's pretty quiet.''

Blair County April 6 2008 Shawn Noel Ryan Cunningham

POSTED: 1:20 pm EDT April 7, 2008
UPDATED: 7:55 pm EDT April 7, 2008

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Police in Blair County are investigating a deadly stabbing in Altoona.

Police said Ryan Cunningham, 19, and Shawn Noel, 18, got into an argument along the 900 block of 17th Avenue Sunday evening. Police said at some point Cunningham pulled out a knife and stabbed Noel.

Investigators said the fight may have started over a girl, but they are not completely sure that was the only reason for the fight.

According to officials, Cunningham used a hunting knife with a 4-inch blade to stab Noel in the abdomen. Noel was rushed to Altoona Regional, where he later died.

Police picked up Cunningham about two hours after the stabbing.

Investigators said they don't think the fight was gang-related or drug-related, but neighbors said it still makes them uneasy that there was a murder right down the street.

"Something might happen one day, and my kids might get hurt. I'm afraid for my wife. I'm afraid for myself. There are so many things going on in this neighborhood. I don't know what to think, honestly and truly," said Diego Santos.

Cunningham is in in the Blair County Prison charged with criminal homicide. Investigators are waiting for Noel's autopsy results.

The Blair County district attorney said he does not think this was a case of self-defense.

Oct 14, 2008 Altoona Mirror

HOLLIDAYSBURG - The statement that Ryan Russell Cunningham made to police about a fight that led to a fatal stabbing should be kept from a jury, Cunningham's attorney said Monday.

When talking to police, the 19-year-old Cross Keys man was unaware that Shawn Patrick Noel, 18, had died, Altoona attorney Thomas Dickey told Judge Hiram Carpenter in a pretrial court hearing.

District Attorney Richard Consiglio said that would make no difference, describing Cunningham as "a guy who couldn't wait to give a statement."

"But when [police] take a statement and start to use it against him," Dickey said, "we're talking about someone who thinks they're being interviewed about a simple fight as opposed to a homicide."

Suppression of Cunningham's statement will be one of several issues Carpenter is expected to consider in the coming weeks as the case moves toward a jury trial next year.

Cunningham is charged with homicide, two counts of aggravated assault and simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime and reckless endangerment.

The charges stem from a fight in April on the 900 block of 17th Avenue. Cunningham and Noel had been at odds concerning a woman who was living with Noel at the time.

Cunningham went to their residence and told police he took a knife because he was expecting trouble.

Dickey also asked Carpenter, on Cunningham's behalf, for financial help to hire a forensic pathologist and a criminal investigator to aid in the defense.

Consiglio questioned the need, making a reference to the county's tight financial position and said Dickey is a privately paid attorney, not a public defender.

Dickey said the forensic pathologist is needed to examine the nature and extent of the single-stab wound and how it caused Noel's death. He also is asking Carpenter to dismiss the first-degree murder charge on the basis that there is no evidence of intention or malice.

Carpenter is reviewing other issues in the case, including use of an out-of-county jury. The judge said he likely will try to pick a Blair County jury before considering that request.

Clearfield March 13, 2008 Cindy Coleman Jesse James Cambpell, t,c

Altoona Mirror 10/8/08

Convicted killer Jesse James Campbell maintained his innocence Monday while in court for sentencing.

"I accept and respect the jury's verdict, but I don't agree with it at all," Campbell told Judge Paul Cherry before he handed down a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Campbell told Cherry he did not kill his mother, Cindy Coleman, and he had put his faith in a criminal justice system that ultimately let him down. He also said the conviction and District Attorney William Shaw's seeking of the death penalty was politically motivated.

Campbell was convicted Oct. 15 of first and third degree murder and related charges for the March 13 slaying of Coleman in her Houtzdale apartment.

Campbell's girlfriend at the time told police and jurors that Campbell confessed to her he beat and stabbed his mother before sitting down and reading the Bible to her as she bled to death.

Clad in chains and an orange prison jumpsuit, Campbell told Shaw he hoped he would be re-elected as he left the courtroom.

After the brief hearing, defense attorney Chris Pentz said he would file appeals on Campbell's behalf.

Pentz declined to go into specifiis, only saying he would be going over the case again before filing anything.

Shaw said afterward that he took no pleasure in prosecuting Campbell, 21.

"There are absolutely no winners in this case," Shaw said.

Shaw said the trial was emotionally and physically draining, and he hoped "never to have to be involved in a case like this" again.

"It's an absolute tragedy," he said.

10/16/08 Clearfield Progess

Guilty on all counts
A jury deliberated for two hours last night before convicting Jesse James Campbell of murder in the first and third degrees. The 22-year-old Houtzdale man was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. As the verdict was handed down, Mr. Campbell shook his head in disbelief. The penalty phase will take place today and a jury will decide if Mr. Campbell will be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Charges stem from the March 13 murder of Mr. Campbell's mother, Cindy Jo Coleman.

Mr. Campbell took the stand in his own defense yesterday. His lawyer, Chris Pentz, questioned him about his height, weight and personal history. Mr. Campbell told the court that he stands 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs approximately 165 pounds and can bench press 220 pounds. He said he had been working out around the time of the incident.

Mr. Campbell admitted that he had a prior criminal record that included burglaries and thefts that were committed between ages 14-17.

He recalled that on March 12, he went to his mother's apartment along with Kasey Fisher and Sara Wisor to retrieve a computer and some other personal belongings. He admitted that he had two keys to access the apartment doors because he had been living there. Mr. Pentz pointed out that his mother had neither changed the locks nor had she asked for him to return the keys. Mr. Campbell said he had been staying at Ms. Fisher's residence and spent the rest of the evening with her at her apartment. He described how the two put Ms. Fisher's child to bed, shared a shower, then watched a movie and fell asleep. Mr. Campbell admitted that he also snorted a one-milligram Coladapin pill as well as 10 milligrams of Percoset.

After he consumed the drugs, Mr. Campbell received a phone call from his mother. He said the woman was upset that he took the computer. She called a second time and Mr. Campbell said that both he and Ms. Fisher talked to her. He said his mother warned them that if the computer was not returned by 8 a.m. the next day that she would call the police and have them both arrested. Mr. Campbell testified that he told his mother he would return the computer.

Mr. Pentz also questioned the defendant about his dark writings that were presented earlier in the trial. Mr. Campbell admitted that he had written the documents and estimated that all three were composed in August 2007. At the time, he said, he was not fighting with his mother.

Mr. Campbell told the jury that he is an aspiring author and likes to have people read his writing. He described writing as "therapeutic" and said that counselors had suggested he write to "get his feelings out."

Mr. Pentz pointed to one document, penned under the name "Jay Coleman." Mr. Campbell said that name was his pen name and he planned to use it if he published a book one day. He said that one writing, which included gruesome details, was about a nightmare he had about dying. Mr. Campbell said he had no intentions of acting on anything he had written. In another writing that described butchering people, Mr. Campbell said his whole intention was to convey "that human life is a precious and valuable thing." He said that killing animals was the same as killing people because "the physical act is basically the same." Mr. Campbell also said that he intended to shock his readers with his writing.

Mr. Pentz questioned his client about a line in a third writing that mentioned killing his mother "with a dull steak knife."

"This is fictional," Mr. Campbell said of the writing. "This ain't me."

He described the writing as the thoughts of a character he created in a story. He said that while he was writing, he was thinking of a chapter in the Bible in Romans and said, "men are sinners."

Mr. Pentz asked Mr. Campbell if he loved his mother, to which he replied, "Yes I loved my mother, of course." The attorney also pointed to testimony in the case from troopers who said Mr. Campbell showed no emotion when he was told his mother was dead.

"There was so much going on, what was I supposed to show?" Mr. Campbell said. "To a degree, I was mad," he said, because the troopers thought he killed his mother.

When asked by his attorney if he killed his mother or had any involvement, Mr. Campbell said that he did not.

On cross-examination, Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. pointed out that Mr. Campbell did not have a vehicle and he and Ms. Fisher borrowed a car to collect the computer from his mother's residence. He said that he knew his mother would be mad that he took the computer, but he left her a note to let her know that he took it.

Mr. Campbell told Mr. Shaw that he never left Ms. Fisher's apartment on the night of March 12, but added "if I did leave, it was something so small you wouldn't think twice."

Mr. Shaw also questioned Mr. Campbell's writings and the defendant explained that everything was fictional. Mr. Shaw suggested that the thoughts were still Mr. Campbell's.

Yesterday also heard testimony from the primary investigator in the case, Trooper Kimberly J. Ronan. Tpr. Ronan testified that she responded to the scene on March 13 where other troopers were already stationed. She observed the victim lying face-up on the floor between the couch and a coffee table. The trooper saw "a lot of blood on the couch and pillows" and observed cuts to the victim's wrists and neck. The woman was "noticeably deceased" and her face was beaten and bruised.

Tpr. Ronan described the apartment where a leftover dinner plate was on the counter and a half-eaten candy bar was found near the victim. The trooper was present at the autopsy and told the court that the victim was described as 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighing approximately 160 pounds.

As part of her investigation, Tpr. Ronan said that other troopers conducted time-distance studies from McAteer Village to Woodward Terrace Apartments. The troopers determined that the trip, on foot, would take approximately 20-25 minutes.

Tpr. Ronan was also responsible for filing charges against Mr. Campbell. She recalled taking him to the local magisterial district judge for arraignment. While there, she said he asked her "what he'd get out of this." The trooper replied that she thought he would get "life or more." She noted that she had not initiated conversation with Mr. Campbell and he had voluntarily offered the information.

Testimony also focused on a note that Mr. Campbell left for his mother at her apartment. In the note, Mr. Campbell wrote that he took the computer and wrote in capital letters, "DON'T BE MAD." He wrote that he would bring it back and added that he loved her, "believe it or not." The note was signed, "Love, Jesse."

On cross-examination, Mr. Pentz questioned the trooper about the sneakers that were recovered in the case. Tpr. Ronan said that the shoes were size 9 and she believed that the killer, Mr. Campbell, wore them at the time of the murder. Mr. Pentz asked if the shoes belonged to a man or a woman, and the trooper described them as "androgynous."

He also questioned the lack of blood on the Bible found in Ms. Coleman's apartment, despite testimony that Mr. Campbell read the book over his dying mother's body. Tpr. Ronan agreed that no blood was found on the Bible and it was not examined for fingerprints.

In his closing arguments, Mr. Pentz pointed at Ms. Fisher as the main suspect in the case. He described that she could have killed Ms. Coleman because the woman threatened to put her in jail. Mr. Pentz said that the threat was actually directed at Ms. Fisher's son because Ms. Fisher is a single mother and the child would suffer if his mother were jailed.

Although Ms. Fisher testified that she had no involvement in the case, Mr. Pentz suggested that "if that's true, then she's the most misunderstood witness in the entire world." He noted that other witnesses testified that Ms. Fisher made statements about helping to plan the murder.

Mr. Pentz also suggested that items found in the trash bag were cross-contaminated with DNA from other items in the bag. He compared his client's writing to Stephen King and said that the gory writing does not mean his client is a killer.

"Writing it and doing it are two different things," he argued.

Mr. Shaw's closing arguments focused on facts of the case and first pointed to burrs found on the socks and shoes in the case. He suggested that the burrs attached to the shoes of the killer as he walked through the woods from McAteer Village to the Woodward Terrace Apartments. Mr. Shaw noted that Mr. Campbell had no car and would have to have walked to his mother's apartment when he went there to kill her.

He said that Mr. Campbell's prior record indicated that he was dishonest in the past and it could show that he is dishonest in this case. He also disputed Mr. Pentz's claim that Ms. Fisher was the murderer because she was much smaller than the victim. Mr. Shaw said that Ms. Fisher was cooperative with the police and was concerned with protecting her son, so she would not have left the apartment that night. He also suggested that she feared Mr. Campbell and was relieved when the police arrived.

Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Campbell was the only one in the case who was unaccounted for in the early morning hours of March 13. He noted testimony from Ms. Fisher's neighbor, Angela Acey, who was the first one to contact police when she learned he might kill his mother, and the woman also told police when Mr. Campbell returned to the McAteer Village apartment.

The district attorney recalled Mr. Campbell's testimony about the line he wrote about killing his mother with a steak knife and feeling no remorse.

"Even if you accept that he wants to be an author," Mr. Shaw said, "He's thinking these thoughts. That's his mind process."

"How'd Cindy Jo Coleman die?" he asked. "With a dull steak knife."

Mr. Shaw said that like the writings suggested, Mr. Campbell felt no remorse. "What's going on in this guy's mind?"

The jury in this case was pulled from Mercer County. The penalty phase began today at 10 a.m. before Judge Paul E. Cherry.

Blair2/9/07 Beth Sprankle Carlos Ortiz-suicide

Couple Dies In Blair County Murder - Suicide

POSTED: 8:26 pm EST February 9, 2007
UPDATED: 8:38 pm EST February 9, 2007

LOGAN TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- An estranged Blair County couple died following a murder-suicide that happened outside a day care center in Logan Township, Blair County.

Police said 37-year-old Carlos Ortiz, of Altoona, shot his estranged girlfriend, 24-year-old Beth Sprankle, before he shot and killed himself.

Police said Sprankle was dropping her two sons off at the Time To Succeed Day Care Center in Greenwood. That's when police said Ortiz got out of his Ford Explorer and shot Sprankle through the windshield, killing her, while her two children were in the back seat.

Blair County Coroner Patti Ross said, “I think from the vantage points where they were sitting in their car seats, they didn't see the wounds, just the blood, and the fact that she was slumped over.”

Police said Ortiz then ran just a couple hundred feet through a mobile home park and took his own life.

Police said Sprankle and Ortiz had at least one son together -- a 3-year-old boy who was in the back seat of the car with his 4-year-old brother.

Sprankle had a protection from abuse order against Ortiz, and the couple had been having a custody battle over the children for several months.

Police said Sprankle and Ortiz met several years ago over the Internet. Ortiz was originally from Allentown, but moved to Altoona. The two dated for several years, but had separated this past year.

Blair1/19/07 Shane Sullivan Douglas Gardini-a
BREAKING: City Man Charged in Toddler's Death
By Chris Forshey and Roy Goshorn
Mar 2, 2007, 17:00

Altoona Police have made an arrest in connection with the death of a 15-month toddler.

28-year-old Douglas Patrick Gardini was taken into custody late Friday afternoon at his mother's home on 18th Avenue. Gardini has been charged with criminal homicide and endangering the welfare of children in connection with the death of Shane William Sullivan who was found dead at a residence on the 1500 block of 4th Street on January 19th.

Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross says Sullivan died of a brain injury caused by blunt force trauma. The baby was pronounced dead by the AMED crew who first arrived on scene. City police say Gardini was seeing the boy's mother at the time.

Gardini was taken into custody without incident. He will be arraigned in front of Magisterial District Judge Todd Kelly Friday night. A preliminary hearing will be set for sometime within the next two weeks.

AltoonaMirror 4/13/08

Blair County had one child abuse homicide in 2007, according to the state Department of Public Welfare.

The death of 15-month-old Shane W. Sullivan led to a third-degree murder conviction against his mother’s boyfriend, Douglas P. Gardini.

Deedra Lynn Sullivan, Shane’s mother, is charged with child endangerment for not reporting a series of injuries Shane suffered before his death; her case is pending in Blair County Court.

But one infant homicide from the past three years remains unsolved in Altoona: the March 2005 death of 9-month-old Landon James Croft.

The lack of an arrest is frustrating to Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross, who ruled Croft’s death a homicide.

“You can’t just let our babies be killed without something being done,” she said Friday.

Altoona Deputy Chief Mitchell Cooper said Croft’s death remains an active investigation.

“Unfortunately, we have not met the burden [of proof] to file criminal charges against anyone,” Cooper said. “They’re very difficult cases at times of proving who was responsible for causing the fatal injuries.”

Cooper said investigators have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, otherwise a defendant could be found not guilty and could not be brought to trial again in a case.

A second child death in September 2005 also has not led to charges. Bailey M. Price, 4, died after she drowned in a bathtub in a Logan Township home, Logan Chief Ron Heller said.

Ross called the death “very suspicious.”

“We have nothing to say it’s anything other than an accidental drowning,” Heller said. “The investigation is suspended until we get any new information.”

Blair County had 57 substantiated reports of abuse in 2007 after receiving 298 reports of suspected abuse, the Welfare Department said.

Altoona Mirror Aug 30 08

HOLLIDAYSBURG - The mother of a 15-month-old boy who was beaten to death in 2007 was given three years' probation Friday for child endangerment.

Sentencing had been delayed after Deedra Lynn Sullivan, 26, of Altoona entered a no-contest plea to the charge in late April so that a presentence report could be prepared.

According to a report received by Judge Hiram A. Carpenter, Sullivan remains distraught over the death of her younger son, Shane W. Sullivan.

Carpenter ruled that she must continue counseling and pay a $1,000 fine.

Shane's older brother has been placed outside Sullivan's home.

In early 2007, Sullivan and her two boys were living with Douglas Patrick Gardini. The couple recently had the children returned to their custody by Blair County Children and Youth Services, according to documents in the criminal investigation.

Police charged that during the early evening of Jan. 19, 2007, Gardini beat Shane so severely that he died.

Gardini pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and is serving 16 to 32 years in prison.

Chief Deputy Assistant District Attorney Wade Kagarise said Sullivan's plea was open, meaning there was no agreement between the defense or prosecution as to the sentence.

Her attorney, Theodore Krol, presented Carpenter with the psychological report prepared by CYS concerning Sullivan's state of mind.

The prosecution told Carpenter that Sullivan had been cooperative with police during the investigation and was prepared to testify against Gardini.

''We realize the judge had a difficult case to balance - on one hand, the death of a child; and on the other hand, a psychological report that was substantially beneficial to her,'' Kagarise said.

He said charges were brought because Sullivan had failed to keep her child safe from Gardini.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.

Huntingdon 8/16/06 Carl Wade Ryder ?
The Pennsylvania State Police, Troop G, Huntingdon continue their investigation into a death that occurred in Tell Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday, August 16, 2006, the body of Carl Wade Ryder was found along Allison Road, close to SR 35 in Tell Township, Huntingdon County. Mr. Ryder's body was located down an embankment approximately 50 feet off Allison Road.

Investigators believe there may be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Ryder.

Centre6/7/06 Langston Carraway LaVon Chisley
PSU Student Murdered in Centre County
By Chris Forshey
Jun 7, 2006, 09:00

There has been another homicide in Centre County.

Patton Township Police are investigating the death of 26-year-old Langston Carraway, a Penn State Student who was found dead in his Northbrook Lane apartment Monday afternoon.

Police say Carraway's body was found by his brother, who immediately contacted police. Carraway was last seen alive by his family on Saturday evening, but a neighbor has reported seeing him alive just before noon Monday.

Investigators have remained tight-lipped about what they found inside during their investigation. County detectives were called in, as were members of the State Police and Penn State forensics investigation units, but information on what they found inside the apartment isn't being released at this time.

Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira says Carraway's death marks the third homicide in the county in the past five months.

:28 "an anomaly" (newsmadeira67)

Madeira would not release the cause of Carraway's death. Authorities have arrested and charged suspects in Centre County's two previous murders, and as Madeira said Police have no suspects. Authorities are now looking to the public for help in solving Carraway's murder.
Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 ]
After 7 months, an arrest
DA: Bloody glove points to former Lion

By Halle Stockton
Collegian Staff Writer
A bloody rubber glove found next to the body of a Penn State senior fatally stabbed 93 times in June yielded two DNA profiles -- the victim's and former Penn State football player LaVon Chisley's, police said.
The glove was found a few feet from Langston Carraway's mutilated body in his residence at 110 Northbrook Lane, according to the criminal complaint. Police have said Carraway and Chisley were known to be friends.
According to the complaint, the only DNA recovered on the inside of the glove matched that of Chisley -- who was arrested yesterday and charged with first- and third-degree murder for his alleged role in the slaying of Carraway, 26. The complaint indicates that DNA found on the glove's exterior matched Carraway's DNA.
Karen Muir, Chisley's lawyer, would not comment on the DNA evidence.
Holding his mother's hand, Chisley, 23, calmly walked into Patton Township police custody yesterday morning at the Centre County Courthouse. He entered through the back entrance of the courthouse, where police handcuffed him and asked him to kneel on a bench so they could shackle his ankles.
Muir said Chisley is innocent, but chose to cooperate with authorities.
"It is still Mr. Chisley's position that he had absolutely nothing to do with this homicide," she said, adding that she will be speaking on behalf of Chisley.
Other evidence revealed in the criminal complaint filed Sunday was a bloody shoe print, measured at about 13 inches long, on the carpet of Carraway's apartment. According to the criminal complaint, the shoe print matched the length of a shoe found at the crime scene that police say belongs to Chisley.
Carraway died of massive blood loss as a result of 93 separate wounds, including slashes on the neck and stab wounds to the right side of his torso and face, according to the criminal complaint. A knife or knives were used, police said, and in a deep stab wound, a broken blade was found in Carraway's chest. Also, the doctor who performed the autopsy said multiple injuries to Carraway's arms were defense wounds.
A friend of Chisley, Kerry Onaka, told police that on June 3 she saw Chisley in possession of the same thick rubber gloves found at the crime scene, according to the criminal complaint. The complaint also indicates that she told police she and Chisley had a scheduled trip to Baltimore and that he called "agitated" and with a "sense of urgency" requesting to leave at 6 a.m. June 4, about two hours earlier than they had planned.
According to the criminal complaint, the murder happened between 8 p.m. June 3 and 6:30 a.m. June 4, and Onaka told police Chisley called her June 20 claiming he was in trouble and told her to tell police he stayed with her the night of June 3 if asked.
Chisley was arraigned at about 11:30 a.m. yesterday by District Judge Thomas Jordan, who set Chisley's preliminary hearing date for 9 a.m. Jan. 26 at the county courthouse. Chisley is being held at the Centre County Correctional Facility. He was not given the right to bail, which is normal for most first-degree murder cases, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira said.

PHOTO: Daniel Freel
Chisley arrives at the Bellefonte Courthouse yesterday morning in the company of his mother.
At the end of the arraignment, Chisley showed emotion for the first time and broke down crying. His mother put her arms around him to comfort him, and he left the judge's office with bloodshot, tear-filled eyes.
"He's naturally upset. He can't reconcile why it is he is being charged," Muir said. "He is saddened at the loss of a friend."
Chisley voluntarily turned himself in at the courthouse yesterday, Muir said, but he and Muir were also present because of a search warrant hearing that began at about 9 a.m.
The hearing was to decide whether a search warrant being filed by the Commonwealth for financial records relating to Chisley at Muir's law
offices, 1315 W. College Ave., is relevant and if it would violate attorney-client privileges.
"I'm suggesting the Commonwealth is using this as a way to look at my files regarding my client," Muir said. "This is more of a fishing expedition than it is actually looking for evidence of a crime."
Centre County President Judge Charles C. Brown approved the search warrant for Muir's financial records.
Madeira said robbery is being investigated as a motive for the homicide, which is why he is seeking financial records from Muir and others.
"Obviously, the more people [Chisley] owed money, the greater the desperation," he said.
According to the search warrant, authorities are investigating Chisley's financial state after they found he owes about $51,475 to several different parties, not including Muir.
The warrant states that the district attorney's office received notice in April 2006 from an unknown sports agent who said he used to represent Chisley; he said Chisley still owed him about $10,000.
Police officers also reported in July 2006 that through speaking with State College tattoo shop owner Philip Clouser, who did tattoo work on Chisley, they found that Chisley still owed him $3,000 as of the date of Carraway's murder. Clouser said Chisley told him he would pay the money once he was drafted into the NFL, but Chisley was never drafted, according to the criminal complaint.
Carraway was last seen alive at 3 p.m. June 3 buying wine at the Wine and Spirits Shop at 1690 N. Atherton St., police discovered through witness accounts.
The complaint states that Carraway was wearing a large watch and carrying a wad of cash about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick. Relatives confirmed to police that the JoJo diamond watch, valued between $500 and $1,500, was Carraway's. Madeira said police did not recover the watch or the cash.

PHOTO: Daniel Freel
Patton Township Police Officer Tom Snyder escorts LaVon Chisley into a police cruiser at the Bellefonte Courthouse yesterday. Chisley was charged with first- and third-degree murder for his alleged role in Langston Carraway's death.

(c) Copyright 2004-2005 by WRTA.com

Cambria5/29/06 Velda Melloy Nathan Fortson-p,c
Huntingdon Dale Zunich Nathan Fortson-p,c
Fortson pleads guilty in murder of Cambria Township woman
By SANDRA K. REABUCK
The Tribune-Democrat
EBENSBURG - Accused two-time killer Nathan Fortson admitted in Cambria County Court today to one murder and will be in Huntingdon County on Thursday for a guilty plea to a second killing.

Fortson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder today in the kidnapping and strangulation/throat-slashing death of 74-year-old Velda Malloy of Cambria Township.

He was sentenced immediately by Judge F. Joseph Leahey to a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Fortson, under the plea agreement, is enter a similar plea today that would carry a consecutive life sentence in the slaying of Dale Zunich of Altoona.

The two victims were killed in May - Malloy on May 24 near a pond in Munster Township outside of Ebensburg and Zunich four days later near Shirleysburg in Huntingdon County.

Cambria's plea deal is off if Fortson doesn't plead guilty in Huntingdon County prosecutors from the two counties said.

Prosecutors in both counties had been prepared to seek death sentences, but, instead, with the agreement of the families, decided to accept a plea to first-degree murder in a deal that would put Fortson behind bars for the rest of his life.

Man Wont Be Charged for Failing to Report Kidnapping
By Chris Forshey
Jun 8, 2006, 08:55

Accused Killer Nathan Fortson
A man who admitted to authorities that he knew a Cambria County woman was tied up in the trunk of her own car hours before she was murdered but did nothing about it will most likely not be charged.

That's the word from Cambria County District Attorney Pat Kiniry, who says it wasn't a crime when Chris Miller didn't notify police that 74-year-old Velda Malloy was tied up in the trunk of her car. Malloy was killed last Wednesday in Munster Township, Cambria County hours after Nathan Fortson wasn't able to get the money he wanted out of her bank account at a Johnstown-area ATM location. Fortson took Malloy's car and put her in the trunk earlier in the evening.

Malloy has since admitted that he murdered Malloy, and 37-year-old Dale Zunich of Altoona. Zunich was found dead in Shirley Township, Huntingdon County last Monday. Miller was in the car with Fortson when Malloy was making noise in the trunk. Miller never alerted authorities of the incident or what he had heard.

District Attorney Kiniry says in some states witnesses keeping information to themselves is a crime, but not here in Pennsylvania.

Miller didn't tell investigating officers from the Pennsylvania State Police about being in the car with Fortson and Malloy until he was interrogated after she was killed. Fortson remains lodged in the Huntingdon County Prison and is not eligible for bail. He still faces a formal preliminary hearing in Huntingdon County on charges of capital murder and several other crimes. Court officials there have appointed high-profile Altoona attorney Tom Dickey to represent Fortson.

2006 James Tucker Torone Dixon-t,c (killed in prison), John Mease, Damien Pierce
2 face more charges in Cambria County first-degree murder
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
By Caitlin Cleary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Two Blair County men charged last week in connection with the robbery and killing of an Altoona man on a Cambria County mountain last month now face charges of first-degree murder.
John E. "Minnow" Mease, 28, of Bellwood, and Damien Marcus "Manny" Pierce, 31, of Altoona, on Monday were charged with first- and second-degree murder, criminal homicide and receiving stolen property in the death of James Tucker, 22.
Mr. Tucker's body was found, shot and burning, in a brush fire April 27.
Torone Maurice "TuTu" Dixon, 25, of Philadelphia, was charged last week with criminal homicide, robbery and conspiracy, and aggravated assault.
According to a police affidavit, Mr. Dixon forced the victim out of a car at gunpoint, ordered him to turn over all his drugs and cash, then shot him, "to even a score."
When Mr. Tucker staggered away, running for his life, Mr. Dixon chased after him, shooting him, then kicking and striking him with his .22-caliber revolver, the affidavit said.
Mr. Mease and Mr. Pierce then dragged the victim into a small stand of pine trees, doused him with lighter fluid and set him on fire, the complaint said.
Police say 20-year old Christine DeStefano, who shared a Tyrone trailer with Mr. Dixon, helped to lure Mr. Tucker to the location of his death.
After the crime, she called her family to tell them she was being held against her will; police initially feared for her safety. Ms. DeStefano was later charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and released on bond.
All the men are being held without bond at the Cambria County Prison, and all of them now have attorneys, said Cambria County District Attorney Patrick Kiniry.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 26 at 1 p.m. in the Cambria County Courthouse.

Judge Throws Book at Blair Men
By Chris Forshey
Jan 30, 2007, 08:59

Two Blair County men who burned a murder victim's body on Blandburg Mountain last year after a drug deal gone bad were sentenced Monday in Cambria County Court.

Judge Dave Tulowitzki threw the book at 28-year-old John Mease of Bellwood and 31-year-old Damien Pierce of Altoona telling them that considering what they were involved in, their plea agreements earned them a break. In exchange for his guilty plea on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery and consummation of a crime, Pierce will serve three-and-a-half to 10 years in a state prison. Mease, who entered a guilty plea to charges of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery and aiding in a felony, will serve two years, 9 months to 10 years in prison.

Both Mease and Pierce admitted to robbing James Tucker of Altoona and then burning his body. Tucker's body was found shot and burned along Fire Tower Road in Read Township last May. A third man, Torone Dixon of Philadelphia, was accused of being the main gunman who pulled the trigger, killing Tucker. Dixon was shot and killed during a stand off at the Cambria County Prison last year.

Judge Tulowitzki also ordered the men to reimburse Tucker's mom the cost of his funeral. A third person, Christina DeStefano of Bellwood, will be sentenced next month on a charge of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. She's accused of driving the men to the location where Tucker was shot and killed.
Inmate killed in attack on guard
Sunday, September 24, 2006
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Ducking behind concrete tables to avoid the bullets from prison guards trying to stop him, Torone Dixon moved within two feet of his hostage.
As the accused killer rose up, his 8-inch homemade knife poised to plunge into guard Ross Morelli, another officer took one last shot.
Mr. Dixon, who was awaiting trial on capital murder charges, fell to the ground. He was pronounced dead an hour later Friday night at Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown.
Officer Morelli lay prone and manacled in his own handcuffs for nearly two hours after Mr. Dixon attacked him in Housing Unit C of the Cambria County Prison in Ebensburg. He suffered a broken jaw during the ordeal.
The incident began about 8:50 p.m. Friday as a nurse and corrections officers were passing out medication.
"They said Dixon was just pacing back and forth," said Cambria County Sheriff Bob Kolar.
When the other officers were a good distance down a hallway, Mr. Dixon attacked Officer Morelli, 22. He beat him and kicked him for three to four minutes before putting him into a choke hold.
" 'If anybody comes close to me, I'm snapping his neck,' " Sheriff Kolar quoted Mr. Dixon as saying. " 'I'm gonna kill him.' "
"That's when they had to back off," the sheriff said. Mr. Dixon took the officer's radio and handcuffed him.
Over the next two hours, negotiators from the State Correctional Institution Cresson arrived, as well as county corrections officers specially trained to handle such emergencies.
During the negotiations, Mr. Dixon, formerly of Philadelphia, asked for a cigarette -- the prison has a no-tobacco policy -- and a telephone.
After he was given his cigarette and a phone, he went wild, the sheriff said. He tried to smash the electrical panel that controls doors in the pod, and he hurled around anything he could get his hands on.
"He was yelling that he was taking it over. More or less, 'Stay away from me or I'm gonna kill him.' He was rambling," Sheriff Kolar said.
At that point, Mr. Dixon was 50 to 60 feet from Officer Morelli, who wasn't moving, the sheriff said.
Believing they had a chance to subdue the prisoner, emergency-response officers entered the pod from two directions and fired non-lethal beanbags at Mr. Dixon. When that didn't work, they shot pepper-spray canisters at him, also to no avail.
"You're talking a matter of mere seconds," Sheriff Kolar said. "He had a head start. He had about 20 feet on them when they came in. He ducked down and was running toward Morelli.
"He wanted Morelli."
That's when one of the officers armed with a real gun started shooting.
Two bullets ricocheted off the concrete benches. The third one hit its mark.
"If [the officer] would have hesitated another second, the guard would have been dead. No question," the sheriff said.
Officer Morelli, who has worked at the prison since June 2005, should fully recover from his broken jaw, Sheriff Kolar said.
Mr. Dixon, charged with shooting a man to death April 27, had spent about 100 days in the prison's restrictive housing unit, said his public defender Kenneth Sottile, and just moved into the general population a couple of days ago.
Mr. Dixon's homemade knife, called a shank in prison jargon, had been fashioned from a piece of straightened-out fence wire. It had string wrapped around it to form a handle, with about four inches sticking out as a blade.
Sheriff Kolar suspects that Mr. Dixon got it from the prison recreation yard, which uses that type of fencing. Even in segregation, inmates still get an hour of yard time a day, he said.
Another inmate, Adam Cosgrove, was injured by a bullet fragment that struck his neck. He was in good condition at Memorial Medical Center.
Mr. Dixon was awaiting trial in the death of James Tucker, of Altoona, who was robbed, shot and then set on fire in Reade Township, Cambria County.
According to an affidavit, Mr. Dixon shot Mr. Tucker, who tried to run away, but Mr. Dixon chased him, firing the gun until Mr. Tucker fell to the ground.
Two other suspects, Damien Marcus Pierce, of Altoona, and John E. Mease, of Bellwood, Blair County, then dragged Mr. Tucker to a small stand of pine trees, poured lighter fluid on him and set him on fire.
Mr. Dixon was the only one of the suspects facing the death penalty.
He previously served more than three years in state prison on a drug conviction in Blair County and began serving his sentence in July 2001. He was released Dec. 11, 2004.

Blair 12/26/05 Jarod Klein Nathan Shaw-t,c

By ROB CAROLUS
Staff Writer
February 24, 2007

Nathan Shaw said he'd "pray for" the members of 6-year-old Jared Klein's family while he's in prison for the boy's murder. Blair County Judge Daniel Milliron later informed Shaw he'd have a lifetime to do it.
"I'd like to apologize to Christina (Muoio) and her family," an icy and unconvincing Shaw said as he testified during his sentencing hearing Friday at Blair County Court in Hollidaysburg. "I know I caused you guys so much pain."
The convicted rapist and child killer was officially sentenced to life without parole for the first-degree stabbing death of Klein. He also received consecutive sentences totaling close to 50 additional years in state lock up for other charges related to the night-after-Christmas attacks against both Klein and his mother at their Tyrone apartment in 2005.
"I did love Jared. I never meant to hurt him," Shaw said, delivering statements reminiscent of his sometimes shocking testimony during the murder trial. "I know you want me to die, to suffer, and I want you to know you'll be in my prayers.
"I can only hope someday you'll forgive me."
Judge Milliron pulled no punches when addressing Shaw following victim impact statements delivered by Jared's two grandmothers and two aunts.
The boy's mother, Muoio, was present for the hearing, but did not deliver a statement.
"During the entire course of this trial, you've been treated with respect," Milliron said to Shaw prior to conveying his sentence. "But I must tell you I find you disgusting. Your actions that night fall far below what is expected in a civilized world.
"Thinking back to your testimony during your trial, as you gave your account of what happened that night, it's my judgment that none of it was true."
Milliron went on to tell Shaw that he'd prefer to give him the maximum sentence for each of his crimes, but that bringing the matter to a close would be much more important.
"The Muoio family deserves closure," the judge said, "and I want them to have that.
"Of course, your first-degree murder conviction carries with it an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. As for the other charges, I would prefer to give you the maximum sentences allowed by law, but I do not want to leave any room for an appeal of these sentences in the appellate courts. Therefore, I intend to sentence you at the height of the aggravated range."
On top of the life sentence for Jared's murder, Shaw was given in total an additional 24 years, 10 months to 49 years, eight months for numerous counts of aggravated assault, rape, theft and indecent assault. All of Shaw's sentences will run consecutive.
Milliron explained that the stiff sentences were based on several criteria, stating that Shaw remains a "danger to society." The judge said he considered the "mental cruelty" administered to both Klein and Muoio during the assaults and the fact that Shaw was "under supervision" of probation at the time when rendering his decision.
He also noted that Shaw is a "poor candidate for rehabilitation," pointing out the young boy Shaw killed "trusted and cared for" the defendant as his father.
"As of today, we've had 424 days to think about what you did that night," said Peggy Miller, Jared's maternal grandmother. She was the first to deliver a victim impact statement and she did so a mere three feet away from the killer. Her prepared statements were printed on the back of a full color photograph of Klein, which Shaw was forced to look at as Miller gave her statement. "You're a cold-hearted baby killer and a rapist. You're nothing but a monster.
"Let's not forget the one and only witness to what you did - Angel, Jared's sister. She saw everything. She saw you beat her mother and her big brother. She saw you smash her mother's face in beyond recognition.
She remembers you telling her to 'stop whining' as you beat her mom and her brother and she also remembers Jared telling her not to cry, and that he loved her.
"She remembers when you went to the kitchen to get the knife and she remembers you picking Jared up by his hair and stabbing him in the neck.
She relives these nightmares every day of her life.
"When you are rotting in hell, it will be the happiest day of my life."
Following the proceedings, Blair County public defender Theodore Krol said, as expected, that Shaw has already requested an appeal of his first-degree murder conviction. The defense has 30 days from sentencing to file for an appeal.
Meanwhile, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said he hopes for the sake of the victims' family that does not happen.
"There's no merit for an appeal," Consiglio said. "This case, as with every other capital murder case I've been witness to in Blair County, was totally clean."
When asked if he thought the sentences were harsh enough, Consiglio replied, "This guy deserved to die. He's disgusting. He's evil. But, the jury couldn't come together on the death penalty.
"In light of that, the judge's decisions were very appropriate."

Shaw expected to appeal murder conviction

By ROB CAROLUS
Staff Writer
January 26, 2007

Attorneys for convicted child killer Nathan Shaw say the former Tyrone resident will appeal his first-degree murder conviction. Lead counsel for the defense told The Daily Herald in an interview Wednesday, just 7 days after Shaw was convicted of murdering 6-year-old Jared Klein of Tyrone, that his client is already talking about his next day in court.
"I don't think there's a defendant that is tried through the judicial system who does not seek an appeal," said Blair County public defender Theodore Krol. "(Shaw) firmly believes he'll be able to get a manslaughter conviction through an appeal, based largely on the time of deliberation associated with the first degree murder conviction.
"That jury was in there for 9 hours."
Shaw was convicted last week for the brutal beatings of Klein and his mother, Christina Muoio. He earned life in prison for stabbing the young boy to death with a kitchen knife during the fracas. Shaw was also found guilty of raping Muoio and stealing her car the same night.
Jared's murder happened the night after Christmas 2005, just weeks after Shaw was released from a lengthy prison stay. He had served 18 months after battering Muoio on another occasion.
Krol said he'll have some work to do before filing an appeal with superior court, and he'll have some time to do that.
"During the trial, just about every legal argument we made, we prevailed in," the attorney said. "I have not yet determined what area or areas are valid to appeal - there are very few - but there's always something.
"The superior courts look at everything very closely."
Krol suggested that an appeal based on a change of venue may be possible, due to the press coverage of the Klein killing and leading up to the subsequent trial. Though, the attorney noted, that may be tough.
"I thought we found a fairly isolated jury (for the trial)," Krol said.
"Again, we've got some things to look over."
Before Shaw's defense team may file an appeal, Judge Daniel Milliron, who presided over Shaw's murder trial, must schedule a sentencing hearing for his convictions, something that has not yet happened.
Following the sentencing, the defense has 30 days to file an appeal.
Once the appeal is filed, Judge Milliron will file a statement, at which time Krol's team would respond, citing the area or areas of appeal.
This process could take several months.
"Nathan (Shaw) feels that the lengthy deliberation during his trial is a strong indication that he may be able to get a conviction on a lesser charge," Krol said.

Nathan Shaw guilty of first degree murder

By ROB CAROLUS
Daily News Staff Writer
January 19, 2007

Former Tyrone resident Nathan Todd Shaw looked square in the eyes of a Blair County jury and pled his case.
"I would never hurt Jared," he said as tears rolled down his cheeks. "I loved him. He was my son."
As he took the stand in his own defense, Shaw told a tale of a "mystery man" he heard arguing with his ex-girlfriend upstairs in her two-story townhouse the evening of Dec. 26, 2005. He explained, as his face turned a deep shade of red, how he quickly went into Christina Muoio's kitchen and retrieved a large knife, then hurried up the stairs in order to come to the aid of her and her son, Jared.
The jury wasn't buying it, however, as evidenced by its verdict rendered some nine hours after being presented with the case on Thursday.
Near 1 a.m. this morning, following an elongated deliberation period, the decision was issued: Guilty on all counts, including first degree murder for the stabbing death of six-year-old Jared Klein.
Aside from first degree murder, Shaw was also convicted of numerous other charges including two counts of aggravated assault - one for the attack on Muoio and one for the beating of Klein - rape, unlawful restraint and theft of an automobile.
Shaw's version of the events that led to Jared's death was decidedly different than the story told by Jared's mother during testimony two days earlier. Shaw told of a conversation he'd had with the boy he called "son" in the days leading up to the night-after-Christmas attacks, during which Jared said his mother had a "new boyfriend who makes her cry."
Shaw said he'd come to Tyrone that night to confront the man ... and he brought along a roll of duct tape for the occasion.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, I was gonna hurt this guy," he said to the jury.
"He was trying to keep me from seeing my children. I was gonna tie him up and confront him - he had no right telling me I couldn't come to Chrissy's (Muoio) house to see my kids."
During his testimony, the defendant said the alleged new boyfriend, who Shaw identified as apartment manager of the Tyrone Townhouses where Muoio resided, had sent a letter stating Shaw was no longer allowed on the townhouse property. Shaw explained that this angered him, claiming the apartment manager was only doing it because of the relationship he'd kindled with Shaw's estranged girlfriend Muoio.
Muoio denies having a relationship with the apartment manager.
Shaw testified that during the first minutes of his unannounced visit to the Muoio residence on Dec. 26, both Klein and Muoio went upstairs, then minutes later, he heard a commotion coming from above. He said he heard Muoio and a "man" arguing and that's when he went for a knife.
"I ran up the steps as fast as I could," Shaw testified. "When I got to the top of the steps and turned the corner, Jared was coming the other direction and we ran into each other - the knife was in my hand.
"I knocked him down, into the wall, and fell on top of him," Shaw continued. "I saw the knife in his neck, I didn't know what to do. I never meant to hurt him.
"I took Jared downstairs to the living room and tried to give him CPR," Shaw said as he tearfully continued with his account of that tragic December night. "I started blowing into his mouth, pounding on his chest, but nothing worked. I didn't know what I was doing."
Shaw said the "man" then came downstairs, saw Jared's body and "ran out" of the apartment, never looking back.
During prosecution rebuttal, the townhouse manager and his wife were both called as witnesses. They testified that on the night of the murder, they were no where near Tyrone; they were on the other side of the continent in Los Angeles visiting family over the holidays and that they'd received the report of the murder on a cell phone while waiting for a flight at Los Angeles International Airport.
According to Shaw, when Muoio came downstairs and saw her son lying dead on the living room floor, she "lost it."
"She started screaming, 'you killed my son!'" Shaw said. "She was hysterical. I tried to explain to her what happened - that it was an accident - but she wouldn't hear it. She kept saying she was calling the cops and I'd be going to jail for the rest of my life.
"I was scared. I panicked and I hit her. I don't deny it."
Shaw admitted to tearing all three of Muoio's telephones out of the wall and to striking her "numerous times." He also confessed to taping her mouth and wrists with duct tape, because she was "out of control" and "wouldn't stop screaming."
He then told the jury that he carried her upstairs and placed her on her bed. That's when Shaw's account of the night took a hard left turn.
"She was really scared and feared for her life," he said. "She thought I was going to kill her, so she said, 'get me off one last time before you kill me.' That's when I had sex with her. She asked me to."
This testimony was answered by a chorus of groans throughout the courtroom. Even Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio reacted to the statement, angrily throwing a pen down on the prosecution table and shaking his head.
Defense attorney Theodore Krol did what he could to present a case for a lesser charge of third degree murder or involuntary manslaughter, calling into question the Wednesday testimony of forensic pathologist Dr. Gordon Handte who performed Klein's autopsy. Krol was able to get Handte to admit that Shaw's version of the stabbing was "possible" but the medical examiner qualified the statement during Attorney Consiglio's rebuttal by saying it was "not likely."
"I submit that the prosecution has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt," Krol said during closing arguments. "There was no specific intent to kill. This was clearly a tragic accident; a case of involuntary manslaughter. This man was a loving father to Jared and never meant to cause harm that night."
"An accident?!? An accident?!? Please," said Consiglio during his closing remarks. "Hate and control had a lot to do with this boy's
death. He couldn't stand the thought of Christina having a relationship with someone else. It just so happened that Mr. Shaw showed up unannounced that night. It just so happened that he had a roll of duct tape with him. It just so happened that he was running up the stairs and Jared was running in the other direction. It just so happened that the knife accidentally hit Jared in the jugular vein. It just so happened that all three of the phones in the house were ripped from the walls after this accident, instead of using them to dial 911.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit that he did what he did intentionally and I ask that you find this defendant guilty of first
degree murder."
When the verdict was read early this morning, Shaw could be heard saying, "What happened to justice? I told the truth."
The penalty phase of the trial begins today and prosecutors will seek death for Shaw.

Jury spares killer

BY KATHY MELLOTT
The Tribune-Democrat

HOLLIDAYSBURG - A Blair County jury failed to reach a unanimous decision Friday evening between life in prison and death by lethal injection for a Tyrone man convicted of the first-degree murder of Jared Klein.

The hung jury essentially spared the life of Nathan Shaw, 27. State law requires that Judge Daniel Milliron now sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Initial word of the hung jury came about 2 1/2 hours into deliberations, with the foreman telling Milliron he saw no hope of the 12 reaching an agreement.

Milliron asked each one to re-examine his or her position if possible and ordered jurors back into deliberations.

The jury returned 11/2 hours later, again unable to reach a consensus. Milliron then dismissed the jurors.

The reaction was mixed from the family of Jared, the 6-year-old boy who died Dec. 26, 2005, of a knife wound to the neck.

"(Shaw) should have died. My son didn't have a choice, but of course, that piece of (expletive) does," said Jared's mother, Christine Muoio.

The boy's uncle said he was satisfied with the outcome of the four-day trial that ended with the first-degree murder conviction in the wee hours Friday. Pat Muoio said, "At least he got life, that's what I wanted."

Shaw's grandmother, Phyllis Shaw of Tyrone, was pleased with the stalemate.

"We're relieved. We didn't want him to get the death penalty," she said.

Christine Muoio was the victim of a brutal rape and beating at Shaw's hands the night he murdered her son.

Shaw will be formally sentenced by Milliron on a date to be scheduled.

Prior to that date, a presentence investigation will look at Shaw's criminal past, a background that was kept from the jury.

It will show that, two weeks prior to the murder, Shaw was released from prison and living in a Johnstown halfway house, the result of 2004 charges that he assaulted Christine Muoio and a Tyrone police officer.

Death-penalty counsel Steven Passarello made an impassioned plea asking the jury to spare Shaw's life as he methodically ticked off the steps that would be taken should Shaw be put to death.

Despite having children 4 and 10 years of age and having lost a child to a premature death, Passarello said, he defended Shaw because he believes in the system that gives jurors the right to choose life over death.

"I believe we are a people quicker to mercy than we are to revenge," he said.

Passarello's pleas were countered by an emotional statement from Christine Muoio outlining the impact of Jared's death.

She spoke of him having just one day to play with new Christmas toys and of the words which echo in her mind, his young voice pleading with Shaw to stop hurting him and his mother.

"Jared was learning how to play the guitar. He wanted to be a rock star," she said. "Jared wanted to be a lot of things, but most of all he wanted to be alive."

As part of the aggravating factors the jury had to consider, district attorney Richard Consiglio outlined the young age of the child, which makes the murder much harsher, according to state law.

Also on the scale of aggravating factors was Shaw's rape of his former girlfriend. He also had beaten Muoio after she refused a Christmas gift from him.

The mitigating factors raised by the defense portrayed Shaw as abandoned by his mother at age 3 and raised by a single father who worked long hours, drank heavily and smoked marijuana.

His father, Gary Shaw of Tyrone, spoke of his son's early years and how his son got involved in alcohol and drugs at age 13.

His mother, Lorrie Howard of Clinton County, said she fled a violent household, taking Nathan Shaw with her but returning him to his father less than a year later.

Her court appearance was the first time she has seen her son since he was 12.

"He hasn't had a good life because of me," Howard said.

The only expert testimony in the penalty phase hearing was from Dr. Marc Tabackman, a forensic psychologist, who examined Shaw and determined he had developmental problems - perhaps because his mother drank and used drugs while pregnant.

Testifying for the defense, Tabackman said Shaw was impacted negatively by an unstable home and lack of a mother, and continues to have attention deficit disorder.

Shaw sentenced to life in prison

By ROB CAROLUS
Staff Writer
January 20, 2007

"This jury had an obligation to issue the death penalty in this case, and they failed," said a disheartened and exhausted Peggy Miller, grandmother to a young Tyrone boy who never lived to see his seventh birthday. Miller spoke immediately following the news that the murderer of her grandson would be allowed to live.
Nathan Todd Shaw, 26, formerly of Tyrone, was sentenced to life in prison in Blair County Court Friday, just one day after a jury found him guilty of first degree murder and other related charges. The panel of six men and six women got the sentencing case at just before 4 p.m. and was deadlocked on "life or death" throughout the evening.
The jury foreman twice notified Blair County Judge Daniel Milliron of their "inability to arrive at an agreement."
The second time, Milliron ruled it a "hung jury."
Shaw stood trial for fatally stabbing 6-year-old Jared Klein during a rampage in the young boy's Tyrone home the night of Dec. 26, 2005. Shaw was found guilty of beating the boy repeatedly, choking him and fatally stabbing him, then leaving his lifeless body in the middle of the living room floor, with the murder weapon - a kitchen knife - still embedded four inches deep in his neck. He also attacked Klein's mother, Christina Muoio, his ex-girlfriend. Shaw punched her several times in the face, breaking her nose and eye sockets. He also choked her, then dragged her upstairs to her bed, bound her by the hands and feet and raped her.
Milliron explained that in the case of a hung jury during first degree murder sentencing, his legal obligation was to issue life without the possibility of parole.
The jury contemplated the case for over five hours, in similar fashion to their Thursday night deliberation that ultimately produced a guilty verdict for murder in the first degree. While deliberation was still going on, lead defense counsel Theodore Krol said, "It's hard to tell what's going on in (the jury room). To form a judgment at this point would be speculation."
Prior to being excused for deliberation Friday afternoon, the jury heard from several witnesses for both sides, including Shaw's father, mother and grandparents, and Muoio and Miller, Muoio's mother. These "impact statements" gave the families of the victims and the defendant the opportunity to directly express their feelings on what penalty should be dealt out for the vicious crimes.
"The impact of losing Jared has been unbearable," said Muoio as she tearfully delivered her statement to the jury. "It's like your insides die, but your heart still beats.
"My son was my whole world - that world was ripped apart."
All of Shaw's family members who testified during sentencing asked that the jury spare his life.
Defense counsel Steven Passarello, who argued the penalty phase on Shaw's behalf, asked the jury to consider the alternative of life in prison, calling for an end to the killing.
"We as a people are good and civil," he said. "One boy is already dead - one mother's son - do we really need two?"
Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio reminded the jury that during jury selection, each member "promised" to impose the death penalty should the evidence prove it warranted.
"The defense would have you believe we're cold and heartless, that we want to kill this man," he said, referring to Shaw. "They would have you believe that by imposing the death penalty, you would be killing this man. I'll tell you, I didn't create this situation, you didn't do it, he did it," the DA said, pointing a stern finger at Shaw.
The prosecutors presented two aggravating circumstances which they said required a verdict for death under Pennsylvania state law.
"Murder in the first degree must carry the death penalty if at least one of a list of aggravating circumstances are present," explained Blair County Deputy District Attorney Douglas Keating. "In this case, the victim being under the age of 12 is an aggravating circumstance. Also, the commission of this murder while perpetrating a felony offense ó this would be the rape which he's also been found guilty of - is an aggravating circumstance."
Passarello argued that there were mitigating circumstances that would weigh against the aggravating circumstances presented by the prosecution.
"We're not asking you to set Mr. Shaw free," he said to the jury. "We're not asking you to excuse what he did. We're just asking you not to kill him."
Prior to the jury's announcement, Judge Milliron cautioned the audience, made up primarily of members and friends of both families and representatives of the media, to quell any potential emotional outbursts that might occur.
Following the verdict, those in the courtroom began to quietly exit, exchanging embraces and reassurances. Muoio sat motionless and stunned for several moments, then, as they led Shaw from the courtroom, she could be heard through her tears saying, "He should've died. My son didn't have a choice."
DA Consiglio said of the "no verdict" at a press conference later Friday evening, "There was obviously a problem. We felt that we presented a case that would certainly warrant a death sentence.
"If anyone deserved to die, this guy deserved to die. He's pure evil.
"This is not a criticism of the jury," he added. "They worked very hard all week and we have a lot of respect for them. This is never an easy thing."
Tyrone Borough Police Chief Joe Beachem said, when asked if he was satisfied that justice had been served, "He was found guilty on all counts, including first degree murder. I think that speaks volumes about whether justice was served.
"Did we get the sentence we wanted? No. We felt good about it, especially after the sickening, disgusting testimony (from Shaw) we were subjected to yesterday. But he'll never see the light of day again."
With sentencing to be scheduled in the upcoming months, Muoio and her family have seen an end to the trial of their loved one's killer; however, as they told The Daily Herald following Friday's proceedings, they have a lifetime of grief to bear.
"No one could fight for Jared that night but the person who killed him had many people begging for his life today," Muoio said.
"(Shaw) should be dead. He should be in hell and I hope he rots there."
"Mom Mom," as Jared referred to his Grandma Miller, reminded the press of another victim in this tragedy.
"Don't ever forget, these brutal attacks happened right in front of my granddaughter - she was only two - and she still has nightmares.
"She has to live her life without her big brother but she has to carry with her the memory of his murder."

My Way
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Published: January 26, 2007 02:16 pm

Ugly stretch of violence challenges sensibilities

BY CHIP MINEMYER

Unlike the jury that heard his case, I am not conflicted over whether Nathan Shaw should be permitted to continue living.

Break out the needle and roll in the gurney, I say.

I have read enough on capital punishment to know that not everyone on death row is guilty, and that inmates on the "mile" sometimes endure considerable mental and physical anguish.

But DNA evidence will never clear Shaw, who was found guilty of killing 6-year-old Jared Klein by stabbing him in the neck with a knife.

Shaw admitted to stabbing the boy, but said it was an accident.

His jury didn't buy that.

The boy, testimony and evidence show, had been attempting to protect his mother, who was brutally attacked by Shaw that same night - Dec. 26, 2005.

Shaw was found guilty of first-degree murder and a long list of other despicable crimes.

But the jury was split over whether Shaw should face the death penalty or life in prison, and sent the killer to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

Some might say it's ironic that a "hung" jury spared a man who himself should hang.

Jared's mother, who had a second child with Shaw, said: "He should have died."

Opponents of capital punishment argue that execution represents cruel and unusual punishment, that it doesn't deter crime, and that it violates the human rights of the one found guilty. They point to the fact that not all people who are executed are guilty.

Those are all solid points.

In his latest book, "The Innocent Man," author John Grisham paints a picture of corrupt public officials climbing the ladder on the backs of people treated unjustly by the court - specifically a man who sat for years on death row in Oklahoma. I'm sure that sometimes happens as well.

On the other side, supporters of capital punishment say there is no evidence that it does not deter others from committing such crimes. They say it is more economical than keeping an inmate alive for years, supporting him through tax dollars in public-supported facilities, and eliminating the criminal guarantees that the crime will not be repeated should the guilty exit prison either through an escape or other means.

And some just believe in the old eye-for-an-eye concept: Killers should in turn be killed.

Maybe I'm just feeling overwhelmed by a stream of ugly violence that has played out on the pages of this newspaper.

In the past year or so, we've reported on these brutal incidents:

n An Ebensburg-area woman was kidnapped and kept in a car trunk for hours before being strangled. Her throat was slashed, and she was dumped in a pond in Munster Township. The killer reportedly talked about killing her while she was in the trunk and she could hear him.

n A Portage man was gunned down in cold blood. His stepson confessed to the murder, and said he was urged to do it by his mother, the victim's common-law wife.

n A Gallitzin man was found guilty of gunning down three people outside an Altoona nightclub.

n A Philadelphia man was charged with murder after allegedly shooting an acquaintance and then burning him alive near Blandburg in northern Cambria County. The accused, Torone Dixon, was later killed in a shoot-out at the county prison before he could face the charges.

On top of that, you've read about two Somerset County babies who were abused in unimaginable ways by their own parents. One child, a 7-week-old girl, was shocked with a stun gun and had her leg bent until it broke by her father.

Count me among those who have had enough.

In these cases, I am not even comforted by the belief that an especially unpleasant corner of hell awaits their arrival.

I'm beginning to think that the sooner we get them there the better.

Maybe the Iraqis have this one right.

Chip Minemyer is the editor of The Tribune-Democrat. He can be reached at cminemyer @cnhi.com or 532-5091.

January 19th 2007

Shaw found guilty of murdering 6-year-old boy

By KATHY MELLOTT
KMELLOTT@TRIBDEM.COM

HOLLIDAYSBURG - Jurors convicted a Blair County man early today of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jared Klein, 6, not buying the defense contention that the homicide was accidental.

Nathan Shaw, 27, also was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault, rape, theft, simple assault, indecent assault, false imprisonment and other lesser charges.

Shaw stared intently at the jury until the jury's decision was read.

Upon hearing the guilty verdicts, he turned to one of his attorneys and said, "I don't know what happened. I don't know what I did. I told the truth. What happened to justice?"

Jurors deliberated for 8 1/2 hours before reaching their verdict at about 1 a.m.

"We were disappointed that a number of the jurors were swayed to the first degree," said defense attorney Theodore Krol.

Jurors will reconvene at 11:30 a.m. today for the penalty phase of the trial, in which a death sentence will be considered.

Shaw took the stand in his own defense earlier Thursday and told jurors he was running down a hallway carrying a kitchen knife when he accidentally collided with Jared and the knife plunged into the boy's neck.

Shaw, of Tyrone, denied beating and attempting to strangle Jared on Dec. 26, 2005, at the Tyrone home the boy shared with his mother, Christine Muoio, and his younger sister, Angel - Shaw's daughter. He'd traveled there from the Johnstown halfway house where he had been temporarily living.

He said an unknown man was in the house that day, that his stabbing of Jared was accidental and that his former girlfriend begged him for sex when she thought she was going to die.

The DA said that version of events was preposterous.

"That is the most outrageous thing you heard in this case. It may even be the most outrageous thing you will ever hear," District Attorney Richard Consiglio said in closing arguments.

Shaw testified he had a knife in his hand because he planned to confront an unknown man he thought Muoio was seeing.

"I knocked him (Jared) down, and I fell on top of him. I picked him up and carried him downstairs," said a tearful Shaw.

"He had a knife in him. I didn't know what to do."

In a sequence of events Consiglio later called unbelievable, Shaw testified he then bound Muoio - unconscious from a beating - with duct tape, dragged her upstairs and raped her.

Shaw testified that Muoio - who had a broken nose, beaten face and blood running down her throat - told him she wanted to have sex before she died.

The relationship between Shaw and Muoio had ended several months prior to the assault, and Shaw was trying to rekindle it when he became suspicious that Muoio had a new boyfriend.

He testified that he was a caring, loving father and had a good relationship with Jared, who saw little of his biological father.

Shaw testified that he took duct tape to the Muoio house so he could restrain the supposed boyfriend and talk to him.

Consiglio said Shaw went to the home with other intentions.

"Hatred had a lot to do with this little boy's death. Control had a lot to do with this little boy's death, because he couldn't control that woman. Hatred got so bad, he beat her and killed him," Consiglio said.

Krol argued the prosecution was successful in putting Shaw at the scene and the knife in his hand but contended the death was not intentional.

"He didn't have the intent to kill Jared Klein. The assault against Christine, we don't contend that (was unintentional)," Krol said.

Jan 22nd 2007
Jury deadlocks; Shaw will get life

By Phil Ray, pray@altoonamirror.com

Jared Klein

HOLLIDAYSBURG - Nathan Shaw of Tyrone will serve life in prison for murdering 6-year-old Jared Klein after a hung jury spared his life.

"He should have gotten the death penalty," said Jared's mother and Shaw's ex-girlfriend, Christine Muoio. "My son didn't have anybody there to fight for him."

The jury deliberated for about four hours, then told the judge they could not reach a unanimous decision required for a death sentencing.

That means sentencing falls to Blair County Judge Dan Milliron, who promised Friday night a sentence of life without parole. A judge cannot impose the death penalty.

The first sign of a possible hung jury came Thursday night, when jurors struggled for more than eight hours before reaching a first-degree murder conviction on the Dec. 26, 2005, stabbing death.

"My daughter has been through hell. Her life has been turned upside down, and he [Shaw] is allowed to smile," said Jared's grandmother, Peggy Miller. "He should be in hell where he belongs, and I hope he rots there."

On Friday, jurors heard Muoio and Miller tearfully read statements and Shaw's family speak of his childhood in which his mother deserted him.

Shaw's mother, Lorrie Ann Howard of Hyner, Clinton County, testified Friday that she rarely saw her son.

As she walked from the courtroom, Shaw said, "I love you, Mom ... I love you, Mom."

Shaw also was convicted of charges relating to his attack on Muoio and theft of her car.

Those charges are two counts of aggravated assault, as well as rape, indecent assault and theft in addition to the murder.

Shaw's family remained distraught at the first-degree murder conviction.

Gary Shaw, Nathan's father, his eyes red with tears, said nothing. His grandfather Paul Shaw said life was the best of the options.

Nathan's grandmother Phyllis Shaw said, "It's a relief he isn't getting the death penalty."

District Attorney Richard Consiglio said he respected the jury's attempt to reach a decision.

"This guy is a guy who deserved to die," Consiglio said.

Jurors could not be reached for comment after they told Milliron they were deadlocked.

Viewers in the courtroom, including the media, were not allowed to leave until the jury departed the courthouse.

Shaw was scheduled to return to the State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale Friday night, where he will remain until sentencing in a few months.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.

News : Local Last Updated: Jan 8th, 2007 - 06:06:48

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Jurors to Report to Hear Shaw Capital Murder Case
By Chris Forshey
Jan 8, 2007, 09:00

Jury selection begins this morning in a high-profile Blair County Murder trial.

Lawyers will sift through 400 jurors to hear the capital murder case against accused killer Nathan Shaw, who is charged with stabbing a 6-year-old Tyrone boy to death last December. Prosecutors also charged the 26-year-old Shaw with raping the boy's mother, and then stealing her car and fleeing to Oklahoma, where he left police on a high-speed chase.

Shaw was brought back to Pennsylvania last January to face the charges. As of Friday, 381 jurors remained on the list to potentially hear testimony against Shaw. Defense lawyers had requested that the trial be moved or that an out-of-county jury be brought in to hear the case. Blair County Judge Daniel Milliron has ruled that the county would attempt to seat a jury first, before considering a potential move.

Shaw faces the death penalty if he is convicted on the first-degree murder charge. Jury selection is expected to last the whole week. Testimony could begin as early as next Monday.

(c) Copyright 2004-2005 by WRTA.com

Thursday, September 21, 2006
Trial set for alleged child killer

By Phil Ray, pray@altoonamirror.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG - The trial of a man accused of murdering a 6-year-old boy in Tyrone will begin in mid-January, a Blair County judge said Wednesday.

Judge Dan Milliron also appointed veteran defense lawyer Steven P. Passarello to represent Nathan Todd Shaw during a death penalty hearing if the jury convicts Shaw of first-degree murder.

Shaw is charged with the stabbing death of Jared Klein, the son of an estranged girlfriend.

Shaw's lead attorney, Assistant Public Defender Theodore Krol, asked Milliron to try the case before a jury from outside Blair County because of the publicity the case has generated.

He also has asked that prospective jurors be quizzed extensively about their knowledge of the case "to ensure a fair and impartial jury free from outside information."

Milliron said he will hear legal arguments for an out-of-county jury Nov. 1 and said any lingering pretrial questions should be filed by that date.

The prosecution, led by District Attorney Richard Consiglio, also must present defense attorneys with a list of witnesses by that time.

Jury selection is to begin Jan. 8, with the trial to start Jan. 16.

Police charge that Shaw went to the Tyrone home of his estranged girlfriend Dec. 26.

The meeting went sour, and Shaw began to beat the girlfriend and her son. He took the woman upstairs, bound her and raped her, police said.

Shaw then left the Tyrone home and stole the woman's car, according to charges.

When the woman eventually freed herself, she found her son dead on the living room floor with a knife thrust into his neck.

Shaw was arrested in Oklahoma and returned to Blair County.

He will be the fifth suspect to face the death penalty in Blair County during the past six years.

On Sept. 11, Blair County Prison authorities said Shaw assaulted a corrections officer, and he was moved to the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale.

The attack is being reviewed by prosecutors from the district attorney's office, but as of Wednesday, no new charges were filed.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468

Accused child killer moved for beating corrections officer

By Phil Ray, pray@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG - A Tyrone man awaiting trial for the murder of a 6-year-old boy was transferred to the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale after he brutally beat a corrections officer at Blair County Prison.

Warden Donald Ott said Friday that information about the assault was turned over to the Hollidaysburg Borough Police Department. He said charges are expected to be filed against Nathan T. Shaw.

Shaw, 25, faces the death penalty for the January stabbing of his estranged girlfriend's 6-year-old son.

He is accused of assaulting the mother and murdering Jared Klein by driving a knife into his neck.

Ott said the assault of the officer occurred Sept. 11.

Since his incarceration in January, Shaw has not been a problem, but on Monday, he was given an order to go to lock up. Suddenly he began hitting the officer in the face.

The officer, who Ott did not name, was taken to the hospital for treatment with both of his eyes eyes swollen nearly shut.

He suffered a cut on his head, which required 11 staples to close, and a cut on his nose requiring four stitches.

The officer's nose and a finger were broken, and he remains off duty, Ott said.

The warden said this was the worst assault on an officer he has seen in his 26 years at the jail.

"It all happened spontaneously, within seconds," Ott said.

A "Code Red" was called, and other officers offered assistance within seconds, he said.

Shaw then was placed in a holding cell.

"We live with it every day," Ott said as he discussed the dangerous environment of the jail.

He said the jail has been lucky, noting that there have been only four assaults by inmates on officers in the past two years.

The jail was crowded Friday, with 323 inmates, and Ott said it's hard to keep someone like Shaw isolated or segregated because of the crowded conditions.

Shaw has been in jail since he was arrested in Oklahoma, where he fled after the boy's murder.

According to charges, he arrived at the former girlfriend's home Dec. 26.

Shaw bound the mother's hands and mouth with duct tape and dragged her to a bedroom, where the assault took place.

He is charged with stealing the woman's car and leaving the area.

According charges, the mother also was beaten severely on the face by Shaw.

When the woman was able to free herself, she found her son on the first floor of the home with a knife in his neck.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468
"What did I see? A nightmare."
These were the chilling words issued by Tyrone resident Jonathan Fink when the prosecution in a Blair County murder trial asked him to describe what he observed on the night of Dec. 26, 2005.
Fink was Christina Muoio's next-door neighbor at the Tyrone Townhouses and the first to discover what Muoio just minutes earlier had already come to know - a life had ended. Muoio's six-year-old son, Jared Klein, lay beaten and motionless in a pool of his own blood with the black handle of a kitchen knife protruding from his neck.
"I was getting ready for bed. I had to work the next morning, and I heard this banging on the door," Fink recalled Tuesday during the first day of testimony in the capital murder trial of Nathan Todd Shaw. "I got dressed, my wife answered the door. She hollered up the stairs that there was someone at the door all bloody but she didn't know who it was."
The Finks opened the door for the frantic person who turned out to be Muoio. The girl was shaking and barely dressed and her face was battered beyond recognition.
"You couldn't tell who it was," Jonathan Fink continued during the prosecution's direct examination. "You couldn't understand what she was saying; she was frantic."
Carla Fink, Jonathan's wife, attempted to calm Muoio, a mother of two who had been the Finks neighbor for close to three years.
"She said her son was dead; that Nate Shaw had killed her son," Carla Fink testified.
It was 9:36 p.m. that night and Carla Fink quickly called 911. Soon, police arrived on scene and began to put together the pieces of a gruesome puzzle.
After a year of anticipation, a 12-member jury began to receive testimony Tuesday in the case of the Tyrone man accused of brutally beating and raping his estranged girlfriend, then killing her son, stealing her car and fleeing. Shaw was apprehended two days later, halfway across the country in Oklahoma.
Shaw is the sole suspect in the death of Klein that wintry night after Christmas just one year ago. Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio is seeking the death penalty for Shaw - it was Consiglio who successfully prosecuted the last Blair County death penalty case just seven years ago.
The jury heard from seven commonwealth witnesses Tuesday including Muoio who delivered what was probably the most grim testimony. Photos of Jared's body sprawled across the living room floor and of Muoio's beaten-in face caused members of the courtroom audience to gasp and sob.
Muoio gave a step-by-step account of the night her young son was killed, recalling an early afternoon phone call from Shaw that was followed by an impromptu visit from the defendant at Muoio's home later that evening.
"He kept punching me in the top of the head, in the side of my head," the young mother said. "He said he was going to kill me." Muoio told the court that it was young Jared who responded to his mother's cries for help and that he paid the price.
"Jared was upstairs when I managed to get my bottom lip out from under the duct tape he used on my mouth," she said. "I screamed and Jared came downstairs. He asked Nate (Shaw) to 'please stop,' but Nate punched him in the face, knocking him back into the DVD stand." Muoio said that Shaw struck both of them repeatedly, that he eventually got a hold of both of them - one in each hand - and began to choke them.
She said she slipped in and out of consciousness, all the while trying to fight back as she listened to her son struggle for air. Soon, she said she was bound around the wrists with more duct tape, her arms looped around Shaw's neck as he carted her upstairs to the bedroom.
It was there that she said the defendant bound her, undressed her and raped her.
At one point during her testimony, Muoio seemed to go limp and nearly pass out, something that prompted Blair County Judge Daniel J. Milliron to call for a recess.
Lead defense attorney Theodore Krol set the tone for Shaw's defense in his opening statement, conceding that his client did indeed "cause the death" of Klein. However, Krol explained that his client never intended to kill the boy, that Shaw had a "loving relationship" with Jared and that there was no "specific intent" to kill.
"My client will be taking the stand in this case," he told the jury. "Nate is going to tell you what happened that night. He's going to explain the tragic events - the things he didn't expect to happen - that lead to the death of his son."
The jury, which is not being sequestered, also heard testimony on Tuesday from an emergency room surgeon from Altoona Regional Health System who treated Muoio and Tyrone Borough police officer Michael Metzger, who was the first to respond to the "weapons call" at 1550 Pennsylvania Avenue, Tyrone, the night of Klein's death.
The prosecution will more than likely wrap its case today.
"Things went pretty much as expected today," said defense attorney Krol following Tuesday's proceedings. "There was some emotion, which we expected; it's a tragic set of circumstances.
"Nate wants to tell his story and he will get that chance, possibly tomorrow," the attorney added. "It's our position that Nate never intended to do harm that night."
Following the day's court proceedings, Tyrone Police Chief Joe Beachem told The Daily Herald, "We are very confident in our case against the defendant."
Judge Milliron said testimony will continue today and is expected to last throughout the week.

Altoona Mirror Feb 5, 2008

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County Judge Daniel J. Milliron has refused to grant a new trial to Nathan Shaw of Tyrone, who was convicted a year ago of killing the 6-year-old son of his estranged girlfriend.

Shaw contended that the judge should have selected a jury from outside Blair County for the trial, which was held in January 2007.

A local jury heard the evidence against Shaw and convicted him of first-degree murder of Jared Klein. The jurors were unable to come to a decision on the death penalty, and Milliron sentenced Shaw to life in prison.

Through his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Theodore Krol, Shaw asked Milliron to toss out the verdict and sentence, contending that the judge erred in not granting a change of venue.

Milliron now has issued an opinion rejecting Shaw’s contention that he was not granted a fair trial because of the excessive publicity surrounding the case. Just because a crime generates pretrial publicity does not automatically mean a trial must be moved to another county, the judge said.

He concluded that the defense never showed “the pretrial publicity had been of the nature and quality so as to presume prejudice.”

He pointed out that attorneys for both sides were permitted to question prospective jurors to determine if they would be impartial. The defense also never challenged the jury selection process after it began.

The judge said an impartial jury “could and was, in fact, selected.”

Milliron also rejected Shaw’s request for a new trial based on an alleged lack of evidence against him.

District Attorney Richard Consiglio said Monday that the next step in the appeals process will be a hearing before the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Shaw was arrested in January 2006, several days after he used a knife to kill Jared during an argument with the boy’s mother, Christine Muoio, in her Tyrone apartment.

Of six recent death penalty cases in Blair County, outside juries were selected in two of them

Cambria8/19/06 Ray Stringer George Lightcap IV

Centre 2/23/06 Youngcheol Park Andrew Rogers-t,c, 3rd
BELLEFONTE -- Andrew Rogers was convicted of third-degree murder and theft charges at 1:45 a.m. today after a jury rejected Rogers' claims that he was attacked in his own home by the victim and a mystery man he could identify only as "Sweet."
The jury deliberated for more than nine hours before convicting the 29-year-old State College resident of third-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of 24-year-old Penn State student Youngcheol Park inside Rogers' Nimitz Avenue home Feb. 23, 2006.
When Rogers is sentenced at 9 a.m. May 10 by Centre County Judge Bradley P. Lunsford, who presided over the four-day trial, he faces six to 20 years in a state prison.
The jury acquitted Rogers on first-degree, premeditated murder charges that would have put Rogers in prison for the rest of his life. Rogers also was convicted of theft and receiving stolen property for stealing Park's wallet and $250 inside of it after killing him.
As the verdict was read by the jury foreman in the early morning hours, Rogers showed no emotion, while his mother sitting behind him hung her head and sobbed. Wearing the same tan suit he wore on day one of the trial, Rogers never looked back at his crying mother as he was led from the courtroom by sheriff's deputies.
"This was not an easy case for the jury to consider," said Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira, who won convictions on what was his first trial as the county's top prosecutor.
Meanwhile, Centre County Chief Public Defender David Crowley said the defense will appeal, saying the jury's verdict was not supported by the evidence and that they were swayed by Madeira's insistence that "Sweet" doesn't exist, without evidence to back the claim.
"I'm glad it wasn't first-degree murder," Crowley said. "That would be devastating. A third-degree murder conviction, we can work with, we can still salvage a life after a third-degree murder conviction."
But David Colameco, a juror and a Penn State junior in nuclear engineering student, agreed with Madeira that Rogers' story did not add up considering the evidence from the crime scene.
"It was a very, very tough decision for me," Colameco said. "I went from originally completely innocent of all charges when we walked into the jury room to considering first-degree (murder)."
Looking at the crime scene photographs convinced him Rogers was lying because "certain impossibilities that just didn't fit his story. The photos were extremely helpful."
While clearly satisfied with the third-degree murder conviction, Madeira said he was not at all disappointed the jury did not convict Rogers of first-degree murder.
"What we are concerned about is getting a just result," Madeira said. "And the jury is charged with doing that."
The jury of three women and nine men rejected Rogers' contention that Park and a man he could identify only as "Sweet" attacked him in an attempt to steel $850 in cash he had on his bookcase. Park, described by many witnesses at trial as a known cocaine dealer, led "Sweet" to Rogers home that night, Rogers testified.
Rogers also frequently used cocaine and Park was his dealer, according to testimony.
Rogers described a brutal fight in which he used a rolling pin, beer bottle and a baseball bat to fight off Park and "Sweet." Jurors were shown graphic crime-scene photographs that showed blood splattered throughout Rogers' dining room and kitchen, where Park was found dead days after the killing when Rogers finally sought out police.
The jury did not buy Rogers story that, during this fight, Park pulled a gun from a satchel he brought with him, which police said contained only textbooks. Rogers said "Sweet" eventually gained possession of the gun and pointed it at him. Rogers claimed he fainted at that point.
When he awoke, Park's skull was caved in, "Sweet," the gun and his money were gone, Rogers said.
Madeira and Assistant District Attorney Lance Marshall argued that "Sweet" doesn't exist, and neither did the supposed gun Park possessed.
What actually happened, Madeira said, was that Rogers attacked Park from behind as the engineering student sat at Rogers' dining room table studying.
"There is no credible evidence Youngcheol Park had a gun except for the word of the defendant," Madeira said in his closing arguments.
There also was no evidence whatsoever, Madeira said, that "Sweet" existed. Three mysterious footprints found under Park's body that had been unexplained until Madeira's final arguments to the jury -- footprints the defense said was proof positive "Sweet" existed -- were actually made by Rogers, Madeira told the jury.
Rogers admits he stood over Park's body and stole his wallet, and thus made the shoe prints just before he fled State College for his hometown of Uniontown.
There are no other footprints at the bloody scene other than those of Rogers' stocking feet -- which caught the attention of jurors including Colameco.
He said he didn't believe "Sweet" could exist because the scene had too much blood.
"Why aren't there more footprints?" Colameco said.
Emotion also played part for Colameco, who, like Park, is an engineering student. In crime-scene photographs, Park's engineering textbook could be seen, spattered with blood, on Rogers' dining room table.
"One of the hardest things for me as an engineer, I saw the engineering eraser on the table," Colameco said.
He said he uses the same brand of eraser.
"I connected with Park," Colameco said, and explained how he lays everything out on the table as well. "That is the same way I study."
Earlier in the day, Assistant Public Defender Casey McClain told the jury the police focused on Rogers as a murderer immediately and "rushed to judgment," never truly considering his claims of self defense.
McClain referred to a black leather jacket found on the floor of the murder scene, and that Rogers said "Sweet" was wearing a similar jacket. Police did not have it analyzed for DNA, fibers or other evidence, according to testimony.
"Why? Because it's a rush to judgement," McClain said.
But Madeira said the jacket was so large, it never would have fit someone the size of the man Rogers described as "Sweet." It more likely would fit a man like Rogers, who stands just over 6 feet, 1 inch tall, he said.
Madeira praised the work of State College Borough police, and lead detective, Mike McDannel, for their work in not only proving Rogers was a murderer, but for what he called their tireless search for "Sweet." Police showed Rogers nine photo lineups of people linked to the name "Sweet," including a friend of Park's, but Rogers did not pick out any of the men as the mystery assailant.

Cambria12/23/05 Charles Cummings Shawn Sweeney
Defendant seeks separate trials in husband's killing
By SANDRA K. REABUCK
The Tribune-Democrat
EBENSBURG - A woman accused of solicitation to murder wants a separate trial on charges she asked two other men to kill her husband before convincing her son to pull the trigger.

Deborah Cummings, 57, of Portage Township, is charged with soliciting her son, Shawn Patrick Sweeney, and two others to kill her common-law husband, 50-year-old Charles Sweeney.

Cummings, who also is charged with criminal homicide, is scheduled to stand trial in March.

Shawn Sweeney confessed to being the triggerman in the death of his stepfather early Dec. 23, 2005, outside the Portage Revolver and Pistol Club. He has pleaded to third-degree murder in the shooting and is to testify against his mother.

Prior to seeking her son's assistance in the slaying, police said, Cummings approached Michael Caldrone and Carl Yeoman about the job.

State police believe that, about six months prior to the murder, Mrs. Cummings sought out Caldrone.

Caldrone, in an interview with The Tribune-Democrat in January 2006, said Cummings had pestered him for 21/2 weeks and even said she would provide the handgun.

"She wanted him dead. She told me she wanted the house," said Caldrone, a Johnstown auto mechanic.

The other man allegedly approached by Cummings was identified as Carl Yeoman of Bath, N.Y., who reportedly worked in the area at the time. Details were not divulged.

Defense attorney Ken Sottile contends that it would be highly prejudicial to the defense to have the charges tried together. He also contended that jurors could confuse the evidence of one crime to infer guilt in another.

But Heath Long, first assistant district attorney, said Tuesday that all of the evidence would "aid rather than confuse the jury."

Sottile also wants Judge Timothy Creany to block prosecutors from delving into Cummings' financial affairs.

Prosecutors claim she forged her husband's signature on a power of attorney paper. With the forged paper, police believe she obtained a mortgage on the home owned by her husband without his knowledge and used the money for herself.

"Such evidence will (show) motive, intent, plan and the natural progression of the crimes charged, that is Deborah Cummings' schemes to have Charles Cummings murdered after the fraud became known," David Kaltenbaugh, chief deputy district attorney, said in papers filed with the court.

Blair11/20/05 Sandy Teeters Matt Woomer-s
November 21, 2005

Downtown Tyrone was the scene of a murder-suicide on Saturday evening.
Sandra Teeters, 29, of 1250 Logan Avenue, was shot and killed by 40-year-old Matthew B. Woomer of 1111 Washington Avenue. The incident happened sometime shortly before 7:45 p.m. at Woomer's home.
Woomer used a .270 caliber-hunting rifle to shot Teeters and then himself. The pair was found in an upstairs bedroom after police were called to the scene.
In a press release, Police Chief Joseph Beachem said a relative received a phone call from Woomer saying he had shot and killed his ex-wife. Beachem said Woomer told the relative to tell everyone he loved them and hung up. The pair was found shot dead by a relative according to Beachem.
"All indications are this was a murder-suicide arising from marital problems," Beachem told The Daily Herald. "I believe they were legally separated. I believe the divorce was finalized."
Beachem said, to his knowledge, the murder-suicide was the first incident of its type in recent times in Tyrone.
"It's a tragic thing," said Beachem. "We really hate to see these types of things."
Beachem was asked if autopsy or toxicology tests were planned.
"That really varies from scene to scene," said Beachem. "This one was pretty easily solved by the evidence we have. (In this case), I don't think any of that is planned."
Beachem said no one else was in the house at the time of the shooting. Woomer had three children and Teeters had two children. Beachem said all the children were with other family members or friends at the time of the incident.
Beachem said state police, Bellwood Police and the Blair County Coroner's office assisted at the scene.
The father of one of Teeters' children drove by the Washington Avenue home on Sunday morning. He stopped and said, "This is a tragedy for everybody. Not just for the victim's children but also for Mr. Woomer's children."
He said his 14-year-old son would need counseling. He said the five children left behind ranged in age from three to 14-years-old.
Sandy Teeters' mother was reached by telephone on Sunday, but said she had no comment about the incident.
A patron at the Choice store in Tyrone said he had seen and spoken with Woomer at the store earlier Saturday. The patron and others said Woomer had been a regular at the store, which is located not far from where Saturday's incident happened.
Teeters was a graduate of South Hills Business School and was employed by Victoria's Secret in Altoona. Mr. Woomer was a 1983 graduate of Tyrone Area High School and had formerly worked at HRI Construction of State College and Albemarle Corp., Tyrone.
Obituary notices for both Teeters and Woomer appear on page 2 in today's Daily Herald.

Blair8/28/05 Al Mignon Miguel Padilla, t,c,death
Freddy Rickabaugh Miguel Padilla, t,c,death
Steve Heiss Miguel Padilla, t,c,deah
Padilla handed death sentence
By KATHY MELLOTT
The Tribune-Democrat
HOLLIDAYSBURG - A jury took four hours Thursday to decide that a Gallitzin man should be put to death for the August 2005 shooting deaths of three Altoona men.

Miguel Padilla, unflinching, kept his eyes directed toward the front of the courtroom as the sentences were read for the murders of Alfred Mignogna, Fred Rickabaugh and Stephen Heiss.

Members of Padilla's family - including his mother, Maria Brauns of Gallitzin - initially began to cry but became somber and stared forward. Brauns on Wednesday apologized to the families for her son's actions that night outside a private Altoona club.

Padilla's girlfriend Amanda Bianconi - the mother of his youngest child, Miguel Padilla Jr. - wept openly and clutched Brauns.

The families of the victims were tearful but otherwise showed no emotion.

Brauns, Bianconi, Padilla's youngest brother Christian and a handful of others were spirited away from the courthouse by a representative of the Mexican consulate out of Philadelphia.

Miguel Padilla, 26, is an illegal Mexican alien who has been in this country since age 9.

Members of the victims' families had little to say after the capital punishment decisions.

"There are no winners here," said Michael Mignogna, son of one of the victims. "Justice was served."

Rickabaugh's son, Fred, said he was surprised at the verdict and had braced himself for a life sentence.

"I do feel a sense of vindication," he said. "But at the same time, I feel sad. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. He has family, too," he said.

Chelsey Boese, a cousin and close friend of Heiss, said she never believed any of the defense arguments in the weeklong case.

"I don't think the stress syndrome or the blackouts he is (supposed) to have make you go out and kill people," the 17-year-old said. "Steve was a great person and he was a hero."

Blair County District Attorney Rich Consiglio saw little satisfaction in seeing more death, but said Padilla's actions validated the jury decision.

"This was not the guy who in one night went crazy because of child abuse, alcohol or drugs. This guy may not be the worst of the worst, but he's down there someplace," he said after the verdict.

Death penalty attorney Ed Blanarik said he went beyond proving that Padilla has plenty of redeeming qualities and should be allowed to live.

"In my opinion, the mitigating factors far outweighed the aggravating. I'm very disappointed and saddened that the tragedy of last year is being compounded now by the death of my client," he said.

In his closing statement, Blanarik told the jury that life in a prison is life.

"I don't mean to be blunt, but the only way Miguel Padilla will get out of prison is in a box," he argued.

Efforts by the Mexican government to get involved in the case were thwarted by Judge Hiram Carpenter and the state Supreme Court.

Public Defender Donald Speice said he had an uphill battle in defending Padilla and lashed out at the Mexican government, which battled to get him removed from the case.

Appeals are expected to keep Padilla's case tied up in the courts for years.

A separate trial is expected next month on charges that Padilla as an illegal alien possessed a handgun in the murders. Carpenter ruled earlier that the out-of-county homicide jury could not know of Padilla's citizenship status.

Blair1/3/05 Dwayne Chamberlain Thomas Drass-pld g 3rd d murder
Sep 26, 2006, 09:00
A Hollidaysburg man charged with shooting his grandfather to death has reached a plea agreement with Blair County prosecutors.

Thomas Drass pleaded guilty yesterday to a third-degree murder charge in the shooting death of his grandfather Dwayne Chamberlain. The 21-year-old Drass was accused of shooting his grandfather at their Hollidaysburg area home in January 2005.

State Police charged Drass just hours after he shot Chamberlain with a newly purchased 12-guage shotgun from Dunham's Discount Sports. His mental competency had been in question since the very day of the shooting, and he has undergone several mental health evaluations since the shooting. Blair County District Attorney Rich Consiglio says his office will ask the judge for a sentence of 20-40 years, understanding that there were mitigating circumstances in this case.

Consiglio said he felt he had enough to secure a first-degree murder charge, but felt given Given Drass's mental condition, a third-degree murder charge was more appropriate. The plea bargain also allows his grandmother the opportunity to not testify against him.

Drass, who's trial was scheduled to start on October 23rd, will now be sentenced this Friday. Kathryn Chamberlain, the wife of the victim and Drass's grandmother. sued Dunham's claiming that her grandson was functionally illiterate and under the influence of drugs the day of the shooting and has recently reached a 300-thousand dollar settlement with the Altoona discount sports equipment store.

Huntingdon12/04 Tirelle Dixon Steven Baker-t,p 2nd deg
Jessica Wills Steven Baker-t,p 2nd deg

Man Gets Life for Killing Two in Huntingdon County
By Chris Forshey
Sep 12, 2006, 09:00

A Mifflin County man will spend the rest of his life in prison in the shooting deaths of two people in Huntingdon County.

Thirty-year-old Steven Baker Junior of Kistler pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree murder in the deaths of 21-year-old Tirelle Dixon of Philadelphia and 20-year-old Jessica Wills of Dysart. Baker was also sentenced to another five to 10 years on a count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

A passing motorist spotted the bodies of the victims along a secluded one-lane road in Shirley Township in December 2004. Prosecutors say Baker killed Dixon after meeting him to buy crack cocaine, then shot Wills so she could not turn on him, and stole Dixon's vehicle. Baker had been charged with first-degree murder before reaching a plea agreement.

Cambria 9/24/04 Darnell Alexander Alexander Bush
Published: November 07, 2005 11:37 pm
Trial under way in city murder
By SANDRA K. REABUCK
THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT
EBENSBURG - Tips concerning threats against a drug dealer named "Woo" initially led Johnstown police to investigate the possibility that Darnell Alexander had been slain by two Pittsburgh men, witnesses testified Monday.

But the probe shifted to Johnstown after Amanda DeAngelis, Alexander's girlfriend, gave police information about his whereabouts the night he was killed, city Detective Thomas Owens said.

Owens was among 13 witnesses called by the prosecution in the opening day of testimony in the murder trial of Alexander Bush Jr., a Harrisburg-area man who formerly lived in Johnstown.

Bush, 27, is charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the slaying of Alexander in a secluded area off Plum Street in the city's Woodvale section.

Alexander, who had been living in Johnstown prior to his death, was a drug dealer originally from Pittsburgh and used the street name "Woo," prosecutors say.

Police allege it was a drug-related killing. Bush stole an unknown amount of cash from Alexander.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Bush faces a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. today, when prosecutors are expected to continue to question witnesses about Alexander's whereabouts before he was killed early on Sept. 24, 2004.

He died from two gunshot wounds - one to the head and one to his neck.

Defense attorneys claim Bush was attempting to protect himself from being killed by Alexander, who reportedly had learned that Bush was a police informant.

Two days before Alexander's body was discovered, Richland Township police told city police that two Pittsburghers with the street names "Dray" and "Binda" were headed to Johnstown to kill "Woo" and Jerome Rozier of Johnstown, Owens said.

At that point, city police did not know who "Woo" was but got word to Rozier about a possible attempt on his life, Officer Reginald Floyd said.

Rozier appeared to discount them, saying only, "Yeah, yeah, heard about that but nothing to it," Floyd recalled. Rozier did not indicate that he knew "Woo," the officer said.

But Rozier actually was with Bush and Alexander at the Pony Lounge in Richland Township before the fatal shooting, Owens testified.

Police also say a fourth man, known as "Black," was with the men that night but did not go into the nightclub because he had no identification with him.

Prosecutors expected to call Rozier and DeAngelis to testify.

The shooting apparently took place around 3 a.m.

That's when Kevin Jacoby of the 600 block of Jacoby Street "heard two or three pop sounds that sounded like a gun." Jacoby testified that he had been sitting in his kitchen because he was unable to sleep.

Another neighbor, Clyde Clawson, said he was awakened by his dog barking around 2:30 a.m.

When the dog would not stop barking, Clawson got out of bed, looked out a window and saw a silver-colored, medium-sized car with a dark stripe on its side parked nearby.

Standing by it was one black man who appeared to be "worried," Clawson said.

A bit later, when the dog again began barking, Clawson said he "saw two fellas running down the road. They were running side by side. They got into the car and left."

However, Clawson said that he didn't hear any gunshots and didn't think anything was wrong.

"I just thought they were fooling around up there," he said.

Blair6/04 Tina Miller Paul Ross-t,c
PENNSYLVANIA:
Blair County District Attorney to seek death penalty in murder case
In Hollidaysburg, the Blair County district attorney says he will seek the
death penalty in the case of a man accused of sexually assaulting and
murdering a woman in June.
D-A Dave Gorman says torture was a factor in the sexual assault and murder
of 26-year-old Hollidaysburg resident Tina Miller.
32-year-old Paul Ross of Hollidaysburg is accused of killing Miller.
Authorities say Ross met Miller at a bar just hours before she died.
Officials found Miller's partially nude body in Canoe Lake June 27th.
Police say a bite mark found on Miller's body can be linked to Ross.
(source: Associated Press)
The second award was presented to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper David Aiello for the homicide investigation of Tina Marie Miller, age 26, who was discovered face down in the lake at Canoe Creek State Park, Frankstown Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania. The Victim's hands and neck were bound with duct tape and she was naked from her mid-back to her knees. It appeared the Victim had been sexually assaulted.

In the hours preceding the Victim's death, she was in the company of four adult males at a local bar. Upon leaving the bar the Victim, along with the four males, proceeded to a private residence. The defendant, Paul Aaron Ross, one of the acquaintances, had just met Tina that evening. While at the residence, Ross had repeatedly asked Tina to accompany him home, which appeared she had done voluntarily. While en route to Ross' residence, he insisted on being dropped off at a boat launch located at the Canoe Creek State Park. Paul Aaron Ross was the last person to see the Victim alive.

Paul Aaron Ross told a trooper at a roadside checkpoint about a strange encounter he had with a female at the Canoe Creek State Park in the early morning hours on Sunday, June 27, 2004. Ross was asked to appear at Hollidaysburg Station and relate his story, which he agreed. Ross was interviewed and the names of the other acquaintances became known. Upon interviewing these persons, critical information about the Victim was discovered along with inconsistencies in Ross' statement.

On Monday, June 28, 2004, Trooper David Aiello executed a search warrant on Ross' body, resulting in the collection of his bodily fluids, hairs and dental impressions. There were scratches on Ross' right leg and forearms that were also discovered during the search warrant. Trooper Aiello persuaded the remaining acquaintances to voluntarily provide blood and saliva samples, as well as dental impressions for laboratory comparison. These men agreed to polygraph examinations, and provided statements consistent with each other, but contradictory to important portions of Ross' statement. Trooper Aiello obtained surveillance tapes from local convenience stores that displayed the date and time, proving the truthfulness of their statements.

After conducting additional interviews, it was revealed that Ross removed an item from his residence on June 27th that he disposed of in the trash at a local convenience store. This item was not recovered or identified, but it is believed he disposed of a pair of shoes. Investigative efforts focused on identifying the type of shoe that Ross wore prior to the homicide. It was determined that Ross owned and wore the brand of shoes that was consistent with shoe impressions left at the scene.

Females who had past relationships with Ross were interviewed. The interviews revealed that Ross had a repeated behavioral pattern that was present in the criminal homicide. Trooper Aiello was permitted to introduce Ross' prior behavioral acts as evidence during his trial.

In spite of inconclusive laboratory results, Trooper Aiello pursued additional avenues through outside agencies in an attempt to further the forensic evidence against Ross.

After the trial started, Trooper Aiello's persistent investigative efforts continued by conducting additional interviews with persons who came forward with relevant information.

At the conclusion of the two-week trial, the jury deliberated for three-hours before returning a verdict of guilty on the charge of first degree murder, resulting in a life sentence.

Blair2/25/04 Beverly Yohn Andre Staton-t,c
Andre Staton - black, age 36
Sentenced to death in Blair County, Pennsylvania
By: A jury
Date of Crime: 2/25/04
Prosecution's case/defense response: Staton's ex-girlfriend Beverly Yohn had a protective order against him and was staying at her mother's. Staton went to the mother's house and stabbed Yohn to death in front of her two children. He was on parole from a conviction for a prior stabbing. Staton claimed that he was high at the time, and that he had acted in self-defense.
Prosecutor(s): Richard Consiglio
Defense Lawyer(s):
Sources: Centre Daily Times 6/2/06 (2006 WLNR 9471184).

Cambria 7/10/03 Kalvin Yahner
Loretto parents turn to psychic to unravel case
By SANDRA K. REABUCK
LORETTO - A couple who believe the truth is not yet known about the 2003 shooting death of their teenaged son has turned to a nationally known psychic investigator to crack the case.

Noreen Renier, 57, has worked on the Laci Peterson murder, and her insights have been featured on Court TV's "Psychic Detectives,'' CBS' "48 Hours'' and ABC's "Incredible Sunday."

Her new challenge spans two counties - Cambria, where the shooting occurred, and Blair, where 17-year-old Kalvin Yah-ner died July 10, 2003, of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Two friends were nearby at the time of the shooting.

Authorities have issued conflicting findings as to whether the death was a suicide or homicide.

In a release Monday, parents Kathy and Tim Yahner said, "Ms. Renier has a unique understanding of the police and the paranormal. The use of a psychic investigator can be considered as an additional important tool for police investigations."

Their statement comes as Renier is scheduled to speak Thursday to the Pennsylvania Association of County Coroners' annual convention at the Ramada Inn in Altoona.

Renier, in an e-mail to The Tribune-Democrat, said she does not comment on ongoing cases.

The parents said she has just begun to work on it.

The Yahners have steadfastly discounted the state police's determination that Kalvin, newly graduated from Penn Cambria High School, had committed suicide on a friend's farmhouse porch outside Loretto.

Instead, they point to a Blair County coroner's jury. In January 2004, the panel rejected the finding that Yahner had killed himself, ruling instead that he had been murdered.

Yet eight months later, after a probe by Cambria County detectives, Cambria District Attorney David Tulowitzki concluded that the shooting death was not a homicide and that no criminal charges would be filed. The DA could not be reached for comment Monday.

Despite, Tulowitzki's finding, Blair Coroner Patty Ross has continued to stand by the inquest ruling that Yahner was killed.

Her office clarified Monday that it was the Yahners and not coroner's officials who have retained Renier.

The parents, who have pushed for criminal charges to be filed, have insisted that even though he was being counseled for drug abuse, their son was not suicidal.

In their faxed release Monday, they said, "Forensic facts pointed out the physical impossibility of the alleged suicide to occur due to arm length, gun length, (Kalvin's) range of motion of left hand and the trajectory of the bullet.

"The Yahner family remains hopeful that the erroneous situation and reporting of Kalvin's death as a suicide will be corrected and Kalvin will have the respect he deserves (and ) that local law enforcement officials will aggressively pursue this until this case is solved."

Renier, the only psychic to have lectured at the FBI Academy, said on her Web site that, in her work, she often touches objects the victim used or the suspect left behind.

"The objects emit a field of energy which can be 'read.' This energy-field carries information, images, visions, feelings, etc.," she said.

But her site also insists, "Psychics do not solve crimes, police do. The images or impressions she picks up could provide clues, new information or perhaps a different angle to your unsolved crime."

In a high profile case in recent years, she was called by Jackie Peterson in early 2003 for help in finding her then missing pregnant daughter, Laci.

Renier told Jackie that Laci could be found in "a place with water, a bridge and flat rocks." Laci Peterson's body and that of her unborn child later washed up on the shore of San Francisco Bay.

She also is credited with forecasting the assassination attempt on the life of President Reagan in 1981.

cc6/13/03 Robert Sealy died in prison, 04

While strange, such behavior was largely benign. In contrast, the most extreme reports from Mirapex
users include people driven to commit suicide, rape and possibly even murder.
Two summers ago central Pennsylvania resident Robert Sealy beat his wife to death while under the
influence of Mirapex. Last month the Sealy family sued his doctor for increasing the drug's dosage despite
changes in his behavior that included chasing his wife around their property with a running chain saw.

Cambria12/24/02 Jean Wholaver Ernest R Wholaver, Jr-t,c
Victoria Wholaver Ernest R Wholaver, Jr-t,c
Elizabeth Wholaver Ernest R Wholaver, Jr-t,c
Execution date set for area man
Ernest Wholaver convicted of 3 murders
From Mirror and wire reports

Wholaver

A Cambria County man faces a June 20 date with the executioner for the murders of his estranged wife and the two daughters he was accused of molesting.

Gov. Ed Rendell signed the death warrant Wednesday for Ernest R. Wholaver Jr., 47, formerly of St. Benedict. The warrant follows the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Wholaver's appeal in January.

A jury imposed three death sentences on Wholaver for the Christmas Eve 2002 shootings of Jean Wholaver and their daughters, Victoria, 20, and Elizabeth, 15, at the family's home in Middletown.

The murders occurred less than a month before Wholaver faced trial on charges that he sexually abused his daughters.

Wholaver's brother, Scott, who admitted driving him from their home in the Altoona area to the murder scene on the night of the killings, testified against him at trial and led police to the purported murder weapon, a .22-caliber revolver that had been discarded in the woods.

Scott Wholaver pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree murder for his role in the crime.

In addition to the death sentences, Ernest Wholaver was sentenced to 10 to 20 years for trying to hire a hit man while in prison.

He planned to have Victoria's ex-boyfriend killed and framed for the women's murders, a plot that was foiled by a jailhouse snitch.

Wholaver also received 1 to 2 years for endangering his 9-month-old granddaughter, who was in Victoria's arms when her mother was fatally shot, but he was acquitted of all charges related to sexual abuse allegations.

Wholaver is an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Greene.

Blair 9/23/02 Sherri Dively Mickey Dively, t, c 3rd d. murder
CLAYSBURG, Pa. -- It was the day after their 24th anniversary.

But instead of celebrating their marriage, Mickey and Sherri Dively were
getting ready to break up -- she packing her belongings, he packing a
loaded .38-caliber revolver.

In a confrontation just outside their Blair County home Monday
afternoon,machinery company executive Dively argued with his wife, hit
her and then,as two of her friends ran for safety, fatally shot her in
the chest,investigators said yesterday.

Dively's lawyer portrayed his client yesterday as an ailing man, with
heartproblems and a transplanted kidney, who never meant to kill.

*nice. she decides to desert him when he's ill, she must have forgot
that part about, in sickness and in health

"It wasn't intentional," defense lawyer Thomas Dickey of Altoona said.
"It's not murder ... it might be some form of manslaughter."
But Blair County District Attorney David Gorman said he thought he could
prove first-degree murder.

*he's having pipe dreams lol

Meanwhile, Dively sat in Blair County prison, denied the chance to post
bail, charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault and recklessly
endangering other people for opening fire near the two friends who came
to help his wife pack.

* he's entitled to reasonable bail he hasn't been convicted of any crime.
Besides, with a kidney transplant he should be in a hospital. Not a jail
hospital.

The Divelys -- both 44, just two weeks apart in age -- grew up together
in this part of Blair County, four miles from the slopes of Blue Knob
Ski Resort. They have a daughter, now grown and living in Florida.

By his lawyer's account, Dively was a man who had never been in trouble,
an executive with the Bedford branch of machinery maker Kennametal Inc.

He told police, though, that his wife left him "a few weeks ago,"
according to the arrest affidavit.

Monday, Gorman said, Sherri Dively went to the house with friends Marci
Cameron and John Archdeacon to retrieve her belongings. After they
almost had loaded a van and a pickup truck, Mickey Dively arrived home,
and the confrontation began, Gorman said.

* she should have spoken to her husband alone and made some arrangement.
Including other people can only incite a person especially when they try
toclean the place out while the husband is at work

Blair3/19/02 Raymond Bracken William Thompson-t,mistrial, t 07
Margorie Bracken William Thompson-t,mistrial, t 07
Bracken's Remembered: Five Years Pass Since Gruesome Murder
By Chris Forshey
Mar 19, 2007, 16:59

Five years have now passed since the gruesome murders of an elderly Altoona couple in their Spruce Avenue home, and residents say their neighborhood is just beginning to return to normal.

Fairview resident Darrel Rutter says he remembers his elderly neighbors well.

"The brackens were an elderly couple that everyone in the neighborhood liked...they were grandfatherly and grandmotherly," said Rutter. "They would do anything for anybody."

Rutter's talking about Raymond and Marjorie Bracken, who were found stabbed to death on March 19, 2002 shortly after returning home from a routine Tuesday morning shopping trip. Rutter remembers that day well.

"I had never in my wildest dreams thought there was any problem...until the FBI showed up...I was shocked," Rutter said.

Now five years later, following the arrest of the alleged murder William Thompson, Rutter says his neighborhood has returned to some sense or normalcy, but his life will never be the same.

"There is always a somberness when you look over there, I have actually went into depression over the last five years," said Rutter. "Where I use to go out, sit out all night and look over the city...I don't do that much anymore."

Recently, a young couple and their three small children moved into the former Bracken home. Thompson has been sitting in prison since May of 2002 and has been the only person charged in the murders. Thompson goes back on trial next month. At that time a Beaver County jury will determine his fate. His first death penalty trial ended in a mistrial.

12/19/01 Darin Whitsel Christina Ashton, t,c 3rd d murder
A criminal homicide trial, includes the charges of first and third degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter, there were several other factors that could have determined the jurors' final decision. Both the prosecution and the defense did an astonishing job presenting their sides. Christian Ashton shot and killed her boyfriend, Darin Whitsel on December 19, 2001. The defense was arguing that it was an accidental shooting and no premeditation was involved. They would also contend that the commonwealth does not have sufficient evidence to convict Christiana. District Attorney Stewart contended, in his 40-minute closing statement, that Christina had the "motive, means and opportunity" to shoot Darin when he came into the cabin. He concluded the testimony proved her irresponsible behavior toward Darin, a routine of it. In the end, a 9-3 vote found Christina Ashton guilty of third degree murder.
HIS WEBSITE IS DEDICATED IN THE LOVING MEMORY OF MY BROTHER DARIN. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT KNOW HIS STORY , HE WAS MURDERED BY HIS GIRLFRIEND ON DEC 19,2001 . FOR NO REASON AT ALL! DARIN WAS 31 YEARS OLD.. HE ENJOYED SPENDING TIME WITH HIS TWO BOYS AND DRIVING HIS RACE CAR. HE HAD A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR AND ALWAYS HAD AWAY TO MAKE YOU LAUGH. HE STILL HAD ALOT OF LIVING TO DO. IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY MEMBER WHO YOU SUSPECT IS IN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS! NO FAMILY SHOULD HAVE TO GO THROUGH WHAT MINE HAS HAD TO BEAR. OUR LIFE IS KIND OF SURREAL TO US NOW. DARIN WAS VIOLATED IN SO MANY WAYS; NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE HIS BOYS GROW UP. OR EVEN GET TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
DARIN DESERVED BETTER

"A golden heart stopped
beating, He's now at peaceful rest. God broke our hearts to prove to us
he only takes the Best."

DARIN'S
TWO
SON'S
GAGE
AND
DEVIN

SHAWN,DARIN AND ME

Citizens against homicide
check it out

OLD GUESTBOOK ENTRYS

FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO EMAIL ME PRIVATELY MY ADDRESS IS:
abard@pa.net

DEVIN'S FIRST DEER HE SHOT WITH A BOW AND ARROW. PRETTY GOOD FOR A 12 YEAR OLD.

THE SENTENCING IS OVER
AND SHE RECEIVED
17-40 YEARS
IN PRISON FOR THE CRIME.

11/30/01 Dana Gates unsolved; Cordell Ebersole not charged
Dana Gates, a resident of
Bedford County, was pronounced dead at Altoona Hospital on November 30,
2001. Following an autopsy, the Blair County Coroner's Office (Coroner)
classified Gates' death as a homicide. The Coroner issued a "view of forms" on
January 31, 2002, which described Gates' death as follows:
Homicide Death: Massive Blunt Force Head Trauma. Called to
Altoona Hospital for a deceased white 31 year old female. The
deceased went into cardiac arrest soon after arriving on scene.
[Blair County Coroner] Patty Ross had stayed at the Altoona
Hospital with the body while the body bag was sealed, the
deceased was then transported by Claysburg WCV to
BonSecours Morgue, deputy went to the scene. The crime
scene is an open investigation with Bedford State Police. An
autopsy was performed, the cause of death was determined as a
massive blunt force trauma to the head.

3/01 Patience Ferguson Lavelle Richardson
A Blair County jury has found Lavelle Richardson guilty of first degree murder for the killing of 21-year old Patience Ferguson outside an Altoona club last
10/31/01 Cindy Song never found
Hyunjung "Cindy" Song (b. February 25, 1980) is the focus of an unsolved missing-persons case in the United States. She was a Pennsylvania State University student when she was last seen during the early morning hours of November 1, 2001 after a Halloween night out. Born in Seoul, Korea, she moved to Virginia and attended high school there before beginning her studies at Penn State.
After friends reported that she had been last seen at 4:00 a.m. in front of her State College apartment, local police began investigating. She was coming home after a series of all-night parties still wearing her playboy bunny costume consisting of a white mini-skirt, knee-length boots, a red hooded jacket, and a white bunny tail. A witness claimed to have seen her in Philadelphia several days after her disappearance, but no further information was discovered. Two months later, investigators still had few leads. Nearly a year after her disappearance, police agreed to work with the Penn State Paranormal Research Society. PRS called in Carla Baron, a psychic who was later involved in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping investigation.
Song's case received national attention on programs including Unsolved Mysteries in 2002 and Without a Trace in 2003. It was also featured in the first episode in the Court-TV series, Psychic Detectives, with Baron. In 2003, police in Northeastern Pennsylvania investigated the possibility of a connection with suspected killer Hugo Selenski, but her body was not found. Around that time, the case's lead investigator, Brian Sprinkle, came to the conclusion that unfortunatly she was likely dead. In 2005, he reported that there were no new leads in the case, and that he did not expect to uncover any more. With more than five years after her disappearance, Penn State College Mayor Bill Welch uses Song's story to remind students to stay safe at night, be aware of their surroundings and not to drink and party too much

06/01 Randy Buchanan unsolved
COURT RULES DEAF MAN'S AUTOPSY RECORDS MAY BE SEALED
The June 2001 murder of Randy Buchanan, a 42-year-old deaf man found dead inside his apartment, remains unsolved, but the case made news earlier this week. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the Blair County coroner does not have to release Buchanan's autopsy records if the county district attorney can prove to a trial court that doing so would interfere with an investigation. According to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Altoona Mirror wanted the coroner to release the records, since the Coroner's Act requires coroners to file their records in the county courthouse every year.

5/01 Sherrie Jackson Kristin Edmundson, Mary Seilhammer
Sept. 28
PENNSYLVANIA---females face death penalty
A love triangle gone wrong? -- Friends say Pa. slaying victim was just a
'naive girl'
Amid the sexual innuendo and sensational headlines, the real lifestyle
and personality of a murdered 20-year-old woman is being forgotten, her
friends said.
Blair County DA David Gorman said Shari Lee Jackson, of Hollidaysburg,
Pa., was killed after a love triangle went sour. But people who knew the
aspiring paramedic contend people took advantage of her naivete.
"I don't believe those stories that Shari was a lesbian. I believe that
she was a naive girl who grew up sheltered.. . .She moved out of her
parents' house and ran into the wrong group," said Blair County Coroner
Patricia Ross.
Ross was Jackson's instructor in an emergency medical technician
certification class. She remembers Jackson as a shy, but motivated
student who was escorted by her mother to her 1st classes.
Police found Jackson's body in a remote area of Blair County on May 7.
Jackson's attackers hit her on the head at least 3 times with a baseball
bat and slit her throat in a wooded area of Clearfield County. The
attackers moved her body to a different location and burned her, police
said.
After police found Jackson's body, they interviewed and arrested
Jackson's former roommates, Marie L. Seilhamer, 19, of Ashville in
Cambria County and Kristin M. Edmundson, 20, of Duncansville in Blair
County.
A few days later, police arrested Amanda Speicher, 20, and Scott Custer,
23, both of Boswell in Somerset County.
Custer was charged with abuse of a corpse for allegedly helping Edmundson
burn Jackson's body. Speicher is charged with conspiracy to prevent
apprehension.
The women face the death penalty because prosecutors believe Jackson was
tortured.
Residents in the Altoona area are interested in the case for many
reasons, including the violent nature of Jackson's death and her alleged
relationship with Edmundson's friend, said Terry Despoy, Edmundson's
attorney.
Edmundson allegedly told a friend before the murder that Jackson was
trying to "get on her girlfriend," court documents said.
"It's a big deal around here," said Seilhamer's attorney, Thomas Dickey.
"That's why I don't mind talking to the press because it levels the
playing field a little bit. We want people to know that [Seilhamer]
didn't burn the body and she didn't cut her up."
Dickey and Despoy characterized their clients as sheltered women caught
in events that reeled out of control.
"Kristin is very soft spoken and very young. If you were to look at her
and talk to her, you wouldn't think she could be involved in something
like this," Despoy said.
Seilhamer drove to a deserted area at Edmundson's urging and hit Jackson
with a bat just once, Dickey said. But she became sick after the 1st hit
and returned to the truck, he said, leaving Edmundson to kill the woman.
Meanwhile, Despoy said Edmundson slit Jackson's throat, but only after
Seilhamer savagely beat Jackson.
Gorman said he isn't surprised by the finger pointing, but doesn't buy
their story.
"You don't hit someone 3 times and slit their throat in an assault that
gets out of hand," Gorman said.
(source: Philadelphia Daily News)
A Boswell woman told a Blair County jury Wednesday that Marie Louise Seilhamer of Ashville RD may not have killed Shari Lee Jackson, even though she confessed to the murder in a statement to police.

The surprise witness was called to the stand by defense attorney Thomas M. Dickey of Altoona, who now maintains that Jackson, 20, was killed with a shovel wielded by Kristin Marie Edmundson, 22, of Duncansville, who had a grudge against Jackson as the result of a love triangle.

Amanda Speicher, 20, who was sentenced to two months in prison after pleading no contest to trying to cover up the crime, testified Wednesday that Edmundson called her the evening of May 6, 2001, upset and considering suicide.

In something out of a bad "Skinemax after dark" movie, you had this group of women that went around Blair County and nearby areas to break into churches and graveyards to have sex with each other. Eventually, jealousies arose, leading to murder.

According to reports from Lee, they took a week to find a jury for this case, partially because of the sensationalized nature of the case, but primarily because
As was explained on WTAJ last night, the main problem seems to be finding jurors who don't "find lesbian relationships to be inappropriate." And we wonder where Rick Santorum's support comes from? Why didn't somebody ask for an out-of-town jury to begin with?

I really need to find the old e-mail Lee sent retelling the entire tale. Either that or have Lee guest-blog the story.
One of two women accused of brutally killing a Hollidaysburg woman in May of 2001 entered a guilty plea yesterday and will spend the rest of her natural life behind bars.
Kristin Marie Edmundson, 20, of Duncansville entered the plea yesterday before Judge Jolene Kopriva at the Blair County Courthouse. The charges included first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit homicide. A charge of abuse of a corpse was withdrawn by the commonwealth.
"Basically, the essence of the plea was that they (commonwealth) decided to knock out the death penalty and she would plea guilty to first degree murder and receive a life sentence," said Edmundson's attorney Terry Despoy of Altoona. "My approach to the case from the beginning was that I really didn't think the death penalty was appropriate under any set of circumstances in the case. We're pleased with our decision."
Edmundson was charged with the killing along with 21-year-old Marie Louise Seilhamer of Ashville, following the May 5, 2001 murder of 20-year-old Hollidaysburg resident Shari Lee Jackson, whose body was found two days later. Blair County District Attorney Dave Gorman and the commonwealth said Edmundson's jealousy over Jackson beginning a relationship with another woman caused the defendants to work out a murder plot and carry it through.
"We're pleased with the plea in the sense that Ms. Edmundson, when she is sentenced, she'll receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole and that she'll never see the light of day again," said Gorman. "Obviously, it won't bring Shari Jackson back, but I think in some small way, at least it brings justice and some closure to the family."
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Seilhamer and Edmundson drove Jackson to a pull-off area in Clearfield County where, police said, Seilhamer repeatedly struck Jackson with a wooden baseball bat. The affidavit also states Edmundson slit Jackson's throat after the beating was over. The two then loaded the body in a truck and transported the corpse a short distance, over the Blair County line.
The body was burned the next day by Edmundson and Scott Alan Custer, 24, of Boswell, police said. Custer entered a guilty plea to charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, abuse of a corpse and criminal conspiracy in December and was sentenced to time served, which computes to about 18 months.
Jury selection for Edmundson's case was scheduled to begin Monday in Franklin, Venango County, after Kopriva ruled she couldn't possibly receive a fair trial from a Blair County jury due to the extensive media coverage. Edmundson and another conspirator, Amanda Speicher, 20, also of Boswell, were first ordered to stand trial together beginning Feb. 3, but a decision earlier this week severed the cases.
Speicher, in turn, also decided to enter a no contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of hindering apprehension and was ordered to spend an additional two months in the Blair County Prison. Police said Speicher helped to cover up the crime by concealing items used in the killing and items owned by the victim.
According to Despoy, yesterday's decision to enter into the plea agreement was the best case scenario for his client strictly because of the evidence the commonwealth had to present.
"I really didn't want to enter a guilty plea and I labored over it for quite some time, but the more I analyzed the case and discussed it with my client and began putting things together, the more I saw that there were too many pieces of evidence, that, in my opinion, would lead a jury to convict her of first-degree murder," said Despoy. "Although I don't believe there was evidence to support a death penalty, the jury could have strayed away from the guidelines and affirm a death sentence based strictly on what they saw.
"We just had too many points to explain away," he continued. "Under the prosecution's version of what happened, the girls pre-planned the entire murder. There was a pretty strong motive. There was no doubt there was a shovel, a baseball bat, a blade and a blanket. Ms. Seilhamer took a change of clothes and they went back up to where the body was the day after the murder and attempted to conceal the body.
"With all that evidence all stacked up, I feel the jury would have been inflamed and would have given Kristin the death sentence regardless of what the law says," he said. "When you are doing a criminal defense case, you are used to being able to explain a couple of things away, but when you have a couple of dozen things that need explained, you're in trouble."
According to Despoy, Edmundson is remorseful for her part in the crime, stating that each time he has met with his client and discussed the facts of the case, she has completely broken down in tears.
"I think there are times where she has to put up a tough front in prison, but I can tell you this much, this girl has felt remorse everyday beginning when she wakes up and continuing for every breathing moment," he said. "I really don't think you are looking at a person who is a cold-blooded murderer. I really don't. I think you are looking at someone who got caught up in a really bad situation."
Gorman said as part of the plea agreement, Edmundson has agreed to testify in the commonwealth's case against Seilhamer, who is represented by Altoona attorney Thomas Dickey. He said she will remain in Blair County Prison until Seilhamer comes up for trial. Afterwards, she will be sentenced and transported to a state correctional institution, most likely in Muncy.
Should she decide not to testify against her friend at trial, Gorman said the prosecution has the right to withdraw the guilty plea and start Edmundson's case over at square one.
Dickey did not return phone calls to The Daily Herald this morning.

Centre April 2001 Donald Conner
April 27, 2001
* The body of a murdered black man is found in the woods of Centre County, about 15 miles from the Penn State University Park Campus. Although this is a different section of the woods than the location the recent death threat claimed a body could be found, many people fear a connection. Police reports suggest the body was moved to the site after the killing took place.
April 28, 2001
* Authorities identify the body of the murdered black man found in the Centre County woods. Police and university officials heavily emphasize that the victim was not affiliated with the university, and assert that there is no connection to the killing bragged of in the latest death threat.
Spring 2002
* Black students find a recruitment flyer from an organized hate group, The Church of the Creator, and turn it into Vice Provost for Educational Equity, Terrell Jones. Nothing is done. And though the posting of the recruitment fliers happened less than a month from the day four students were told by the Anti Defamation League that their names, addresses, and phone numbers had been posted on the World Church of the Creator Website, the church was not questioned in that incident.
* Chief Harmon, University Police, confesses that he is aware of the fact that that the World Church of the Creator that is also called Christian Identity is a world wide hate organization with a headquarters located in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a neighboring town less that 40 minutes away. He is aware that the World Church of the Creator is also called The Patriot. Yet there has never been an investigation into any possible connection the World Church of the Creator and the hate letters and death threats signed "The Patriot" sent to Black community members the year before, or to the more than 60 emails sent to minority students in 1999. Even though the letters signed The Patriot were traced to their origination point within the Postal Service in Altoona, PA, police investigators still failed to investigate the group. And despite the fact that the most recent incident involved four students (one Black male and three members of the LGBT community) receiving hate emails and the posting of those students' addresses and phone numbers on the website of the World Church of the Creator has neither been named a suspect, nor been investigated, or questioned. Additionally, Chief Harmon claims that he did not receive any copy of the fliers.
* On April 26, one year to the day of finding Donald Conner's body, student Black Caucus Vice President and three students from the LGBT community receive death threats through instant messenger from a group referred to as "The Church of the Creator."
*

April 2000 Holly Notestine Joseph William Clark
DA wants attorney for murder suspect
By KATHY MELLOTT
THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT
BEDFORD - Prosecutors on Wednesday asked the court to appoint counsel to represent capital-murder defendant Joseph Clark while his attorney serves a three-month law-license suspension.

District Attorney William Higgins also wants Clark to appear before the court to ensure he is properly advised of Thomas Crawford's suspension and the role it may play in the pending murder case.

"We're legitimately concerned. This isn't about Tom Crawford; this is about Joe Clark," Higgins said.

"I'm not going to sit back and let them raise an appeal issue. We're dealing with it right now because I see this as a tailor-made issue for appeal."

Should Clark be found guilty of first-degree murder and the death penalty imposed, an issue of ineffective counsel couldcome up with Crawford, Higgins said.

Crawford confirmed Tuesday that the Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Counsel, an arm of the state Supreme Court, hassuspended his license to practice law for three months effectiveMarch 29.

He also is ordered to make restitution of nearly $20,000 to about two dozen residents in the Pittsburgh area town of Donora.

Clark, 46, of Everett, is charged in the 2000 kidnapping and disappearance of Holly Notestine, the mother of two who was missing until March 2004 when her skeletal remains were found in remote Bedford County.

Crawford said the suspension and restitution - which he has been fighting for years - goes back a decade and involves a sewer issue.

The Wilkinsburg lawyer said he is notifying his clients about the license suspension.

Crawford plans to withdraw from the Clark case and offer his associate Barbara Weiss for the case.

"Barb will continue to represent him for the next three months," Crawford said. "She is death-penalty certified."

While the case will not go to trial during the next three months, two issues - one at the Superior court level regarding Clark's criminal history and one at the county court level regarding suppression of evidence and statements - will have to be addressed, Higgins said.

"If Ms. Weiss wants to come in and show she has the qualifications and is competent to accept the case, then let her do so," Higgins said.

Man Accused of Notestine Murder Wants Bail
By Chris Forshey
Jan 30, 2007, 08:58

He's accused of murdering a Bedford County woman more than five years ago and now he's making another attempt to get out of jail.

Joseph William Clark of Everett is accused with the April 2000 murder of 25 year-old Holly Notestine. Clark has been incarcerated for almost two years since his arrest and has been claiming that he's not been given a speedy trial.

Judge Dan Howsare turned Clark down In December, when he requested bail so that he could get out of jail. Now Clark and his defense attorney Thomas Crawford want to file an appeal with Pennsylvania's Supreme Court. They need Judge Howsare's permission to do so. That request was filed Monday.

Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins immediately fired back, saying the delays in this case are due to motions and appeals that are normal in a large capital murder case. Higgins already has an appeal sitting in front of the Supreme Court, asking it to reverse a lower court's decision excluding evidence against Clark from the trial.

Posted

Published: May 29, 2008 11:28 pm

Judge mulls whether witness should testify

BY KATHY MELLOTT
The Tribune-Democrat

BEDFORD — A judge could rule as soon as today on a request that the statement of a man – not the defendant – claiming he killed an Everett area woman not be admissible at Joseph W. Clark’s retrial.

Additionally, Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins said Thursday that Clark’s attorney should not be allowed to take the witness stand should federal inmate David Lucas refuse to testify.

Higgins is trying to fend off a repeat of a convoluted day in the first Clark trial four months ago.

Lucas refused to testify, so Thomas Crawford took the stand to tell the jury what the inmate told him of Lucas’ supposed involvement in the murder of Holly Notestine.

“The law says you can’t be a witness and an advocate in the same proceeding,” Higgins said of events in the first trial.

“I don’t care if Lucas comes in and testifies. But if he refuses, I don’t think Crawford should be allowed to tell the jury what Lucas supposedly told him.”

It was unclear Thursday if Lucas will testify in the upcoming trial, which is expected to begin around June 16 in Bedford County.

Higgins has maintained that Lucas played no role in the murder and is not a credible witness.

Lucas, 34, a Huntingdon County native serving a 34-year sentence for armed robbery, testified in the first Clark trial that he killed Notestine.

He then repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment despite being granted immunity from prosecution for any involvement.

Clark, 49, faces a second capital murder trial in the April 30, 2000, kidnapping and murder of Notestine, a 25-year-old mother of two who lived on a dairy farm near Clark’s home.

Following a three-week trial including six days of deliberations earlier this year, a Butler County jury said it was deadlocked. Judge Daniel Howsare ordered a new trial.

In a defense motion, Crawford is asking the judge to dismiss all of the charges because Clark already went through a trial and the judge should not have declared a mistrial.

“We’re asking to dismiss because of double jeopardy,” Crawford said Thursday.

Higgins said he felt Howsare did all he could to get a verdict from the jury, but stopped when a final polling of each juror showed an impasse and further deliberations would not help.

“You tell a jury they have to reach a verdict, that can be a big problem,” Higgins said.

Howsare twice instructed the jury to return to deliberations when they appeared unable to reach a verdict.

Jury selection for Clark will begin June 9. The jury will be chosen in Dauphin County because of publicity in the case.

The selection process is expected to take about a week.

Altoona Mirror Aug 22 08

BEDFORD - Convicted murderer Joseph Clark received nine to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and arson charges against him Thursday morning, adding to the life sentence given to him by a Dauphin County jury at the end of his second murder trial in July.

A first trial ended in February with a hung jury from Butler County. Out-of-county juries were chosen because of local publicity on the case.

Clark of Everett was found guilty of first-degree criminal homicide but was spared the death penalty.

Charges of unlawful restraint, simple assault and aggravated assault were merged with the murder charge at Thursday's hearing by Bedford County President Judge Daniel Howsare.

Clark was convicted of kidnapping Holly Notestine, 25, from her Clearville home April 30, 2000.

Notestine's partner, Ronnie Grubb; their children: Chastity, 13, and Logan, 12; and one of Notestine's sisters were in court Thursday, along with Clark's fiancee, mother and sister.

Howsare began the hourlong sentencing by reviewing pre-sentencing investigation materials, including Clark's past criminal record, with Clark's attorneys, Thomas Crawford and Barbara Weiss, and District Attorney William Higgins.

Among Clark's prior alleged criminal acts in at least four states are driving under the influence, marijuana possession, battery, attempted kidnapping, sexual battery and at least one possible rape.

Clark was not convicted of all those allegations, a point Crawford stressed to the judge.

''I'm not considering any information for which there has not been a conviction,'' Howsare said.

Clark still maintained his innocence of all crimes associated with Notestine's disappearance.

Clark, wearing a suit and tie, made one last plea to the judge, standing up, facing Howsare, with his hands gesturing rapidly.

''I don't have any remorse because I didn't do anything wrong,'' he said, then commenting on the impact of his father's death when he was 11 years old. ''I've had things in my life that have happened to me that made life so precious to me. I hold life so dear to me ... I never really knew Holly. I never had a chance to get to know her. I did not hurt or kill anybody that day.''

Although he was calm and quiet for most of his speech, Clark suddenly turned loud and angry.

''Every woman I have ever been with, I have helped,'' he said. ''I was raised by a woman to respect women, to love women. I'm proud of the way I've lived my life. I have never physically hurt anyone in my lifetime. And I'm proud of that because I was a big, strong, energetic man once. I could easily create harm to someone if I choose to.

''All I can say is this isn't over. I'll fight this,'' he said.

Clark then shouted at Higgins before being forced to sit down by a sheriff's deputy.

Although Grubb said before the hearing that he had nothing left to say, he spoke up after Clark's outbursts.

''In the last eight years, I gave Mr. Clark the benefit of the doubt,'' Grubb said. ''In the last two cases and from what I've heard, this man got what he deserved.''

7/99 Arlene Piper Christopher Yon
The crime:
On July 18, 1999, my mother, Arlene Piper, was raped and murdered in her home sometime before dawn by a man who entered through a side window. His entering her home woke her up. She was 6 weeks from her 75th birthday. The murderer, Christopher Yon, had no apparent motive other than the knowledge that she would probably be an easy victim. He was acquainted with my mother only by sight. He removed nothing from the home except the car keys, which were not on her person, and after the rape and murder, stole her car. I start with these facts to make clear from the outset that I do not believe there is any way to excuse what Christopher Yon did that night. My mother was asleep, she had never met Christopher Yon, and he was under enough cognitive control to select a victim based on ease. The auto theft seems like an afterthought. On a scale of inexcusability, this crime ranks near the top.

11/98 William Mowrey William Wright
PENNSYLVANIA:
It took jurors just an hour and 40 minutes yesterday -- lunch included
-- to vote the death penalty for an Altoona man convicted of shooting his
next-door neighbor to death after hunting down the victim to his bedroom
closet.
The Thanksgiving 1998 killing came during an explosion of screaming and
pandemonium, the victim's wife testified last week.
But yesterday, the penalty was read to a tiny Blair County courtroom
shocked so silent that the gallery could hear itself breathing.
Convicted killer William Wright III slumped back in his chair and didn't
move again. Behind him, his mother dropped her head and froze, her hands
squeezing the hands of supporters on both sides.
2 rows back, the victim's widow -- Wright's former lover -- sat still,
staring and red-eyed. Defense lawyer Steven Passarello pulled off his
glasses, gazed toward the wall next to him and wiped his eyes.
"I was kind of numb, really," said John Mowrey, younger brother of the
victim, James Mowrey, afterward. "This obviously was a hollow victory for
us. We got some sort of closure ... but obviously, it'll never bring my
brother back."
Wright "was devastated," Passarello said.
The jury, chosen in Lebanon County, deliberated for 2 hours Monday
before finding Wright, 36, guilty of 1st-degree murder. That left them
to decide yesterday whether Wright should get the death penalty or life
in prison without parole.
"If we got the death penalty, great," John Mowrey, a Bedford County
state trooper, said as he stood outside the courthouse, sporting a
softball-size button bearing his brother's photo. "The verdict the
other day was the one we were looking for."
Of the 231 Pennsylvania prisoners sentenced to death, none was sentenced
from a Blair County court. An appeal is automatic after a death penalty.
The shooting capped a dispute that began simmering 4 months earlier,
when Tammy Mowrey returned to her husband after a 4-month separation,
pregnant with Wright's child. The baby, Tammy Mowrey's 3rd, was born
2 months after the shooting.
Passarello told jurors Monday that Tammy Mowrey shot her 35-year-old
husband as payback for abuse, but he produced no witnesses during the
trial testifying to that scenario.
Altoona police said it was Wright, a former truck driver and pizza
delivery man with a ninth-grade education, who killed Mowrey. Wright
didn't want James Mowrey raising the baby, blasted open the back door of
the Mowrey house and shot Mowrey as the victim hid in a bedroom closet,
Assistant District Attorney Richard Consiglio told jurors.
Tammy Mowrey was cowering nearby; their 6-year-old son, Jacob, was
watching from the bed, investigators said.
"This was a cold-blooded execution," District Attorney David Gorman
said outside the courtroom yesterday.
Wright is the father of Tammy Mowrey's 16-month-old daughter, but when
Gorman decided to seek the death penalty, the woman didn't balk, John
Mowrey said.
Defense co-counsel Kirk Kling asked jurors yesterday to give Wright life
in prison, arguing that Wright had only a minor criminal record, was too
fogged by a mix of tranquilizers and alcohol to appreciate what he was
doing and lived under duress brought on by a childhood of abuse and his
breakup with Tammy Mowrey.
Consiglio scoffed. He told jurors that Wright deserved to die because he
killed James Mowrey as part of another felony, the break-in at the Mowrey
house, and because Wright put both Tammy and Jacob Mowrey in danger when
he opened fire.
Blair County deputies worried throughout the eight-day court case about
an explosion between the 20 or so members of James Mowrey's extended
family and the handful of Wright kin who attended the trial. As much as
they could, deputies kept the factions separated.
In the end, softspoken Judge Hiram Carpenter III seemed to defuse
problems as well as anyone, spreading calm across the courtroom
yesterday as he serenely forewarned the gallery to bottle their
emotions, especially in front of jurors.
"They're jurors. They're not gods," Carpenter said. "God does all of
this [judgment] in the end."

Update Altoona Mirror 12/5/08

HOLLIDAYSBURG - Blair County's district attorney has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor the state Supreme Court's handling of a death row case involving an Altoona man convicted of murder.

In August, William L. Wright III said he was tired of waiting for the state court to decide his appeal and would rather be executed.

U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone of Pittsburgh, in a 12-page opinion, had no comment on the request by Wright to be executed, but he did not dismiss outright the inmate's complaints that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has violated his rights to speedy disposition of his appeal.

Wright was sentenced to death by Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter in 2000. He was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of James Mowery of Altoona, which occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 1998.

The appeal of Wright's conviction and death sentence was argued before the state's highest court in March 2004. There has been no action on the appeal for the past 57 months.

The Supreme Court's Capital Appeal Docket lists the case as "active," but confirms no rulings have been made.

In the meantime, three of the seven justices who heard the argument no longer are on the court.

Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy retired this year. Justice Sandra Schultz Newman retired in 2006, and Justice Russell M. Nigro lost his bid for retention in 2006.

Cercone said it would be unusual for the federal court to interfere with the state court's handling of a case, saying, "This court has no authority over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and cannot order it to issue a legal decision on a case before it."

The federal court, however, can take action if there is "inordinate delay," which could include granting an exception to the rule that a convict must exhaust his state appeals before taking his case to the federal court, Cercone said.

The federal court eventually could order a new trial or the release of the prisoner because of inordinate delay, he said.

Cercone said there is no evidence the Wright case has "fallen through the cracks" of the Pennsylvania justice system but said more than four years of delay "is a substantial amount of time."

District Attorney Richard Consiglio, who tried the Wright case, said Thursday that he has no problem with the time it has taken for the Supreme Court to decide the matter, pointing out that there were 59 issues raised on appeal.

The federal court has ordered Consiglio to file a written notice of the status of the Wright case with the federal court on the 28th of every month.

Consiglio said he was baffled by the order, saying he has no way of knowing the status of the case.

"I don't tell the Supreme Court what to do. It tells me what to do. I don't know how I have standing to monitor the Supreme Court," he said.

Wright is requesting a new trial because, among many reasons, he contends that his attorney had only 12 days to prepare his defense, Consiglio's closing arguments was prejudicial and pictures of the crime scene presented to the jury were inflammatory.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.

UPdate Altoona Mirro 12/24/08

Pennsylvania's highest court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for William Wright III of Altoona, who killed his neighbor on Thanksgiving Day 10 years ago.

Although the trial was not without problems, according to the majority opinion written by Justice J. Michael Eakin, the evidence showing Wright's guilt in the slaying of James Mowery was "overwhelming."

"We are aware [Wright's] trial was not perfect. Our species itself is not perfect. Our review is not to measure perfection. ... However, we are convinced [Wright] received a fair trial, and all errors are harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt," the court stated in the 54-page opinion released Monday.

The one controversy that emerged from the majority opinion and two concurring opinions, written by Justices Max Baer and Thomas G. Saylor, stemmed from comments by then-Assistant District Attorney Richard Consiglio, who in his closing argument said Wright did not testify during the trial but confessed to two city police officers who arrested him that he had just "toasted a guy."

The majority opinion stated, "We cannot find the prosecutor's comments were not inappropriate. ..."

The court emphasized that a suspect has the right to remain silent, but it considered the comment harmless in view of the strong evidence aginst Wright.

Although Baer also upheld the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence, he stated in a concurring opinion, "I also write separately to ex-press my disagreement with the majority's assessment of the harmlessness of the prosecutor's violation of [Wright's] right to silence. While the majority characterizes its assessment as 'not a close case,' I view the matter as extremely tenuous."

The Supreme Court took 57 months to issue its opinion in the Wright case, a sore point with Wright, who filed a federal lawsuit to force a ruling.

Earlier this month, the court ordered now-District Attorney Consiglio to provide monthly status reports on the Supreme Court's progress toward completing its review of the Wright case. Consiglio filed his first report last week indicating there had been no decision on the appeal.

During the early morning of Nov. 26, 1998, Wright argued with his neighbors James and Tammy Mowery. Wright was the father of a baby to Tammy Mowery, who had been estranged from her husband for a short period. The prosecution claimed that Wright was upset because the couple had reconciled.

A 911 tape recorded Wright shooting his way into the Mowery home after 6 a.m. Tammy Mowery testified how Wright came into their bedroom and shot her husband four times as he took refuge in a closet.

Within minutes, police arrived, and after a low-speed chase, they cornered Wright at the home of a former girlfriend.

Consiglio said Tuesday that Wright could launch another round of appeals at the state level or continue his challenge to his conviction in the federal courts.

Consiglio said the decision "was certainly appropriate," agreeing that the evidence of guilt was overwhelming.

He talked to the victim's family Tuesday, and they were "relieved" and "grateful" the conviction was upheld.

Wright's appeals attorney, R. Thomas Forr of Altoona, was not available for comment.

Aug 7 08 Atloona Mirror

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JOHNSTOWN - An Altoona man on death row since September 2000 for killing the husband of his estranged girlfriend says he no longer wants to appeal his first-degree murder conviction and is requesting to be executed.

William L. Wright III, 44, who continues to proclaim his innocence in the Thanksgiving 1998 shooting death of James Mowery, sent a "notice of termination" of the appeal he filed in U.S. District Court.

In capital letters, Wright then added, "This is a not a drill."

Wright gave several reasons, including the fact that the state Supreme Court has had his appeal for about five years and has yet to decide if he is entitled to a new trial.

Wright, who is being housed in the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg, said all other death row inmates around him who have filed appeals have heard back within a reasonable amount of time.

"I am the only capital direct appeal in Pennsylvania being singled out and subject to inordinate delay, and my attempt with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to redress said delay has been ignored," he wrote.

Wright last year asked the U.S. District Court in Johnstown to step in and order the state Supreme Court to decide his case. Now, Wright said, the federal court is not acting.

He specifically noted that Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio was ordered in May to respond to Wright's complaint that Consiglio had not directly served him with papers in the case.

Consiglio did not respond, and Wright complained that the federal court has done nothing about it.

Consiglio was not available for comment Wednesday.

Former Blair County District Attorney Dave Gorman, now a prosecutor for Attorney General Tom Corbett, said if it is Wright's desire to end his appeals, it would be appropriate to carry out the death penalty. He noted he had no doubt about Wright's guilt or the jury's decision to impose death.

He warned, however, Wright is a game-player who may think this may in some way benefit his ultimate goal, which has been to get a new trial.

''He may have some angle he thinks he is playing. ... He's not a dumb guy,'' Gorman said.

Wright is handling his legal issues on his own after being constantly at odds with his appeals attorney, R. Thomas Forr of Altoona, and several lawyers in the office of the federal public defender in Pittsburgh.

Forr raised 72 issues in Wright's appeal to the Supreme Court and said he doesn't know why the appeal has taken so long.

''There's a lot of issues,'' he said. ''There's a big transcript, and there has been a lot of change on the Supreme Court.''

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Philadelphia was unable to say Wednesday if Wright had sent a similar petition to it requesting execution.

Wright was convicted of shooting open the back door to the Mowery home almost 10 years ago, going to the second floor of the home and shooting Mowery five times before fleeing the residence.

Wright was upset that Mowery's wife, Tammy, had reconciled with her husband.

Pennsylvania has executed very few inmates in the past 20 years. Those who were put to death had, like Wright, given up on the appeals process.

9/13 Starson Walker

1996 Melody Curtis Ronald Isenberg
11-year old Melody Curtis disappeared on June 29th. She had been playing with friends in Shea Park, named in honor of Kathy. Melody's body was located nearby on July 7th, and a local teen was arrested for her rape and murder.
Tyrone, PA -- Sept. 4, 1996 -- Imagine searching for something important in a nightmare - frantically searching under every rock and behind every door, looking everywhere. But the desperate attempt is fruitless.
For Special Agent Dale Frye of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this nightmare became a reality in July. A reality from which he could not awake. Frye was involved in the investigation of the kidnapping death of Melody Curtis, who disappeared from Tyrone this summer.

Curtis, a Florida resident, was visiting her grandmother in Tyrone when she was abducted. Her body was found in June.
Frye said even law enforcement veterans sometimes become emotionally involved in cases.
"We are no different than any other professional. We take our job for the same reasons, retirement benefits and pension plans. We have feelings too. We are not a bunch of cossacks," Frye said.
Frye said he believes that in order to be a good law officer, one must have emotions. Investigators should be able to develop emotional ties to cases involving violence against children.
"I don't think you could be a good law enforcement official if you approach it as an assembly line job.
Emotions make you more effective because people can relate to you on a more personal level," he said.
The Curtis kidnapping is just such a case, Frye said.
"I had enormous emotional feelings in this past case because of the high emotions of the area - this being the worst event in Tyrone's history - and because I grew up there," he said.
Edwin Donovan, assistant professor of administration of justice, said that many officers experience emotional ties because they work closely with the families of the victimized individual. He also said that the entire viewing community conjures a monster out of the assailant who committed the crime and gets emotionally involved in the aftermath.
"We all recognize children as the most vulnerable of the species and it hurts all of us as rational adults. It is an emotional attachment especially with the officers because they are working so close to the case," Donovan said.
Frye also said he saw this case as a desperate attempt to right a wrong that occurred 31 years ago in the same town, just as he was entering the FBI.
Kathy Shea disappeared from Tyrone in 1965 and has never been found, he said. Having known her from growing up in the same town, Frye said he saw this case as an attempt to make up for the unsolved Shea case.
"Because of the failure to locate Kathy Shea, I was driven to find Melody, but we were unsuccessful," Frye said.
He said that no officer likes to see pain and suffering while investigating a crime. And it especially hits them if they have families of their own. Having two children himself, Frye said, the most difficult part for him was the emotional roller coaster. Cases involving children are always special, he said.
State Police Officer Frederick Caldwell, based at Rockview, said he agrees with Frye. He said his worst memory as a police officer was a triple homicide on Father's Day a few years ago.
"He laid the three children on a bed and shot them each three times before turning the gun on himself," he said.
The oldest victim was around the same age as Caldwell's own son.
"The house had pictures of all the kids on the wall. The oldest played soccer and little league, and so does my son. It was the first autopsy I ever walked out on. It really got to me," he said.
Caldwell said the first thing he did when he got home was hug his children.
Although these testimonies of emotion seem like reasonable responses, many people don't realize that law enforcement officials get personally involved in cases.
Anessa Pappas (senior-liberal arts) admitted to not realizing the emotional involvement of officers in violent cases involving children.
"I generally feel for the families of the victimized child first," she said.
Other people, however, realize the pain that police officers may feel.
"I always feel sorry not only for the child but for the officials who will be scarred as well. This is a very good explanation of why cops have such a high suicide rate," said Rachel Feinberg (sophomore-business).
Frye confirmed the fact that law enforcement officials do have the highest suicide, as well as alcoholism rates in the nation. He said this is due to the lack of training, in the earlier years of the agencies, to help officers with the emotional strains of dealing with violent crimes.
Although Frye, as a special agent, has dealt with many types of federal cases including the Freeman standoff in Montana and the Internet pornography scandal in Pennsylvania known as "Operation Innocent Images," the cases that stay with him are the abductions of children.
"I remember every disappearance of a child in the past 31 years," he said. "I will never forget them."

UPDATE
Dec. 7, 1999 -- A Blair County man, who's accused of raping and killing an 11-year-old girl, lost an appeal to the State Supreme Court today. Ronald Isenberg Junior will now head to trial, although a date still hasn't been set.
While at a juvenile detention center in Westmoreland County, Isenberg confessed to killing Melody Curtis. Curtis, of Leesburg, FL was visiting her grandmother in Tyrone when she disappeared in June 1996. Her body was found a week later under some freshly cut brush.
A Blair County Judge threw out Isenberg's confession, but the State Superior Court reinstated it and the State Supreme Court refused to hear another appeal to throw it out.

UPDATE
March 10, 2000 -- A local man could spend the next 40-years behind bars after pleading guilty to the murder of an 11-year old girl. Twenty-one year old Ronald Isenberg was charged with killing Melody Curtis while she was visiting her grandmother in Tyonre back in 1996.
Wednesday, Isenberg plead guilty to third degree murder. He faces 18 to 40 years in prison. Isenberg was scheduled to go to trial at the end of the month on charges of criminal homicide, rape and attempted rape.

UPDATE 2008

WTAJ HOLLIDAYSBURG, BLAIR COUNTY--- Ronald Isenberg has been serving time for the 1996 murder of 11-year old Melody Curtis.

Isenberg entered a guilty plea for the 1996 murder back in 2000. He was sentenced to serve 18 to 40 years in jail. Shortly after entering that plea Isenberg decided to challenge it. But that challenge was rejected by Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter.

Isenberg then took his case to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. During that time he had several different attorneys. Because he was without legal representation, the appeal was never filed.

In November Isenberg and his new appointed attorney Edward Blanarik filed again in the local court requesting permission to appeal.

This time Judge Carpenter did grant Isenberg’s request. Isenberg’s attorney has 30 days to file that appeal to the State Supreme Court.

If the State Supreme Court allows the challenge a new trial will be set for the murder of Melody Curtis.

Girl's suspected killer can appeal

Tyrone man given OK to challenge plea, sentence to Pennsylvania Supreme Court

By Phil Ray, pray@altoonamirror.com

POSTED: December 26, 2008

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HOLLIDAYSBURG - A Tyrone man serving time for the 1996 murder of an 11-year-old girl has been given the right to file an appeal with the state Supreme Court.

Ronald K. Isenberg, 29, was sentenced by Blair County Judge Hiram A. Carpenter in 2000 to serve 18 to 40 years behind bars after pleading guilty to third-degree murder in the death of Melody Curtis of Florida, who was visiting her grandmother in Tyrone during the summer.

Although Isenberg entered a guilty plea, he later decided to challenge the plea and sentence.

Carpenter rejected Isenberg's attempts to withdraw his plea, and the case went to the state Superior Court.

His attorney at the time was John Siford, but Siford resigned from the case because of a conflict of interest.

Two other attorneys eventually were appointed to represent Isenberg, but they too resigned for similar reasons.

In an opinion issued this week, Carpenter said Isenberg was without legal representation from Feb. 12 to May 3, 2004.

The time he was without representation was critical in Carpenter's view because on April 23, 2004, the state Superior Court rejected Isenberg's appeal.

According to state court rules, Isenberg had a month -until May 23, 2004 - to request a review by the state Supreme Court.

No appeal was filed before the state's highest court, and Isenberg asked Carpenter to restore his right to appeal based on his lack of legal representation.

Carpenter ruled that Isenberg missed the deadline to ask for Supreme Court review through no fault of his own.

Assistant District Attorney Russell Montgomery asked Carpenter to reject Isenberg's request to appeal, but the judge concluded that Isenberg was "entitled to relief."

"As such, we conclude the defendant was not effectively represented during the time frame that matters, namely between April 23 and May 23, 2004," he wrote.

Carpenter ordered Isenberg's present attorney, Edward S. Blanarik of Centre County, to file the appeal before the Supreme Court.

Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.

1996 Cen.Melanie Spalla Cen Jillian Robbins
BELLEFONTE - Jillian Robbins planned to kill only herself on Sept. 17, the morning she allegedly opened fire on the HUB lawn, killing a University student and injuring another, according to a taped interview played yesterday at her preliminary hearing.
"I don't know why - I just started shooting,'' Robbins said. "I tried to reload so I could shoot myself.''

Jillian Robbins accused of murder . (Collegian Photo/Timothy Gyves) Why five other people became her targets is unknown, Robbins said yesterday, before District Justice Ronald Horner ordered her to stand trial for the murder of Melanie Spalla, 21, and the attempted murders of Kerry Butler, Nicholas Mensah, William Mocker and a fifth, unidentified person.
"How many people did you shoot at?'' asked a police investigator.
"Two. No, wait. Shot at? I shot at five,'' replied Robbins.
"How many did you hit?'' asked Ronald Schreffler of the campus police.
"I don't know why - I just started shooting, I tried to reload so I could shoot myself."
- Jillian Robbins accussed for murder
"Two, sir,'' she answered in a clear, audible voice.
No charges filed against Robbins by Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar were dropped, despite attempts by Deborah Lux, first public defender.
Robbins faces first-degree and third-degree murder charges for Spalla's death, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated assault charges for the injuries of Nicholas Mensah, and aggravated assault and attempted murder charges for Robbins' other three alleged targets. Jury selection is expected to begin in December.
Gricar called to the stand University Police Services Officer Ronald L. Schreffler, who recorded a conversation with Robbins in the Centre Community Hospital emergency room after the shooting.
On the tape, Robbins said she did not know why she shot at the people. She left her Toftrees home at 6:30 a.m. that day with nine rounds of ammunition and a 7mm Mauser rifle on her back.
Both the rifle and knife were presents from her father, who is an employee at the U.S. Department of the Army at Dubois, Robbins said on the tape.
She said she planned to kill herself that day with the rifle, which is marked with a smiley face decal on the stock.
Robbins said she saw two people fall, one of whom was shot in the back.
Robbins, who was also in the U.S. Army Reserve, said she is qualified as an expert on the M16 and the M50, both military weapons, according to the tape.
Four cartridges were recovered from the rifle.
Brendon Malovrh testified that before he approached Robbins, he saw her in a crouched position. She had a rifle and was scouting out her next targets, Malovrh said.
Malovrh (senior-aerospace engineering), 21, testified that he spotted Robbins holding a rifle in a 45 degree angle after he heard several bang sounds and noticed gray smoke coming from the northwest bushes in the corner of the lawn.
Malovrh ran toward her and grabbed the rifle with his left hand; Robbins released the rifle.
Malovrh then identified Robbins to be the woman he approached on the lawn that day.
Robbins attempted to proceed to stab him with a seven-inch knife but missed and stabbed herself in her own left leg, Malovrh said. Robbins was bleeding badly, so he took the belt off his trench coat and tied it around her leg.
The only time Malovrh spoke with Robbins was when he tended to her leg. Malovrh testified that he asked her whether she had any diseases and she replied, "no." Robbins never showed signs of delirium, he said.
"She was very calm, responsive to questions, resolved," he said.
After Malovrh noticed the victims, he left Robbins and ran to Spalla, who was lying on her back. He checked her pulse and found nothing. Malovrh turned Spalla over to see how bad her wound was.
"It was very evident she was dead," he said.
Kerry A. Benninghoff, Centre County coroner, arrived at the scene about 10:20 a.m. Benninghoff examined Spalla lying on her back and saw her blue sweater soiled with blood and rain. He found a hole in her sweater and signs of a gunshot wound, which entered through the back and traveled through the aorta and trachea. There was a small portion of a bullet found in the exit wound.
Kerry Butler and William Mocker - two University students who found their backpacks punctured by bullets - also testified at the hearing.
When the hearing ended, Robbins chatted briefly with her mother, Sirkka-Liisa Robbins. Her mother, an adviser at Penn State Harrisburg, hugged and kissed her daughter. Robbins cried.

Centre 9/3/95 Ruth Fergus Walter Chruby
Chruby found guilty of murder
'A killer is out there and it's not my brother,' sister claims
By CARRIE DELEON
Collegian Staff Writer
The jury found Walter Chruby guilty of first-degree murder yesterday in the stabbing death of State College resident Ruth Fergus, sparking a violent outburst from Chruby's sisters.

Walter Chruby, center, is escorted from the Centre County Courthouse yesterday.
(Collegian Photo/Shawn Knapp - click for full size image) "A killer is out there and it's not my brother," Mary Lubin, his sister, screamed at District Attorney Ray Gricar and the entire courtroom.
Lubin, of Ocoee, Fla., screamed obscenities and directed comments toward the Fergus family sitting in the courtroom, causing her and Chruby's other sister to be escorted out of the courthouse at the request of Centre County Judge David E. Grine.
The Fergus family showed slight emotion after the verdict was read, but had no reaction to Lubin yelling toward them. Then they quietly left the courthouse.

Chronicle of the Ruth Fergus murder case and Walter Chruby murder trial
Chruby showed no emotion as the foreman of the jury that deliberated for about three hours read the verdict. He said Chruby, who faces the death penalty, was found guilty on all charges -- first-degree murder, robbery, burglary, criminal trespassing, theft and credit card fraud.
"I'll see them in appellate court," Chruby said as he was escorted from the courthouse.
Grine defined first-degree murder as a willful, deliberate, premeditated act in which the assailant was conscious of his own intention. He also said it is a murder in which the killer has a specific intent to kill with malice.
Fergus, 73, was murdered Sept. 3, 1995, in her College Heights home. After being stabbed 33 times, Fergus was found lying on her back in the spare bedroom the next day by her son.
Gricar said he has no comment on the verdict until after the sentencing is complete. Defense attorneys were unavailable for comment following the verdict.
The sentencing phase of the case will begin 9 a.m. Friday, Grine said. In 1996, Grine ruled that Chruby could face the death penalty if convicted, despite motions filed by Chruby's defense attorneys.
Prior to the jury's deliberation and verdict, it heard closing arguments from the defense and then from the prosecution.
Defense Attorney Gary Lysaght's closing argument was reminiscent of his opening remarks, reminding the jury they cannot convict if there is any trace of reasonable doubt in the case against Chruby.
"If the prosecution has failed to prove any element of any part of the crime, your verdict is not guilty," Lysaght said.
Lysaght also reminded the jury again to make a judgment based on facts instead of emotions, sympathy or prejudices toward Chruby.
"You are judges of fact," Lysaght told the jury. "You are not laborers on Ray Gricar's factory of justice," he said. If the jury has to work to determine any judgments their decision will not be based on fact, he added.
Lysaght made references to the Goddess of Justice, saying she wears a blindfold because, "she is truly blind to the man who sits next to me," he said referring to Chruby.
Gricar explained to the jury in his closing arguments that in a case in which there is no confession or witnesses to the crime, guilt can only be proven on circumstantial evidence.
Gricar told the jury it was impossible for anyone but Chruby to commit the murder. Unless, Gricar said, a "phantom" killed Fergus, stole her credit card and vehicle and then gave them to Chruby.
"Walter Chruby has a better chance of walking outside and being struck by lightening than he does being not guilty of this crime," he said.
Before ending his closing statement, Gricar reviewed the entire case for the jury. Also, using a plastic mannequin to represent Fergus, Gricar simulated all 33 stab wounds and the positioning the assailant took during the attack.
Chruby did not testify, as Lysaght said in his opening statement he would. However, one of the defense's last efforts before resting its case was the testimony of Chruby's sister from New Jersey. Chruby lived with his sister after the death of their father.
Chruby's sister reaffirmed previous testimony that Chruby has had kidney problems, many operations and became addicted to the drug Demoral. She also said she and her husband paid for Chruby's medical bills not covered by his insurance.
"If he ever needed money he knew he could come to us," she said.
She said Chruby is a "non-confronting" person and to her knowledge has never been in a fight.
"He's just not a violent guy," she said.
Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a forensic pathologist from Pittsburgh, gave the last testimony in the case, as an expert witness for the defense.
Wecht said, after reviewing the autopsy report and photos of Fergus, there should have been more blood spattered on the clothes than there was.
He also said he would expect there to be hairs, fibers and other physical transference found at the crime scene.

1/31/95 Cl.Dustin Spotz Cl.Mark Spotz-t,c
Sku. June Ohlinger
York Penny Gunnet
Cum. Betty Amstutz
Cambria 5/92 Anna Knaze Ernest Simmons

Is death row convict guilty of killing Johnstown woman?
'Innocence' reporters: Simmons case had holes
Sunday, January 25, 2004
This story was written by Nathan Crabbe and Jamie Keaney of the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania under the supervision of Post-Gazette staff writer and institute Director Bill Moushey

He seemed like a logical suspect. After all, Ernest Simmons had spent most of his adult life behind bars and his last prison stretch was for beating and robbing two elderly men.

Johnstown Tribune Democrat

Ernest Simmons, who was charged with the murder of Anna Knaze, is led to District Justice Rick Farra's Johnstown office by Cambria County Prison officials in this August 20, 1992, photo.
So in May 1992, when 80-year-old Anna Knaze was found robbed and brutally murdered in her Johnstown home, suspicion quickly focused on Simmons. In short order, he was arrested, convicted and condemned to death row, where twice he has narrowly escaped execution.
In the past, Simmons had always pleaded guilty to his crimes. But this time, he swore he was innocent -- even when he was being secretly taped by his girlfriend.
An investigation by the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania at Point Park University and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette shows he may be right.
At the very least, the jury that convicted him lacked key evidence and information that challenged witnesses' stories.
Jurors didn't know that police withheld hair tests that didn't match Simmons' hair. They never heard the secret tape recordings made by his girlfriend, which were hidden by police. They didn't know that two witnesses against him escaped time behind bars in return for their testimony.
Most significantly, the jury didn't know that the state's star witness lied on the stand when she identified Simmons as the killer -- a falsehood she admitted just months ago to reporters from the Innocence Institute.
A federal judge will hear arguments Friday on whether Simmons, now 46, deserves a new trial or should stay on death row. While they wouldn't comment on specifics of the case, police and prosecutors maintain they have the right man.
After a series of violent crimes against the elderly in Johnstown 12 years ago, older residents were warned to be cautious. Still, Anna Knaze didn't hesitate to help a stranger in her close-knit neighborhood of older residences and warehouses.
After neighbors hadn't seen her for a day and her mail was untouched, Knaze's son came to check on her. He found her body slumped on a hallway floor in the late afternoon of May 6, 1992. An autopsy uncovered the horrors of her final minutes. Her spine was severed, all her ribs were broken and she had been strangled. Her purse, the only article missing from the home, would never be recovered.
The detective assigned to the case, Sgt. Richard Rok, had just worked his way up to detective after two years on the Johnstown police force.
Early in the investigation, neighbors reported they last saw Knaze inviting a black man, who claimed his car had broken down, into her home. With information he received about Simmons' past, Rok quickly pegged him as the probable killer.
Crime-ridden life
It's easy to see why Simmons was a target.

Related articles
Ex-detective in prison for assaulting suspect
Innocence Institute investigates

Born in 1957 to a 13-year-old mother in Philadelphia, he was sexually abused as a child and allowed to roam the streets to find his meals in Dumpsters. After child welfare agencies took him, he bounced among foster homes until a Harrisburg preacher and his wife adopted him. His stepmother later told his lawyers he was their most grateful foster child, but said the couple "got to him too late. He had spent too many years on the street just trying to survive."
By the time he was 27, Simmons had pleaded guilty to 19 charges of theft and had received four different prison terms. His most serious conviction came in 1984 in Harrisburg, where he admitted attacking and robbing two elderly men and was sentenced to seven to 15 years in prison.
Harrisburg police also suspected that he was responsible for killing two other elderly Harrisburg residents, but they lacked proof.
In prison, Simmons earned a barber's certificate before his parole in August 1991 at age 34. He chose Johnstown for a fresh start and soon found a job cutting hair.
Just six months later, Simmons called police and reported he had stumbled upon an 83-year-old man with a knife in his neck in his apartment complex. The man later died without identifying his attacker. Police believed Simmons killed the man, but as with the Harrisburg slayings, they had no evidence.
Nine days after Knaze's murder, Simmons was imprisoned on a technical parole violation.
When police questioned him about Knaze's killing, he insisted he had an alibi. He told police that on the day of the slaying, he drove his girlfriend to an appointment in downtown Johns-town, then took some friends of hers to an auto shop and stopped at a bank on the way back. He was late picking up his girlfriend, arriving around 11:45 a.m.
If the murder occurred around 11 as the autopsy suggested, Simmons argued, his tight schedule wouldn't have given him time to commit the crime. Rok believed Simmons had just enough time, a belief bolstered when two workers from a day-care center near Knaze's home picked out Simmons' mug shot as the man they saw walk past at the time.
A month into Rok's investigation, a next-door neighbor told the detective her son also could identify Simmons. The mother of Gary Blough said her son saw Simmons talking to Knaze, but didn't notify police because he was dodging a warrant for his own arrest for violating parole on a two-year prison sentence.
After the warrant finally caught up with him, Blough identified Simmons as the man who had been near Knaze's home. His statement would free him from jail, but jurors would never find out about his early release.
Secret taping
Rok had only circumstantial evidence. Nine partial fingerprints found in Knaze's home didn't match Simmons'.
So the officer stepped up his pursuit of Simmons' girlfriend, LaCherie Pletcher, figuring she knew more than she was letting on. He talked her into taping telephone and face-to-face conversations with Simmons. The gambit yielded no evidence against him, and the tapes then remained hidden for years.
She also told Rok that weeks before Knaze's killing, she had looked in Simmons' wallet and found the license of another elderly woman. Rok used the tip to locate a police report from Margaret Cobaugh, who reported her purse stolen around that time. He then found a later report from Cobaugh, in which she claimed she was raped just 13 hours after Knaze's murder.
Cobaugh, then 61, was a friend of Knaze and lived nearby. She told police she was attacked as she walked home after helping her next-door neighbor. In her initial statement, Cobaugh said she called an ambulance company to help the neighbor, who was having trouble breathing, then left as the vehicle approached. A man grabbed her from behind and threatened to kill her if she screamed, she said.
She told police she didn't get a good look at her attacker. She didn't get medical attention and didn't tell her husband that night what had happened. Instead, she destroyed possible evidence by soaking her underwear in the toilet and waited until the next day to call police.
It took weeks of questioning before Rok took a formal statement from Cobaugh about the incident. By then, she had changed 13 elements in her original story.
Most critically, she now claimed her attacker had warned her not to "open your ... mouth" or she would "get the same thing Anna Knaze got" -- even though that was before Knaze's body had been discovered.
She also claimed she saw her attacker's face, and it was Simmons.
As the trial neared, private investigator James Porreca, a retired Philadelphia police officer helping Simmons' defense, found that two of the purported eyewitnesses were hedging.
Of the two day-care workers who had identified Simmons in front of Knaze's home, one told Porreca she wasn't sure Simmons was the man because "all blacks look alike." The other said she told police she saw the same man again at a time Simmons was already in jail.
The investigator also found that no ambulance company within 20 miles had responded to a sick neighbor's home on the night Cobaugh said she was raped. In fact, the neighbor said Cobaugh admitted concocting the tale.
Porreca testified that when he went to confront Cobaugh, he first encountered her wheelchair-bound husband, Donald, who asked, "What happens if they find out my wife was telling a lie?" When Margaret Cobaugh walked into the room, her husband said: "Tell him the truth! Tell him the truth!" before she stopped the interview by wheeling him away.
Porreca never found out what Cobaugh's husband meant. Neither would Simmons' jury.
Threat crucial at trial
When Simmons' trial began June 1, 1993, Cambria County Assistant District Attorney Gary Costlow emphasized the threat that Cobaugh said she heard -- that she should keep quiet or she would get "the same thing Anna Knaze got."
"You will realize that the statement reveals the identity of the murderer in this case," he told jurors.
Simmons' lawyer, Cambria County Assistant Public Defender Michael Filia, told the jury that police had engaged in a "target-oriented investigation" of Simmons.
After testimony from the people who said they saw Simmons near Knaze's home, Cobaugh took the stand. Defense lawyers were able to show that she had continually altered her story, but one juror later said she believed that was just the result of the stress Cobaugh had experienced.
Yet the jury never heard a key piece of evidence about Margaret Cobaugh herself.
As a younger woman, Cobaugh had served an 11-year prison sentence for theft. A few days after the alleged rape, she bought a gun, lying on the purchase form about being a convicted felon. State police charged her with the crime until Rok intervened and got the state to drop the case so she could be a witness against Simmons. Cobaugh thus avoided the threat of at least five more years in prison.
And the jury certainly never heard Cobaugh say what she admitted to reporters from the Innocence Institute in recent months.
Cobaugh, now 73, said she named Simmons because Rok "was positive that Ernest Simmons did it but he had no proof of it. ... He didn't have a witness."
She said she told Rok she "could not positively identify anyone," but he continued to interrogate her. "I think Detective Rok wanted a conviction more than anything. He wanted Ernie Simmons bad," she said.
She finally agreed to identify Simmons as her attacker -- even though she now admits she never saw the man's face.
The trial jury, which included only one black member, took just five hours to find Simmons guilty of murder and robbery. One juror, Rose Kaiser, now says she likely would have voted differently if she had known about the flaws in Cobaugh's story and other withheld evidence.
Prosecutors offered Simmons life in prison if he would plead guilty and admit to other crimes. He refused and entered the death penalty phase of the case, represented by yet another public defender who hadn't even attended the trial. The public defender spoke for only two hours with Simmons before the penalty hearing and didn't present family members or a mental health expert as witnesses.
After the prosecution presented witnesses who detailed Simmons' past crimes against the elderly, jurors deliberated less than three hours before condemning him to death.
Simmons dodged his first date with death through appeals, before Gov. Tom Ridge signed a death warrant setting the execution for April 14, 1996. Four days before that, Simmons was granted another stay.
Soon, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which represents death row inmates on appeal, found for the first time that his former girlfriend, Pletcher, had helped police secretly tape-record Simmons.
After denying repeatedly on the witness stand that any such tapes had been made, Rok later admitted that they existed. On the tapes, Simmons declared his innocence to Pletcher 19 separate times.
The appeal also brought out the fact that Rok never told defense attorneys that Cobaugh was unable to pick Simmons' picture out of an array of mug shots on her first attempt and that Rok helped her avoid the gun purchase charges. Prosecutors also admitted helping witness Gary Blough obtain early release from his parole violation.
Even more significantly, Rok admitted that he never told the defense that Cobaugh's clothes were tested for forensic evidence and yielded hair samples that didn't match Simmons'.
Despite all of those admissions, Cambria County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Swope refused to grant Simmons a new trial.
Now his only hope is the hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin.
In a recent letter, Simmons said he wasn't surprised that Cobaugh now admits she never could identify him.
"It's something that I've been saying for years, to the point that I felt like the boy who cried wolf," he wrote. "She just can't keep changing her story when she wants to, and think that she's going to get away with it."
Cambria County District Attorney David Tulowitzki, who was not in office during the Simmons trial, refused to comment, as did Rok and the prosecutors who handled the case.
Simmons' attorneys wouldn't allow him to be interviewed for this story. But in a letter, he wrote:
"During my life there have been crimes for which I have been in prison and for which I served my time and for which I am sorry. However, now I am waiting my turn on death row for a crime which I did not commit."

1982 Todd Richardson

Huntingdon 5/2/1980 Bert DeLeeuw
The Lost Dreams of Bert DeLeeuw
by Paul Hendrickson

He was the essential Washington activist, organizing everything from welfare rights protests to the Barry Commoner campaign. Then, still trying to change the world, he headed back to the land - and toward a fate no idealism could prepare him for.
The pathologist testified that the blast entered at the victim's right posterior flank, not dead center in his back, as was commonly thought by the people of Walker Township. The weapon was an "over-and-under." Over-and-under is gun lingo for a rifle-shotgun combination, which is to say a .222 rifle mounted atop a 20-gauge. Hunters often use this model when going for turkey, although some like it for deer. The targetlike wound, measuring roughly 14 centimeters in diameter, formed a very distinctive pattern of concentric circles -- a kind of smooth, horrid pebbling. Although there was probably never any real chance of survival, surgeons at J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital labored furiously to remove the pellets for close to two hours.
Bert Jay DeLeeuw was pronounced dead at 7:21 p.m.
A life was gone at 44.
It was an explosion that still reverberates, and not just in the closed-in blue-green and whale-humped valleys of Huntingdon County, Pa.
It's a tale about dogs, only it's not about dogs.
It's about a person's lifelong search for meaning and community, and the place where that search finally led him. It's about how we take our fate with us. It's about changing the externals of your life without perhaps changing the essentials of your life. It's about neighbors in bucolic America gone fatally wrong. It's about urban values against rural values. It's about the left against the right. It's about lives seeming to go somewhere and other lives (right across the macadam) seeming to go nowhere. It's about all those unexplained or unknown or too-complicated forces in the dark tunnels of a human heart that can suddenly, on the wrong day in the wrong rage in the wrong solstice, take an ugly turn into homicide.
But this is trying to tell the thing in the abstract.
Let it start with the shattering sound itself.
Which happened right about here, on the other side of this leaning fence post, in this narrow patch of green along this bowered lane, where the squash and zucchini have now long since passed their summer fulfillment. Last May 2, when Bert DeLeeuw was shot in the back by his neighbor, shot in the back at close range by a man who'd attended his wedding a year before, who'd been a guest in his home the previous New Year's, there was no squash or zucchini or any other kind of organic fulfillment in this boxlike strip of rich Pennsylvania earth, only the promise of it, just the freshly worked loamy soil of Blue Moon Farm off the Hartslog Valley Road.
Setting out new plants in mud-luscious spring, after winter has been wrestled to the ground, is one of a farmer's nearly indescribable joys. In this case the farmer had been a farmer only five seasons. Once, he'd been a city man, a Washington, D.C., man, known not for the beauty of his lettuce but for the zeal of his political organizing.
But we'll come to that.
The skeleton of the shooting, according to state police records and court transcripts and interviews and other sources, is as follows: About 5:30 on the afternoon of the 2nd, 68-year-old Bill Robb -- whose house is just across the road from the DeLeeuw place -- eased up in a burgundy sedan. Three other people were on their knees, working in the field with DeLeeuw -- his wife, Lina, and two out-of-state college-age farmhands named Sally White and Bob Weinswig. Bill Robb, native to these environs, had been on the DeLeeuw (pronounced de-LOO) property earlier that day, shortly before lunch. He'd been complaining once again and making not-so-veiled threats about the seven or eight loose-running dogs the DeLeeuws owned. He'd been glowering about how these dogs were running in packs onto his land, were scaring his grandchildren, were spooking his horses, were causing a total distraction and disruption in his life. He had a book about state game laws, and he'd been waving it. He'd been mumbling many things. He hadn't spoken to Bert DeLeeuw on that earlier visit, but had instructed one of the young farmhands to pass along a message to DeLeeuw that he had just 48 hours to do something.
Before he'd left, Robb had told the farmhand that he'd served his country, and that Bert DeLeeuw had done everything not to serve his country. He'd also said something about "maybe shooting the dogs too."
Now, though, it was late afternoon that same day, May 2, and the neighbor had shown up again at Blue Moon Farm.
On the stand at the preliminary hearing (it was held three weeks later), one of the three eyewitnesses testified that, in the penultimate seconds before the gun went off, he heard Robb -- who had the weapon up to his shoulder and was squinting down its barrel for maybe as much as 10 beats -- say, "I'm really sorry I have to make Chloe fatherless."
Chloe DeLeeuw, Bert DeLeeuw and Lina Newhouser's only child, was not quite 7 months old at that moment. She was up in the main house being tended to by a grandparent. The crack from Bill Robb's .222-20 gauge wasn't heard up there.
"He was just pointing it at Bert," testified Bob Weinswig. "And then Bert just kind of -- Bert turned around, sort of turned, and just as he turned, not to walk away or anything. It was just like he kind of knew. Like just as he turned around, Bill shot him in the back and Bert kind of went, you know, down . . ."
Many weeks later, the defendant himself, held in the county jail without bail, would vehemently insist to this reporter that the whole thing had been an accident, that there had been lots of arguing back and forth about the dogs in those final minutes, and that he, Robb, had fired off to the side to scare hell out of his neighbor, who'd been making his own threats and threatening moves, and that DeLeeuw just stepped into the shot.
This is known: Lina Newhouser is the one who careened her husband to town in their white Datsun pickup, a pickup still bearing a blue sticker on its dented bumper: "FARMS NOT ARMS." Lina Newhouser is the one who was standing perhaps four or five feet away when her husband -- he was on his feet by then -- turned and took a sidelong step or maybe two steps and then seemed to go lurching downward, almost in slow motion, into the squash plantings.
Lina Newhouser -- who is from New Orleans, and is 39, and is a single parent now -- is the one who screamed in the aftermath for George William Robb to get the hell off her property; who ran to the truck and got the watering tank off; who pulled and dragged and tried to lift the crumpled, bleeding form; who, along with one of the two farmhands, got Bert -- upside down, as it turned out -- into the cab of the pickup; who kept repeating, like a mantra in some fantastic dream, "This is really a bad joke. This is really a bad joke."
The funeral service was held at Blue Moon Farm four days later. By then most of the obituaries, local and otherwise, had appeared. Many made mention of the victim's well-to-do beginnings in suburban New Jersey; of his thoughts of the ministry during college in Michigan; of his turn toward social work and community organizing in graduate school in the late '60s; of his decade and a half spent in Washington working for such causes and minority groups as the National Welfare Rights Organization and the Movement for Economic Justice. There was mention of DeLeeuw's several marriages; of his three or four years as a self-employed carpenter after he'd given up working in electoral politics but before he'd left Washington; of his earlier roles in three presidential campaigns: George McGovern's ('72), Fred Harris's ('76), Barry Commoner's ('80). There was mention of some of the more celebrated demonstrations and protests and "actions" he'd participated in in his time -- that May 1970 sit-in at the office of Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Robert Finch, for instance. That had been one of Bert's best arrests. Photos had gone out on all the national wires.
"When you go to jail, it's such a clear, crisp definition of your belief in the issue," Bert DeLeeuw told a Washington interviewer in 1984, though that quote didn't appear in the death stories.
Actually, the people of Walker Township in Huntingdon County, Pa., were a little stunned to learn how their neighbor had done so many things in so short a life. They'd known him in an entirely different context.

1979 Betty Jane Shade Charles Soult
On the subject of Barnett, I think of three words: Butch from Altoona.
Charles Butch Soult and his brother Mike were convicted in 1979 of killing Butch's live-in girlfriend Betty Jane Shade.
(The only mention of the case I can find on the Net is a brief mention in the synopsis for the book Mindhunter on the JohnDouglasMindhunter website.)
This milestone case established the merit of the disorganized/organized profile, and therefore may have a bearing on why profilers peg Jack as disorganized. Betty Jane Shade's body was mutilated similar to Mary Kelly. Profilers couldn't help but link the two cases. But it seems to have had no influence in promoting Barnett's candidacy in their eyes. Not even for Mary Kelly's murder.
On May 29, 1979, Betty Jane Shade was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend, Charles Soult, and stabbed from her vagina to her rectum. Soult had also removed her breasts and cut off her cherished blond hair. It was later discovered that Soult's brother and sister both helped in the disposal of the body.

3/11/76 B.George Karns Jeffery Daugherty-t,c, Bonnie Heath?+3
3/9/76 B.Elizabeth Shrank Jeffery Daugherty-t,c, Bonnie Heath?+3
Roger DeHart

Centre1969 Betsy Aardsma Unsolved
In 1969, a graduate student named Betsy Aardsma was doing research for an English class in the Pattee stacks when she was murdered. To this day, the mystery remains unsolved.
"I spoke to the police, and they're still actively investigating," Buell said. "They won't open the file to the public because they say it's an ongoing case."
Buell said the library staff is not comfortable discussing the incident.
"The library is kind of shady about the whole thing," Buell said. "They want to keep it hush. They don't like to talk about it."
Retired pathologist Dr. Thomas Magnani studied the tape recorder on his breakfast room table as though hoping it might give him the answers he wanted. Staring blankly, his mind seemed far away. "It was such a shame," he said as I asked him to revisit the image of a 22-year-old girl, lying cold and motionless on an autopsy table in a Bellefonte hospital 30 years ago. It was the first time that Magnani had seen Betsy Ruth Aardsma, and the image has endured in his memory. The only evidence that she had been murdered was a puncture wound in the center of her chest shaped like a long, slender raindrop. "She was beautiful, absolutely beautiful," he added. "Such a shame...." The autopsy lasted until well after midnight. By the early hours of Nov. 29, 1969, Magnani had found all he could to determine the cause of death. He ruled it a homicide.

The wound appeared to be the result of a single-edged knife. Because the blade penetrated the sternum, Magnani figured that the knife not only had to be fairly solid, but also that the person wielding the weapon had to put considerable strength behind it. "The blade went through the heart and scratched the tissue behind it," Magnani explained. "So take the width of your average young woman and you've got an approximate length of the murder weapon." That length comes to almost four inches, about the size of a hunting knife.

Before I left, Magnani offered one last detail. "There was one thing that has puzzled me about the whole thing ever since: I could never understand why this girl on a normal Friday afternoon was wearing her Sunday-best clothes."
The clothes. Newspapers of the time mentioned that Betsy Aardsma was wearing a red dress. As I left Magnani's house, I noticed that the onset of autumn had caused the trees to turn shades of a similar color. Who murdered this girl who, like me, was a Penn State student? And why was she murdered in the stacks of Pattee Library? I found myself more and more involved in a mystery that had remained unsolved for 30 years-a mystery that the Pennsyvlania State Police had compiled in a still-classified 1,300 page file. It seemed ridiculous that they had never named one suspect or established a motive. And since Trooper Sally Brown, who is currently in charge of the investigation, made it quite clear that I would never see the case file, I decided to find out as much as I could about the mystery myself.

Surprisingly, no one had ever bothered to question Magnani about his involvement in the case. His autopsy report was apparently enough. The Centre Daily Times and Daily Collegian had directed all their questions to the coroner, Robert Neff, whose only connection to the murder was to order the autopsy from Magnani. The more I learned, however, the less surprised I became. The newspapers, it turned out, had overlooked a great deal in their coverage of the Aardsma murder.

Perhaps it was intentional. The fact that this is the biggest murder in Penn State history is not something the university would like in public circles. But the legacy continues. No one will ever be able to wash the memories away completely. Even today, freshmen are told about the girl who was killed in the library. The story, according to faculty in the English department where Betsy Aardsma was enrolled, has become campus legend.

"Who's Betsy Aardsma?" a student working in the library archives asked his supervisor some weeks ago as I sat nearby reading old newspaper clippings. "She's a girl that went to Penn State years ago," came the reply. "She was killed in the library by some psycho."

A psycho? It's dismissive to call him a psycho. This was not the act of a lunatic. The timing of the attack, the place, the precision-all point to a cool and calculating murderer whose only objective that November afternoon was to kill Betsy Aardsma.

Walk through the stacks of Pattee library and you will find a lonely and silent place. The area where Aardsma was killed is known as the level 2 core. Old hardcover books on history and poetry clutter the shelves. The flicker of the electric lights are the only light in the windowless area. Thirty years ago it was no different.

Only two rows from the adjoining room known as the yellow area, Betsy Aardsma was found dead. Her attacker was probably taller than she, evidenced by the downward angle of Aardsma's wound. And the murder was almost certainly a man because of the sheer strength that's needed to sink a knife through bone. The rupture caused massive hemorrhaging in Aardsma's body. Shock was immediate, but death would not follow for one, long minute. What she saw during that minute has haunted me for the two years that I've studied the case. Magnani says that she was in shock, but her senses functioned. He thinks she saw her attacker. He also thinks she may have recognized him.
On Nov. 28, 1969, the day of the murder, state police found themselves in an overwhelming situation. Normally, it was not unusual to see more than a thousand students in Pattee. Although the murder occurred around Thanksgiving and many of the students were gone for break, there were still hundreds of students in Pattee Library at the time, and the police found the task of locating them all impossible.

Lieutenant William Kimmel headed the investigation, working with Sergeant Daniel Brody. Within days of the murder, a large temporary base was established in Boucke building on campus, with more than 15 state troopers working on the case. For the Rockview police, 72 hours came and went without any answers, despite the fact that over 650 staff and students had been in the library that afternoon, and more than 85 of them had been questioned by Dec. 1. Days turned into weeks and the investigation continued, but police ran out of leads. They had found no murder weapon, no motive and no suspects. Not even the $25,000 reward posted by the university succeeded in eliciting any valuable information.

Through the newspapers, police continued to ask the public to come forward if they knew anything about Betsy Aardsma, no matter how insignificant. The facts were scattered and, at times, erroneous. "In a pool of blood" became a typical description of how she was found. In reality there had been so little visible blood that the first people on the scene-including a paramedic who transported Aardsma's body to the campus hospital in Ritenour Building-thought the girl had suffered nothing more than a seizure.

When Kimmel was asked about a motive, he speculated that the attack could have been unprovoked and perpetrated by a stranger. He told the public he wasn't overlooking any possibilities. But perhaps he was not looking closely enough at the evidence he already had?
Magnani's autopsy revealed no sexual abuse. "There was nothing under her fingernails, no bruises anywhere on her body that suggested a struggle of any kind," he said. It is clear that the death was no accident. Whoever the murderer was, his style indicated that he wanted her dead. "The guy knew what he was doing," Magnani pointed out. In a homicide, the lack of a struggle is suspicious because it indicates that the victim was possibly killed by someone the victim knew.

In Aardsma's case that still left many suspects. According to her sister Carole, Betsy Aardsma was very popular and had many acquaintances. Police spoke with Aardsma's family and examined all of her correspondence. Despite later rumors that Aardsma posed nude for Penn State's art department, the police found no evidence that she was anything but a regular student.

Aardsma did not come to Pennsylvania alone. She was engaged to David Wright who studied at Penn State's Milton Hershey School of Medicine. He had given her a ring several months before the murder. Police questioned him extensively, but Wright presented them with a solid alibi.

Judging from the autopsy, Magnani thinks the murderer was familiar with the anatomy of the human body. The attack had been swift and precise. The only sounds heard by witnesses were of books falling, presumably as Aardsma fell to the floor. One of the witnesses was the anonymous girl who later found Aardsma in the so-called pool of blood. She also claimed to have heard a scream, although this contradicted the reports of an assistant stacks supervisor who heard books falling through a ventilator shaft open to level 3, but never reported hearing a cry.

Police knew that Aardsma was killed at some point after 4:30 p.m. At 4:45 p.m., the anonymous girl was raised from her research by two young men emerging from the core. One of them looked at her and said, "Somebody better help that girl." The young woman followed them back into the stacks, but when they approached the row where Aardsma lay, they continued on, mumbling they would get help. They were never seen again.

The girl, who recognized Aardsma because they had been classmates in English 501, was left alone. The second person on the scene was another girl who had been in the English 501 class with Aardsma. She went for help.
Although nobody seemed to make anything of it at the time, I thought it was strange that the first two people on the scene were from Aardsma's English 501 class. I tracked down Nicholas Joukovsky, who co-taught the class with Harrison Meserole and still teaches at Penn State, and asked him whether it was a coincidence. "Not really," he told me. "Many of the students in the library at the time were from the 501 class."

According to Joukovsky, he and Meserole had extended office hours that day for students to come and discuss their research projects. What he was telling me then, was that on Nov. 28, Betsy Aardsma was surrounded by people she knew. The fact that these students were mingling around the core was not peculiar because the stacks in that area were filled with possible topics for the projects, which focused on the introduction to research.

Moreover, and much to my surprise, Meserole's office was only one floor away from the murder scene at the entrance to level 1, Room 2 Pattee, where students waited in line to see him. If it isn't so ironic that the two people to help her were fellow classmates, then there may be no irony at all to think that her killer was also in the class.
This past fall, Joukovsky pulled his file on English 501 and scanned the attendance sheet. He was surprised to remember how large the class had been. More than 40 students had finished the class. "Some of the names I remember, and some I don't," he said with some frustration.

Joukovsky had been shocked by the news of Aardsma's murder. He had seen her less than an hour before she was killed. "I had told her that I was interested in a book she had used for her first assignment," he said. "She told me that she was going to the library anyway and that she'd get it, so I was half-expecting to see her again that afternoon."
According to reports from Aardsma's roommate, Sharon Brandt, the two had left their dorm-room 5 in Atherton Hall-earlier that afternoon. They separated at the library and planned to meet again later in the evening. But neither Brandt nor Joukovsky would see Aardsma again and neither would ever understand why she was murdered.
Why was Betsy Aardsma murdered? The brutality with which she was slain indicated calculation, not lunacy. What might Aardsma have done to instill murder in someone she knew? Perhaps she had planned to meet someone-someone she cared about enough to wear her best clothes? Perhaps she was having problems with Wright and had decided to tell him that night that she did not want to marry him. Then again, perhaps her commitment to Wright was so strong that she resisted the advances of a fellow student-someone who had known her from class? If he could not have her, then no one would.

And then there was Robert Durgy. It was no secret in the English department that Durgy, a former assistant professor, was under investigation for the murder. Police began to investigate Durgy when they learned that he had previously worked in Ann Arbor and that he had come to work at Penn State the same time that Aardsma enrolled. Although newspapers dutifully reported that police had no suspects and no motive, by May 1970, Lt. Kimmel was anxiously awaiting information from Michigan. His lead and the result of his investigation are still classified, but the puzzle can be fitted together.

Before the murder in mid-November, Durgy confided to Professor Michael Begnal, who still teaches English at Penn State, that he could no longer face his students in class. "He seemed under a great deal of stress," Begnal said this past fall when I interviewed him. "He told us he was seeking counseling and we offered to take over his classes until he straightened things out."

But things did not get better. Around Thanksgiving, Durgy packed his things and traveled back to Michigan with his wife and two children. A few weeks later in December, on a cold evening, Durgy was found mortally wounded after his car smashed into a bridge's median support. No alcohol was in his blood, no skid marks were on the road, and there was no ice anywhere. There was no evidence to suggest how or why Durgy's car had crashed. By the time police questioned Begnal in May about the Durgy/Aardsma connection, they were reaching for straws. Begnal told the police the same thing he told me: "[Durgy] seemed like a nice, ordinary guy. My wife and I would invite him and his wife to dinner sometimes. Our kids would play together." Begnal wouldn't dare to speculate if Durgy had a role in the Aardsma killing, but Kimmel was not easily deterred. He investigated a possible connection between Durgy and the serial killings at Ann Arbor as well as to the death of Betsy Aardsma. But later Kimmel found out that the Ann Arbor killer struck again after Durgy had come to Penn State. The one lead on the case to date was summarily scrapped without a word to the newspapers.

The temporary office in Boucke closed. The 15 officers in charge of the investigation slowly dwindled to three. Kimmel dutifully continued to ask for witnesses to step forward. As the Durgy lead failed, Kimmel reiterated police's interest in a man and woman that witnesses had seen having a conversation in the core around the time Aardsma was murdered. But the two never came forward, presumably because the woman was Aardsma and the man was her unidentified killer.

Police were also unable to find the two men who had first emerged from the core at 4:45 p.m. A composite drawing of the man who had said, "Somebody better help that girl" was released in the newspapers. It showed a plain face, with neatly-combed light hair-not much different than every other police composite hanging in post offices. It did not trigger recognition in anyone's memory.

That drawing became the official composite of the only suspect in the murder in newspaper articles for years afterwards. On Nov. 28, 1989, Ted Anthony at the Daily Collegian attempted to make an interesting connection between Aardsma's killer and Ted Bundy; however, Aardsma's murder was before Bundy's killing spree and didn't have the characteristics of Bundy's trademark bludgeoning style.

* * * *
This past October, I walked to room 5 in Atherton Hall, which had been Aardsma's dormroom, and hesitantly knocked on the door. A student answered. I asked him if he knew of a girl named Betsy Aardsma. He narrowed his eyes and said no. "Is this something that my roommate Nick would know about?" he asked. I told him it was doubtful and explained the significance of his room. As I told him about Aardsma's murder and my investigation, the student looked at me as though I was the killer myself.

Over the years, speculation has risen in conversations around State College. It was rumored that the police knew exactly who murdered Aardsma, but that they did not have sufficient evidence to arrest him. Dr. John Balaban, a former professor at Penn State who now teaches at the University of Miami, was said to have been pondering such theories. When I asked him to tell me what he had discovered, he simply responded, "I never met Aardsma and anything I would add would just be speculation." Perhaps speculation is all we have to solve this mystery. And perhaps the only comfort to Aardsma's family is that even if the killer can escape justice, he can never escape the judgment of God.
On the other hand, the answer may also lie in Professor Joukovsky's office, in a file labeled "English 501 Fall 1969," among the hazy names on a class roster intermixed with fading memories. ~SCM

Altoona Mirror 8/2/08

STATE COLLEGE - In November 1969, graduate student Betsy Aardsma was fatally stabbed in the basement stacks of Penn State University's main library.

Aardsma, 22, grabbed a nearby shelf as she collapsed, causing a row of books to crash down.

Nearby students who rushed over thought she may have fainted because her red dress and matching red sweater camouflaged any blood.

Nearly 40 years later, police have never named a suspect but say they have not given up.

''You'd think it was a cold case, but it's not that cold,'' state police Capt. Jeffrey Watson said. ''We're moving forward.''

Their investigation has been fueled in part by several amateur sleuths and writers who have pursued the campus mystery.

''There's still a good deal of mythology on campus about the murder,'' said Penn State English professor Nicholas Joukovsky, who spoke with Aardsma in his office minutes before she was killed. ''Undergraduates today, many of them are still aware of the girl who was murdered in the stacks.''

Aardsma, who was from Michigan, was killed inside Penn State's Pattee Library the day after Thanksgiving.

She had spent the holiday with her medical student boyfriend in Hershey, but she returned to State College by bus Thursday night because of her graduate workload.

''I was going into finals after Thanksgiving, and she had a lot of work to do. She always came down by bus, and instead of staying over that Thursday night, she went back,'' said David Wright, who had been dating Aardsma since their junior year in Ann Arbor, Mich.

''I always regret it,'' said Wright, now a married physician and father of four in suburban Chicago.

Trooper Kent Bernier and another trooper inherited the Aardsma case two years ago after other investigators retired. They hope to bring fresh eyes - and perhaps new scientific testing - to the case.

''It's possible now that DNA might be a big breakthrough for us,'' Bernier said.

Aardsma's family in Holland, Mich., retains some hope that their questions will be answered.

''Honestly, we have mixed emotions because it dredges up a lot of bad memories, too,'' said Carole Aardsma, a sister. ''We have nothing against what they're doing. We hope it leads somewhere.''

7/75 Patricia Dolenc John Donlenc-t,c allegheny county

1975 Geraldine Gray Robert C. Boring-t,c Blair County

HOLLIDAYSBURG — A Tyrone man serving life in prison for murder says he is having trouble appealing his conviction because the tapes of his trial were destroyed by Blair County.

His court-appointed attorney, Joel Peppetti of Altoona, says his reading of the law indicates that convicted murderer Robert C. Boring, now 55 years old, may have an argument for a new trial based solely on the destroyed tapes.

Court reporter Beth Lovell, in a letter to Judge Tim Sullivan dated March 23, 2007, reported that the Boring trial tapes had been destroyed, noting that court reporter notes and tapes are destroyed after seven years.

Testimony in the Boring trial was transcribed, but opening and closing statements in 1995 were not.

Blair County has a standing policy of destroying tapes seven years after a case is concluded, a rule confirmed by President Judge Jolene G. Kopriva.

In a letter discussing his plight, Boring wrote, ‘‘The acts taken on the part of the Blair County court system is to prevent me from proving my innocents (sic).’’

Peppetti, however, is pursuing other lines of attack on Boring’s conviction 13 years ago for the murder of Geraldine Gray, 64, who was found beaten and slashed with a knife in her Tyrone apartment.

Peppetti is asking a Blair County Court judge to order DNA tests of the evidence, particularly a knife found in Gray’s apartment, clothing and possible evidence of sexual assault.

Sullivan has scheduled a hearing in the case for Aug. 28, 11 years after Boring first filed a request for a post-conviction hearing.

The appeal will focus on mistakes by Boring’s trial attorney who, Boring said, failed to request DNA testing of evidence.

The murder occurred in 1975, but Boring, who had a record of the burglary and robbery, was not arrested until 1994. He is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview.

He first requested a post-conviction hearing in 1997, less than two years after he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by former Judge Norman D. Callan.

Court records show that in his initial petition, Boring requested a transcript of the closing statements made by his trial attorney, Theodore Krol, and the prosecutor, District Attorney William Haberstroh.

Boring went through several court-appointed attorneys until his family was able to hire private attorney Michael S. Gingerich of Lewistown.

The court record shows that Gingerich, who also eventually dropped out of the case, renewed the request for closing statements in a petition filed Oct. 25, 2006.

Boring contends that Haberstroh, in his closing statement, was able to convince a jury of his guilt by stating facts that were not introduced into the case, particularly a contention that Boring possessed a sock that belonged to Gray.

Many of the problems with the Boring post-conviction case have been corrected. Tapes of active cases are not supposed to be destroyed, and closing statements in a trial are part of the transcripts.

Also, post-conviction cases now are tracked by law clerks, Court Administrator Michael Reighard confirmed.

3/18/65 B.Kathy Shea unsolved

Kathy Shea, 6-Tyrone, PA March 18th, 1965

On a cool, sunny day in March of 1965, the innocence of a small PA town was lost forever. Parents no longer felt safe letting their children walk to school by themselves. Lots more adults were seen out and about at the times school started and ended. Even the children, who really didn't understand what was happening, felt the tension and responded, clinging closer to their parents.

Kathy Shea was a pretty little 6-year old, with brown hair and blue eyes. On the afteroon of March 18th, she was walking to the Adams Street school in her hometown of Tyrone, to attend kindergarten class. Along the way, she stopped to say hello to a neighbor, Mrs. Betty Fouss. Somewhere in the next 1 1/2 blocks, Kathy simply vanished and has never been seen again.

Police conducted one of the largest "manhunts" the area had ever seen. Local rivers were searched. Bloodhounds followed her scent to a nearby alley where they lost the trail. Because of this, police believed she was taken from the area by car. For the next several years, police continued the search for Kathy, mailing out circulars to all 50 states and travelling to many states to follow up on leads. in September of '66, a state police official stated that the police had spent 13,00 man-hours on the search for Kathy.

When William Hollenbaugh, known locally as "mountain man" and "bicycle Pete", kidnapped Peggy Ann Bradnick from neighboring Shady Gap, suspicion fell on him for the disappearance of little Kathy but police denied any connection between Hollenbaugh and Kathy. "Mysterious diggings" under his cabin were said by police to simply be hiding places for his guns and other things. Hollenbaugh was killed in a shootout in which Peggy was freed from a week of captivity.

The case, which stayed on the minds of residents over the years, was brought back with horrible clarity in 1996 when 11-year old Melody Curtis disappeared on June 29th. She had been playing with friends in Shea Park, named in honor of Kathy. Melody's body was located nearby on July 7th, and a local teen was arrested for her rape and murder.

Kathy's mother has died in the intervening years, but her father continues the search for any clue as to what happened to Kathy.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning Shea's whereabouts, please contact:
Pennsylvania State Police
Sgt. Jesse W. Zorger
814-696-6100
You may remain anonymous when submitting information.
NCIC Number: M-432795160
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

(Hollidaysburg-AP) -- A gun police say was used to kill a woman
outside an Elk's Club in Altoona last year will be examined by an Alabama ballistics expert. Lavelle Richardson, of
Mount Union, hopes the tests will dispute authorities' claims that
a .40-caliber handgun police found in Lake Raystown is the weapon
used in the shooting. Authorities say Richardson was trying
to shoot another woman who was scheduled to testify in an assault case against one of Richardson's relatives when he accidentally shot and killed Patience Ferguson on July 20th.

3.26.02
Jury selection has been set for May 6th in the trial of a Huntingdon County woman accused of killing her boyfriend. 37-year-old Christina Ashton, of Mount Union, was arrested for the shooting death of 31-year-old Darin Whitsel, also of Mount Union. Ashton faces first-degree murder and related charges stemming from the shooting at a hunting cabin in Cromwell Township.

Daugherty executed in Florida 11/7/ 88
BODY COUNT FROM A SOUTHERN SLAY SPREE
by Sam Roen
Published in __ on __
What began in Melbourne Florida with a mystery corpse, would end with prosecutors from various states competing for first crack at the traveling killer whose methods were as repulsive as his murderous compulsion.
Titusville, Florida-- April 27, 1981 The body of a white middle-aged female lay soaking in a marl pit on the outskirts of Melbourne, Florida. The rains that had saturated Brevard County on the Atlantic seaboard throughout most of the night of Monday, March 1, 1976, subsided by daybreak but the morning remained overhung with gray mist.
As Terry Parsons, Dennis McNarra and Bernie Lees rode along Sarno Drive headed for the asphalt plant where they were employed, Terry shouted to Dennis, who was driving the work car pool that he had spotted something. The wasted woman, judged by the trio to be in her middle or late 40's, obviously dead from gunshot wounds to the head, lay face down in the limestone ooze.
Blood had seeped out of the shattered head and mixed into the soft lime blending to an oxidized color of burnt magenta. The three men gazed spellbound in silence.
It was straight up 8 o'clock, the precise time that they were all due at work but none of the men considered that. This strange death took precedence over everything.
The three men decided that Terry would remain with the body while the other two would rush on to the plant where they worked, since the nearest phone would be located there, and call the authorities.
In speedy response Captain W.J. "Buzzy" Patterson, Chief of Homicide, along with Agents Bob Schmader, Jerry Hudepohl and Billy Wilson arrived at the scene to investigate the reported death. Patterson immediately chose Schmader, one of his top investigating detectives, to organize and lead the investigation.
His experienced surveying eye on the deceased, Schmader realized that he was beginning deep in a mire of mystery. Turning to Patterson he commented, "There's not much to begin with here."
Shaking his head, the chief answered philosophically, "We'll see what the body tells us, and go from there."
It was obvious even in their cursory examination of the crime that the victim had been massively shot in the head. There seemed to be no evidence of any struggle between the woman and her assailant. As Schmader studied the powder burns that surrounded the wounds on the deceased's head, he commented again, "It looks like sheer brutality."
To augment the activities of the homicide specialists on hand, Captain Patterson had summoned crime scene technicians who also arrived quickly. Medical Examiner Associate Dr. Nongnooch R. Dunn responded to Patterson's call.
Unofficially Dr. Dunn told the officers that it seemed practically certain that the woman's death was caused by the multiple gunshot wounds to her head. But she would not make a positive statement until she had been able to perform an autopsy on the victim.
In a curious development at the crime scene, the detectives discovered something peculiar about the deceased's right hand. It appeared to be holding something "in a death grip." After very carefully photographing the clenched hand and its surroundings, the hand was slowly opened allowing a crumpled piece of paper to be released. The paper clearly showed the name Bob Hesterly scribbled out in pencil.
While the investigation proceeded at the site, an effort was put into effect to locate the man whose name was now linked to the body which so far had been unidentified by the lawmen.
It soon developed that Hesterly, an elderly fellow, was a fisherman who lived on nearby Merritt Island along the river and was known for years in this Brevard County area.
Reached at his home, the craggy old fisherman readily and voluntarily went to the Brevard County Sheriff's Department to be interrogated. With his arrival at headquarters, Schmader studied the man and asked, "Don't I know you?" The fisherman, smiling, told the officer that he had been acquainted with him for several years.
When Hesterly learned that he was brought into headquarters as a possible suspect in the mysterious death of the woman in the marl pit, he offered, "Hell, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I had two other people with me. We were delivering some fish in St. Cloud and we saw this woman standing along the road in the rain looking for a ride. So we stopped and picked her up."
The fisherman continued, saying that he felt sorry for the woman who appeared to have very little. "She looked poor as hell." He explained that he had offered to take her to his home. "She looked like she could do with a good meal and I had some nice mango that we had caught that morning, but she said that she wanted to hitch a ride to Miami."
The yarn that Hesterly had spun for the detectives seemed too plausible for the old fisherman to have concocted it. But Schmader wasn't accepting any story without checking it out.
The two other persons Bob Hesterly claimed could support his story were contacted and their separate stories corroborated with Hesterly's down to the smallest detail.
"I had to exonerate him as a suspect," Schmader stated with a great deal of satisfaction. He felt relieved that the old fisherman, who was known as a totally harmless fellow, was "off the hook."
Hesterly filled in a lot of lesser details for the officers, recalling that the victim had revealed to him that she was a native of Washington state, that she had worked as a waitress in Miami sometime back and that she was confident she would be able to get a job in the resort city.
The fisherman also told the investigators that the woman, after declining his invitation to go to his home, said she would appreciate a ride to the city limits. "She said it was better to hitchhike there," Hesterly said. And he told the investigators where he dropped the woman at the town's edge: "It was near the gun shop."
Following through on this information Schmader learned from the operators of the gun shop that the woman had lingered in front of the place for several hours before she was able to get a ride. The owners of the gun shop told the investigators that she had come into their shop "a couple of times to use the rest room."
Pressing the interrogation of the shop owners, Schmader learned that the victim was finally picked up by the driver of a white automobile that had a peculiarly large luggage rack on the top of it. "I think," one of the shop owners offered, "that it was a Ford Thunderbird." He was not positive but he was fairly certain that it was "an older Thunderbird."
While the investigation moved ahead with meager progress, Dr. Dunn proceeded with her autopsy. The medical examiner found that the victim had indeed died from gunshot wounds to the head. Bullets and fragments taken from the deceased were marked and turned over to the Brevard Sheriff's Department. There had been five bullets fired into the woman who had been found lying dead in the marl pit. These bullets destroyed the brain tissue of the victim causing her traumatic death. The bullets and fragments taken from the victim were determined to be .22 caliber.
Dr. Dunn described the deceased as a Caucasian female, 5'8" tall, weighing 131 pounds. Her hair was a bleached blondish red that revealed dark roots at the scalp line. The victim was a blue eyed woman with natural teeth in poor repair.
Dr. Claude Godwin--a Titusville, Florida dentist--examined the body and made a complete dental chart and description for the sheriff's department's use in identifying the victim. In addition, postmortem fingerprints were taken of the victim.
From these basic procedures the Brevard Sheriff's Department soon established the identity of the victim as Lavonne Patricia Sailer, a native of Tacoma, Washington. Her age was figured to be 49, she had no criminal record of any major or felonious crimes. She had been picked up for loitering, vagrancy, hitchhiking or some such minimal offenses.
As the days fell from the calendar, the Sailer investigation moved ahead like an overloaded, overaged freight train. Despite the scant progress, however, Bob Schmader dug away at the case he was determined to solve. Buzzy Patterson stayed in contact with Schmader offering strategy plans to break through the curtain of mystery that kept the investigation from progressing.
Detective Wayne Porter, Schmader's partner, had been on vacation when the Sailer body was discovered and did not participate in the earliest days of the investigation. When he returned to the department Schmader greeted him with more than friendly solicitations.
"I'm damn glad you decided to come back to work," he told his buddy. "We have a hell of a case with Lavonne Sailer." Schmader reviewed all that had transpired and everything that the department had done to find the answers to this crime.
As the two investigators and Captain Buzzy Patterson went over everything they had, it was agreed that the best lead they had centered on the white car with the big roof rack. They also believed that the driver of this vehicle, who apparently had given Lavonne her last ride, was accompanied by another woman.
"We've got to 'make' that damn car." Buzzy told his men who exchanged determined looks of agreement. "Damn it, let's do it." Buzzy added.
For the next several days the investigators talked to several persons who had been at the gun shop sometime during the many hours that Lavonne had waited for a ride. And as the detectives interrogated and re-interrogated those persons they discovered that the concensus of opinion was that the automobile was indeed a Ford Thunderbird. It was generally agreed too, that the car was a model of the late or middle '60's.
At this point the identity of the type of car actually yielded little. "But it's the only damn thing we got," Wayne Porter said to his partner Schmader.
As the investigation floundered along, Porter began an intensive study of the national computer BOLOs. One report struck him with sledgehammer impact. "Take a look at this," Wayne suggested to Schmader.
The report read that a couple was wanted in Alma, Michigan. They had been charged with armed robbery of a grocery store, committed on January 23, 1976. It was believed the couple, driving a 1964 white Thunderbird, Michigan license SCY535, was headed for Florida.
The Pennsylvania State Police, in their pursuit of a robbery committed in Altoona, amassed a great deal of information surrounding that robbery, the white Thunderbird and the driver of that car, and his female traveling companion.
Important to their own pursuit of the perpetrators of the robbery in Altoona and to the other crimes in a variety of locations, the Pennsylvania State Police dispatched highly substantive information on these people. They identified the driver as Jeffery Joseph Daugherty, a white male, 20 years old, born on the 26th of September, 1955, 185 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, medium complexion, scar on left wrist and a resident of Taylor, Michigan; they also indicated that "subject is armed with a ..22 caliber revolver."
Bonnie Jean Heath was Daugherty's 41 year old female traveling companion, also from Michigan.
The Pennsylvania State Police reported also that this couple carried intermittently a third person with them, a male relative of Jeffery Daugherty's, Raymond Daugherty, Sr.
Ray Daugherty proved valuable as a source of information regarding the exploits of the Daugherty-Heath team. He recited an itinerary for the Pennsylvania State Police that Daugherty and company traveled. And the Pennsylvania State Police developed a generalization of the M.O. of the criminals which read as follows:
"Their method of operation is to select a small business place (grocery store, gift shop, etc.) where a lone attendant or clerk is on duty. After perpetration of the robbery, victims are slain by use of a handgun or knife. This couple also has a propensity for seizing personal items from the victims e.g. handbags, wallets, jewelry and trinkets."
The information that the Pennsylvania State Police gathered was organized in a chronology which they also disseminated. It began with the January 23rd robbery in Alma, Michigan; the Daugherty-Heath couple then picked up Ray Daugherty, took Route 27 to Lansing, Route 23 to Toledo and I-75 south proceeding through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and into Florida, stopping at a Holiday Inn on I-95 possibly for two nights, January 24-25, 1976.
On January 26 the trio lodged at a Holiday Inn in Cocoa Beach, Florida. They traveled on to El Paso, Texas, arriving there on February 16, had their vehicle serviced for front wheel bearings and continued on to Odessa.
On February 17 they drove on through Abilene, Fort Worth, and Dallas to Shreveport, where they spent the night at Kelly's Mid-Continental Motel and Truck Stop.
On February 18-19 they traveled through Mississippi, via Jackson and Meridian and on to Alabama and Georgia where they spent the night in Cusseta.
On the 20th they drove on through Albany, Thomasville and into Monticello, Florida proceeding to Jacksonville and Daytona Beach where they stayed in an apartment that they rented in the Ritz Apartments and Motel, located on the magnificent Atlantic Ocean beachfront. Bonnie took a job at a nearby motel.
On the 23rd of February, 1976, in the small town of Flagler Beach in Flagler County, Florida, a robbery was pulled in a small convenience store. The owners, a couple were both shot. The man took four .22 caliber slugs in his head but survived. His wife, Mrs. Carmen Abrams, took one fatal shot.
On the 28th of February, Daugherty, Bonnie and Ray left Daytona Beach and drove down U.S. #1 to Pompano Beach where they checked into a motel along Route 1.
On Leap Year Day they lazed around Pompano Beach and that night they slept in the Thunderbird parked in the rear of a Hess service station.
On March 1, 1976, the threesome drove through to Brevard County where Lavonne Sailer was hitchhiking and reportedly was picked up by persons in a white Thunderbird and later discovered dead with five ..22 caliber bullets in her head.
That same date, March 1, Mrs. Betty Campbell, owner of Betty's Pizza Parlor, was found by her husband in the kitchen area of the restaurant beaten and stabbed to death. Mrs. Betty Campbell's purse was missing which contained a .25 caliber automatic, her credit cards and an unemployment check drawn in her favor. The purse was later recovered along Route 1 north of New Smyrna Beach, a few miles from the site of the robbery killing.
On the 4th of March, 1976, Ricche's Music Store in Altoona, Pennsylvania (the hometown of Daugherty's father), was robbed.
As the identities of common denominators of these crimes surfaced, the various law enforcement agencies gravitated together in a collective effort to solve the robberies and murders that had occurred and were continuing to occur.
Sheriff Ed Duff of Volusia County, Florida, huddling with his detective ace Art Dees, worked intensely on the investigation in their county on the murder of Mrs. Campbell. Dees' cooperation and exchange of information with Trooper Edward G. Pottmeyer of the Pennsylvania State Police proved of value to the Pennsylvania case problems.
Following the robbery in Altoona, the Pennsylvania State Police apprehended Ray Daugherty and held him as a material witness. Ray cooperated with the police and provided information of inestimable value. He revealed most of the facts that Trooper Pottmeyer used in his information flyer that was dispatched from Pennsylvania. Ray Daugherty explained that he meticulously avoided participation in the actual crimes that had been committed in the spree that Jeffery Daugherty and Bonnie Heath allegedly accomplished.
While the trail of Daugherty heated up to a sizzle, another robbery was committed at Carey's Cafe in Altoona between 8 and 8:30pm on March 9, 1976. About a half hour later, Jack's Quick Market, a small convenience store, was robbed and the murdered attendant, Elizabeth Shank, was shot six times with a .25 caliber gun.
Two days later George Karns was shot to death in a Union 76 service station. Karns was hit five times with .25 caliber bullets.
The following evening, Friday, March 12, scrupulously alert Trooper E.W. Lambert of the Virginia State Police, pondered an aged white Thunderbird with extremely large luggage racks topside. Lambert thought the racks didn't look right. They were obviously disproportionate to the car which was parked in front of a small grocery store, Whorley's Market, located near Route 60 in Buckingham County, Virginia.
A while later, Lambert saw the same white Thunderbird heading west on Route 60 and as he watched the car drift into invisibility speeding away, his radio blared out from the Appomattox headquarters the report of an armed robbery at Whorley's Market.
Immediately Lambert radioed Special Agent B. M. Eye and the tracking of the white Thunderbird began.
Trooper L.K. Webber raced to the projected point of interception. The Thunderbird was permitted to get midway out onto the bridge spanning the James River before Eye pulled up behind it, while Webber tore across Route 26, approaching the intersection at Route 657 where he pulled up alongside the chased vehicle, flashing the car to a halt with his spinning red beacon. The officers ordered the driver and passenger out of the vehicle.
After careful stretching out of the driver and through examination of the passenger, both were read their constitutional rights by Webber.
With a riot gun trained on the suspect, Eye reached under the driver's seat and retrieved a hunting knife and a set of nun-chucks (a weapon used in martial arts). The trooper also opened the floor console and discovered a Colt automatic, serial number OD60612. The piece was cocked and had a live round in its chamber... the safety had been pushed to off.
The couple was transported to the Buckingham County Sheriff's Department where they were booked and processed: the man, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty; the woman, Bonnie Jean Heath, wanted in various places.
First to move in reaction to this arrest was the Pennsylvania State Police. Lieutenant Raymond J. Mitarnowski of that body asked for firing samples of the .25 caliber Colt found in the Thunderbird and taken as evidence.
On March 19, the Colt was fired and six rounds were retrieved for the Pennsylvania State Police. That same date Troopers E.G. Pottmeyer and B.S. Bidelspach helicoptered to Virginia to pick up the fired slugs and cartridges.
The Pennsylvania officers also went to the Farmville Jail where a series of photographs were taken of the accused for use in the Keystone State. The officers from Hollidaysburg also went through the massive collection in the Thunderbird and found several items that linked the couple with the murder robbery at Jack's Quick Market in Blair County, Pennsylvania and to the second murder committed at the Union 76 service station. A steel guitar found in the car was identified as having been taken from Ricche's Music Store in Altoona. Further, there was evidence tied to the robbery committed at Carey's Cafe also in Altoona.
As this unraveling of the long string of crimes was occurring in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Volusia County Sheriff's Department through Lieutenant Art Dees traced Betty Campbell's unemployment check as having been cashed in Florence, South Carolina, by a woman whose description matched that of Bonnie Jean Heath. Detective Dees also was able to establish the use of Betty Campbell's credit cards in South Carolina by this woman.
At the same time, ballistics was developing the relationship of the spent bullets from the .22 caliber gun and also with the slugs and cartridges of a .25 caliber taken from the Pennsylvania victims.
The Colt that had fired those bullets was traced from the manufacturer to its original sale in Metairie, Louisiana, to Michigan and finally to Florida and into the possession of Betty Campbell's husband who had given the weapon to his wife for her protection in the operation of her Pizza Parlor, located in a small building that stood alone on a highway. It ultimately fell into the hands of suspected killer Jeffery Daugherty.
These staggering, separate evolvements filtered across the different state lines and between the affected law enforcement agencies until the cooperating exchanges of facts and relative information yielded strong irrefutable cases against the young 20 year old Jeffery Joseph Daugherty and Bonnie Jean Heath.
In the subsequent game of legal musical chairs that followed the Virginia arrest, the score that was to play out a rhapsody of reckoning began in Virginia where Daugherty was to be tried first on the charge of armed robbery.
In the meantime, Detectives Bob Schmader and Wayne Porter of the Brevard Sheriff's Department journeyed to Pennsylvania as did Detective Art Dees of the Volusia County Sheriff's Department (but not together) where the substantive evidence that had been gathered was freely exchanged.
The total cooperation among all of the law agencies developed into one of the classic efforts of our nation in the execution of criminal justice.
Daugherty was tried in Virginia and convicted. On the 12th of July 1976, he was sentenced to 19 years in the Virginia State Penitentiary.
In Pennsylvania he stood trial and was convicted on two counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced first on September 28, 1978 to life imprisonment and again on January 4, 1980 to a second life sentence.
Lieutenant Art Dees brought him back to Volusia County, Florida, where he pleaded for the killing of Betty Campbell. On July 14, 1980, Daugherty was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Following that pleading and sentencing Daugherty was again scheduled for trial, this time in Flagler County, Florida, for the murder of Mrs. Carmen Abrams. But the accused Daugherty again pleaded guilty and on July 31, 1980, Judge Kim Hammond immediately sentenced him to life imprisonment "to run concurrently with the other life sentences he had received."
In this case the indictment, arraignment, pleading and sentencing took less than three hours, probably a record in the administration of justice in a felony murder case.
Still pending in Florida, however, was the murder of Lavonne Sailer who was robbed of her single asset, a ten dollar bill that she carried hidden in her shoe. Staying on top of the incredible Daugherty crime spree was State Attorney Douglas Cheshire of Florida's 18th Judicial District which includes Brevard and Volusia counties. Cheshire had worked closely with Sheriff Ed Duff and his dedicated Detective Art Dees in the preparation of the case against Daugherty in the killing of Betty Campbell.
The state attorney had also diligently pursued the developments in the murder of Lavonne Sailer. The detective team of Schmader and Porter, along with Buzzy Patterson and Inspector Speedy DeWitt, all meeting with the state attorney, concluded that Patterson and DeWitt should go to Pennsylvania and meet with Lieutenant Raymond J. Mitarnowski, one of the prime movers of the cases there, and other Pennsylvania officers to crystallize evidence. This was done in July of 1976.
Thus by the time all of the wheels had turned through the legal processes and all of the court actions had been completed, State Attorney Douglas Cheshire was totally prepared to launch a prosecution that would not be denied nor circumvented by the accused, his attorneys or whatever legal delays could be conjured up. Cheshire let it be known to the press that this impending case would not be sidetracked no matter what the ploy.
On his return to Brevard County by Bob Schmader and Wayne Porter, the accused Daugherty readily admitted killing Lavonne Sailer. He admitted that he shot her numerous times and that he robbed her of her money: ten dollars.
After their arrival in Brevard County, the two detectives took a formal statement of confession from Daugherty on August 5,1980. He recited the minute details of picking up the hitchhiking woman, driving out to a side road and shooting her numerous times. He said that Bonnie Jean had urged him to shoot her again and again because Bonnie could still hear her breathing.
In his confession he stated that he had made one big mistake and that was not killing the woman in Virginia. It was his opinion that Kathy Rancor had suffered a heart attack and died when he robbed her. Had he shot and killed her she would not have been able to give the state trooper the assistance and information that led to his arrest. But the admitted murderer showed no remorse or regret for the killings he had done.
On Tuesday, November 18, 1980, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty pleaded guilty to the murder of Lavonne Sailer. It was obvious, especially to Douglas Cheshire who refused to be taken in by the mass murderer, that he was moving to escape the death penalty that is Florida law.
The following day Daugherty told the jury that was now assembled to hear arguments for and against the death penalty that "Jesus has forgiven me." He told the court and jury that he had turned to Christianity and to Catholicism. He went into a dissertation explaining that he had "seen the light" after an attempt at suicide that he had made in 1977 in the Huntington State Prison in Pennsylvania. He told the silent court in a dramatic solemn tone that, "I would never take another human life." Pausing for effect just as a great Shakespearean actor might, Daugherty waited and then added in a clear ringing resonant voice, "Only God has the right to decide who shall live and who shall die."
In response, State Attorney Cheshire stated that Daugherty's was a "well rehearsed act."
On Monday, April 27, 1981, Jeffery Daugherty was ushered into the Titusville, Florida Criminal Court and appeared before Circuit Judge William Woodson. Shaken, scared and timid, the convicted killer stood cowered in a body grown obese (probably 220 pounds plus) after years of confinement, and responded to the judge's invitation to make a statement. "Let God's will be done," were Daugherty's only words.
The judge reached for a document from which he read, "You, Jeffery Joseph Daugherty, are to be electrocuted until you are dead."
In yet another maneuver, the mass murderer made a boisterous plea to Judge Woodson to return him to Virginia where he would be incarcerated and safe from the Florida electric chair.
The judge, however, told him that that was up to the two governors of the two states.
Daugherty shouted, "I have something to say about that."
State Attorney Douglas Cheshire, who also has something to say about that intends to keep murderer Daugherty on Florida's death row until all the procedures of his appeals have run their course.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
The names Terry Parsons, Dennis McNarra, Bernie Lees, Bob Hesterly, Sara Louise Sunshine [aka Bonnie Jean Heath], Chick Russo [aka Raymond L. Daugherty, Sr.] and Kathy Rancor are fictitious and were used because there is no reason for public interest in their true identities.

1958
Unsolved murder lingers five decades

By KATHY MELLOTT
THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT (Johnstown, Pa.)

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -
"Mr. Bones" probably won't be buried anytime soon.

The skeletal remains of the unidentified man - nicknamed "Mr. Bones" by police - have been stored in Bedford County, Pa., for nearly half a century.
Three years ago this month, state police released a composite sketch of what the man likely looked like at the time of his disappearance.
Despite numerous inquiries, no one has given him a name or shed light on this long-unsolved mystery.
"We received calls from all over the country and everything we received we have checked out," said Trooper Joseph Kovel. "But we still have not been able to identify him."
Kovel is lead investigator for what authorities believe is an unsolved murder.
Most of the inquiries have been about distant relatives who went missing, Kovel said.
People have called about a missing parent, or recalling someone else talking about an uncle or cousin who could not be located, he said.
The decomposed body was discovered about a mile north of the Bedford Borough line near the Midway Plaza of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bedford Township.
Based on its condition, authorities speculate the man was killed in 1956. His remains were in a marshy area.
A crew installing a natural gas pipeline through Bedford County in 1958 made the grisly discovery.
Lying in the vicinity of the dead man was a book of classic literature, a book of poetry, a shaving kit, camp stove, gun and ammunition.
The remains were sent to an FBI crime lab, where forensics experts pieced together enough of the skull to determine the man had a forceful lantern jaw and a thick shock of brown hair.
But all the information compiled about "Mr. Bones" still has authorities no closer to unlocking the mystery of who he is.
He had received extensive dental work, including a gold tooth, and wore contact lenses, relatively new technology for the period.

1934
Babes in the Woods
John E. Clark, caretaker of a Kings Gap estate, and Clark Jardine had traveled to South Mountain in Cumberland County for a load of wood when they made a gruesome discovery.
They discovered the bodies of three young girls 50 feet from the road.
The date was Nov. 24, 1934, and the ''Babes in the Woods'' would become one of the most sensational crime stories of the Depression era.
After nationwide publicity, the girls were identified as Norma Sedgewick Noakes, 12, Dewilla Noakes, 10, and Cordelia Noakes, 8, of California.
A memorial sign was erected along Route 233 in Penn Twp. where their bodies were found.
The three sisters were apparently killed by their father, Elmo J. Noakes, 32, who later killed his niece and housekeeper, Winifred Pierce, 18, and then took his own life. The bodies of Pierce and Noakes were found in the Spring Meadow station on the Hollidaysburg Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad about the same time that the bodies of the three girls were spotted in the woods.
Identifying the girls and tying them to the murder-suicide case in Blair County involved a massive investigation that stretched across the country.
The investigation by the Pennsylvania State Police concluded that Noakes, whose wife had died two years previously, left Roseville, Calif., on Nov. 11 with the children and Pierce in a car he had bought for $46.
Police theorized that Noakes, penniless and without prospects of employment, killed the girls on Nov. 21 rather than let them starve. Autopsies determined that the children had not eaten for 18 hours before their deaths.
After leaving the girls' bodies on blankets in the woods, Noakes and Pierce drove west, abandoned their car between McVeytown and Altoona and hitchhiked to Blair County. On Nov. 23, Pierce sold her coat, the couple's last possession except for the clothes they were wearing. With the $2.55 she received, Noakes bought a rusty .22-caliber rifle from a second-hand store and used it to kill Pierce and take his own life on Nov. 24.
Several hundred Cumberland County residents attended the sisters' funeral at Ewing Funeral Home in Carlisle on Dec. 1, and the girls were buried in Westminster Cemetery. Noakes and Pierce were buried in the same cemetery, about 100 feet from the children.

Cambria
1924
Bucky 'll Never Forget Oct. 11, '24
by Thomas H. Russell
article appeared in the Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat, 10/11/64
COLVER - If "Bucky" Mentch lives to be 100, he'll never forget that morning run on the Cambria and Indiana Railroad. Bucky is about to observe his 80th birthday, and to this day the memory remains as deeply etched as the day the run was made - 40 years ago. Monday is the veteran railroader's birthday. Oct. 11 will be the 40th anniversary of Cambria County's "great train robbery."
The robbery, carried out by 5 or 6 armed men near Concrete Bridge Crossing, in the Belsano area, netted a payroll of $33,000 in cash, and cost the life of a guard on the train. The victim was James Garman, 65, of Ebensburg, who was one of two American Express Company guards assigned to accompany the payroll to the Ebensburg Coal Co. at Colver.
In thick of things
And Bucky Mentch was right in the thick of things. Today, from the comfort of his home here - Colver has been "home" for the past 53 years - Warren C. "Bucky" Mentch remembers the events of Oct. 11, 1924 in this way:
"I don't think I've forgotten a minute of that run. I was the engineer on a small combination freight-passenger train. We were pushing a boxcar and a passenger coach. There was a 5-man crew and some passengers, along with the payroll safe and the guards.
"I was running a little late that morning, I remember, and was trying to make up time. We were moving along pretty lively when just before we got to Concrete Bridge, my brakeman (S.M. Rice, now deceased) yelled: 'Hey, Bucky, there's a man waiting at the station.' There was a little 2x4 station there, and when someone was standing there you could be sure he wanted to board the train; there wasn't much else there. Well, I hit the emergency brake and got us stopped. When I leaned out the cab window, I heard a shot. A bullet went right over my head and stuck in the cab. (Mr. Mentch recalled that the slug remained embedded in the locomotive "I guess until they scrapped her.")
"Next thing I hear is someone saying, 'Get 'em up.' A fellow was standing behind Sharpe (the fireman) and me, pointing a revolver. Now, I always figured I have no more and no less nerve than the next man, but let me tell you, when that fellow pointed that gun and and said get 'em up, I got 'em up. Then he ordered us down off the engine and lined us up with the other crew members. He told us not to move - and we didn't.
"I remember suggesting to the gunman that I turn off the injector on the engine so the whole thing wouldn't blow up. He answered, 'What's the difference, it don't belong to us.' I was standing beside the engine, and I guess the noise drowned out the sound of the shots that were fired, including the one that killed Garman.
"A couple of minutes later, I saw the men - there were 5 or 6 of them - throw the safe from the passenger car, carry it to an automobile they had parked nearby and drove off. We got Garman to a hospital as quickly as possible, but it was too late. He was dead. Later on, a couple of weeks maybe, I was asked to identify suspects as they were arrested by the police, but I never really saw the faces of the men who shot Garman.
Couldn't make identification
"I couldn't make an identification. After all, when you could be sending a man to his death, you have to be sure. It was an unforgettable experience. Seems like it all happened yesterday."
Mr. Mentch, whose railroading career spanned some 54 years before he retired in 1956, and L.A. Duman, whom Mr. Mentch believes is now living in Latrobe, are the only surviving members of the train crew on that wild Oct. 11 run.
Roy Holmes and Rice since have died and the fifth member, Walter Cameron, was killed in a railroad accident some time later. (more on Mr. Cameron appears below.)
The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat's 1924 account of the train robbery stated that a posse of 100 men took to the woods near the scene and that "state constabulary (police) from Hollidaysburg, Greensburg and nearby stations have been ordered to report here."
$1,000 reward
A reward of $1,000 was offered by the Cambria County Board of Commissioners (John D. Walker, Homer C. George and W.J. Cavanaugh) for information leading to the arrest of the bandits. Subsequent investigation disclosed that the getaway auto used by the robbers had been stolen in downtown Johnstown a day or two before the murder-robbery.
In December of the same year, 2 men were found guilty of first degree murder in Cambria County Court in Garman's slaying and were executed. Both were tied to crimes in other sections of the country, according to newspaper accounts. The story then faded into the blend of daily news events.
Cambria 1924
Eighty years ago, more than 400 Ku Klux Klansmen rode evening trains into the tiny Cambria County town of Lilly, made their white-robed march through town -- darkened after its electric lines were cut -- and burned two crosses in a nearby field. When they returned to the depot, they were confronted by townspeople wielding a fire hose. Someone started shooting, and by 10 p.m. three Lilly residents were dead and 20 people were injured.
It was a time when a quarter million people in Pennsylvania were members of the Klan, when all but two of the state's counties had KKK chapters and when its agenda was strongly anti-Catholic. Lilly, a coal-mining village of about 2,300, was targeted because it was predominantly Catholic and a stronghold of United Mine Workers -- and because it had defied the Klan on previous occasions.
"They came prepared for trouble. That was the reason that they came in here," said Art Yingling, one of the men injured in the April 5, 1924, melee, in an interview before he died two years ago. "This was the only place around here that tore down their crosses. When they put up their crosses, they tore them down."
Anti-Catholic sentiment.
About 300 of the men took a train from Johnstown secured by the Klan for the evening, dubbed the KKK Special. "They would have a plain brown package that they folded and carried under their arms," to indicate that they were Klansmen, Yingling recalled. In the package was the white robe and headdress. After the Special arrived around 7:15, another 100 or so more Klansmen came in on the regular passenger train from Pittsburgh, the 610, and another passenger train traveling west from Altoona.
"I can remember that night like it was yesterday," said Morris Shullman of Lilly, whose father owned a business right across from the train station. "I was sitting there with my mother and the train pulled in on the side tracks. It had maybe 10 cars on it. [The Klansmen] lined up and started to march up the street."
The Klan was strong in the area, with a higher percentage of the population on its membership rosters than areas in the South known as Klan strongholds, said Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor who has studied the Klan. He compared the Catholic-Protestant antipathy in Western Pennsylvania of the 1920s to present-day Northern Ireland.
Blacks were targeted and attacked, but in Pennsylvania, "Catholics were overwhelmingly the major targets of hatred and fear," Jenkins wrote in his 1997 book "Hoods and Shirts." The Klan was dominant in several nearby towns, including Cresson and Portage.
Lilly was different.
Founded by Irish and German Catholics in 1806, it had a small Protestant minority. Though there were Klan members and sympathizers (residents remember that the Klan newspaper was sold in town), the town had defied previous attempts to burn crosses. It also was a strong United Mine Workers town and the Klan's hostility to unions had been increased by the decision of the UMW earlier that year to expel workers in the local district who were Klan members. Many of the mine workers were Eastern European immigrants who spoke little English, another category of people targeted by the Klan.
Right after the Klansmen arrived, the electricity to the town was cut, probably by locals who were working with them. The community, in a high valley scooped in the Alleghenies near Ebensburg, went black.
You can start at the tracks at Railroad and Cleveland streets and follow the Klan's route from that night along Lilly's meandering streets, past the same storefronts, beneath the same Catholic Church on the hill where many townspeople belonged, by the same Lutheran church where the Klansmen turned north to go up to Piper's Field. That field is now full of homes; the site of the cross burnings about where a green-and-white garage and basketball hoop now sit.
That night, the town had no intention of being cowed by the Klan. One Klan member was beaten up; residents contemplated setting loose coal cars up by Piper's Mine on the hill above town to roll down and smash the KKK Special. Instead they decided to use water against the KKK's fire and hatred.
A modern hydrant squats about where its forerunner did, just across the street from the depot where the Klan went to get back on the trains. That's where the townspeople hooked up the section of hose they'd gotten, spraying the tail end of the Klan procession. Frank Miesko, 22, the lead man on the hose, was shot dead there. Hugh Conrad's uncle, Phil Conrad, 24, was standing in a storefront two doors down, watching, when he was shot and killed. Cloyd Paul, a 26-year-old Protestant who had helped cut the wood for the crosses, was the third man killed.
Phil Conrad's youngest sister, Helen, was in a nearby home. "We went upstairs and you could see Piper's Field," she told her uncle Hugh. "When they shot across the brick street, when the bullets hit those bricks, it sounded like roller skates. It just sounded to me as a kid like skates."
After the Klan invasion, Lilly was invaded by the press. The story and the subsequent trial made national headlines. When the KKK Special arrived in Johnstown that night police locked the doors and searched the coaches, confiscating weapons and arresting 25 found carrying them. Many more guns were later found along the tracks, where they had been thrown by their owners during the train trip. State police came to Lilly the next day and patrolled on horseback for several days. Two men -- a Lilly resident and a Klansmen -- were initially charged with murder, but those charges were dropped because no one would testify against either man. It was never determined who started shooting.
Twenty-eight Klansmen and 16 townspeople were charged with riot, affray and unlawful assembly. Cambria County Common Pleas judges all recused themselves from the trial, and an appellate court judge from Philadelphia was brought in to preside. When the trial was held two months later in Cambria County Court, all the defendants were tried together, despite the efforts of attorneys to secure separate trials for the Lilly residents and the Klansmen. The trial transcript shows that the judge, Thomas E. Finletter, made clear his view that anyone out on the streets that night was engaged in rioting. All of the defendants in the trial -- both Klansmen and townspeople -- were sentenced to two years.
Many Catholics refused to patronize businesses whose owners testified against townspeople in the trial, and some hung carved wooden "Ku Kluckers" on electric lines in front of homes of Klan members or sympathizers, but for the most part the tension between the two groups was damped down, said Conrad.
Though the Klan remained powerful -- 40,000 Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., that year -- its membership began to decline and dropped off precipitously by the 1930s.

1907 Jacob Hauser
Jacob Hauser, hanged 95 years ago for using a machete to dispatch his wife and mother-in-law.

1800s
1899 John Sheehan Dash Williamson
The Pennsylvania Railroad was Altoona. All who lived there worked for the railroad. By the turn of the century Altoona was the largest railroad center in the world In the era of steam, Altoona was the firebox. The years and traffic of the industrial revolution swept through Altoona and over the natural barrier of the Allegheny Mountains on the steel wheels of the locomotives and on the sweated brows and strong backs of immigrant labor. In less than fifty years Altoona had evolved from a farming community and had turned into an industrial giant.
The City was marked by the accumulation of coal soot residue as a result of the fuel that powered this expansion and growth. Imagine everything within eyesight being dirty black. Freshly fallen snow was specked with soot. The coal soot could even be seen blowing across the streets on a breeze. The sound of the giant locomotives pounding along the tracks was always in the air. Shift whistles sounding off with a wail that would pierce your soul were a constant reminder of what life in Altoona was all about. The hummpf, hummpfh, hummpfh of steam pistons pushing drive shafts, that drove the wheels, that moved ton upon ton of freight, was always in your ear. That is what it must have been like the night of Tuesday, November 19, 1899.
That night, John J. (Patsy) Sheehan, a 27-year-old 1st generation Irish American, went out on the town with some of the fellows. John J. was a fireman for the Pennsylvania Railroad. They intended to do what young men with back breaking jobs and little or no hope for a better future do. They were going drinking. These fellows were not necessarily good friends. They may not have all been drinking buddies. They were going to raise a little hell and let off some steam.
It was a Tuesday night. Four young men, Hall, Williamson, English and Sheehan, worked their way up the bars between and around 14th street and 10th Avenue in Altoona. They end up in Platch's restaurant. An argument broke out regarding an overcoat one of the fellows was wearing. The boys got belligerent and the owner threw them out of the establishment. The argument spilled out on to the street.
Cursing and swearing turns into physical violence as Hall attacks English. Blows are exchanged. Hall knocks English to the street. The two fight, as one onlooker reported, " As if they were dogs."
Dash "Jury" Williamson engages Sheehan in a verbal attack. Williamson, cursing Sheehan, taunts him to cross the line where the paving ends at 14 Th. street and 10th Avenue. Williamson says to Sheehan, " Cross this line and I'll kill you, you Irish bastard! " Sheehan moves toward Hall and English, who now are on their feet and fighting as they move up the street. Sheehan, a peacemaker, tries to break up the fight between Hall and English. Dash "Jury" Williamson, getting no satisfaction from Sheehan, runs across the street in a fit of rage to Platch's livery stable.
Williamson crashing through the door awakens the stableman. Williamson grabs a single tree from the wall and runs back onto the street. Sheehan has turned his back to the fighting and has begun to walk up 11th Avenue. Williamson, enraged with drunken hate, runs after Sheehan. Coming up from behind Sheehan, Williamson hollers " I am going to kill you, you Irish son of a bitch!" As he raises the single tree over his head with both hands to strike, Sheehan turns to face him.
Williamson strikes Sheehan full force across the skull, two inches above and behind his left eye. Sheehan staggers under the blow. Williamson swings again and misses. Sheehan falls to the ground. Hall now leaves English and attacks Sheehan, who is lying on the ground. Hall kicks Sheehan in the head and chest three times. An onlooker hollers " Don't hit that man again! " Williamson runs back down the street and into the crowd now gathered on the street. Hall moves away and retreats. Sheehan staggers to his feet and moves down the street where he collapses in front of the Engel house.
An onlooker, the manager of the shooting gallery across the street, goes to Sheehan and places a handkerchief over Sheehan's wound. The occupant of the Engel house is asked if Sheehan may be brought inside. The occupant tells the Good Samaritan to get Sheehan of his front porch.
By now the police have arrived. Hall, English and Sheehan are arrested. Williamson hides in the crowd. When questioned by police at the scene, Williamson pretends to be an onlooker and makes good his escape. The paddy wagon takes John J." Patsy " Sheehan to the Altoona Hospital The other two men, Hall and English, are taken to the city jail.
John J. has his head wound attended to at the hospital. He is unable to convey the severity of his condition to the attending physicians due to his drunkenness. The doctors suture his wound and take him upstairs to bed. They will not release him to the police until the morning. By Wednesday morning the police are searching for Dash "Jury" Williamson. He has now been identified as the assailant. The police arrest him at his home and take him to jail.
That morning, the police call the Altoona Hospital and inquire as to when they may pick Sheehan up. The hospital releases John J. to the police around midmorning. He is transported to the city jail in the paddy wagon. Sheehan is placed in a cell and is seen to lie down on his cot. Time passes.
Later that morning a jailer notices that Sheehan is in convulsions. The jailer calls the hospital to report Sheehan's condition. The hospital has Sheehan returned immediately. His condition is critical. Bridget, his mother, and Con, his brother, are summoned to the hospital. John J. dies the next day, November 23, 1899 at 1:00 p.m. A cerebral hemorrhage, caused by the blow delivered by Dash "Jury" Williamson, has taken his young life. Williamson, Hall and English will all stand trial for murder. . (See the attached newspaper accounts of the assault and trial.)
Bridget, Corneilus and his wife Alice, returned John J. to St. Patrick's cemetery for burial on November 25, 1899. Cornelius is now the only surviving male in our family. He is twenty-one years old. Bridget is now 60. She has buried a daughter, a son and a husband in the past three years. ( Perhaps as many as five family members. We do no know the dates of death of Elizabeth and Bridget Helen. They are believed to have died in a typhoid fever epidemic in the middle 1880's.) Years later, Cornelius (Con), younger brother of John J., is walking across the 17th Street bridge when he is approached by Dash "Jury" Williamson. Jury is reported to have extended his hand to Con, an obvious sign of attempted reconciliation. With that, Con strikes him with a fist and knocks him off the bridge to the rail bed below. (This is told to me by my Great Aunts Betty and Kathryn.)
Immediately after November's horrible events Alice gave birth to their first child, a girl, named Anna Marie on December 5, 1899. (This is my Great Aunt Annie from whom the original notes about my family came from.) Cornelius, now the head of the household, takes a job with J. B. McGinley Stone Cutter and Curb Company. Con worked there for a few years as a stone cutter. (See turn of the century newspaper photo of McGinley's with Con in the photograph.) Jeremiah, his father, may have taught this skill to him. Con, while on the job, lost the sight in his right eye from a flying stone chip. He was now disabled. With no benefits, life became extremely difficult What Corneilus did to support his family over the next few years is unclear.

CambriaFeb 4 1892 King +3 others
Philadelphia Public Ledger, Feb. 4, 1892 -- murder near Johnstown, Pa. -- a man and his wife, named Kring, had been butchered, and their bodies had been burned.(12) Then, in the woods, near Johnstown, the corpse of a stranger was found. The body was well-dressed, but could not be identified. Another body was found -- "well-dressed man, who bore no means of identification."
There is a view by which it can be shown, or more or [22/23] less demonstrated, that there never has been a coincidence. That is, in anything like a final sense. By a coincidence is meant a false appearance, or suggestion, or relations among circumstances. But anybody who accepts that there is an underlying oneness of all things, accepts that there are no utter absences or relations among circumstances -

1889 Charles Carter
When he was convicted of killing another man during a fight at a Johnstown home, 20-year-old Charles Carter, who was black, told of being ushered into his 1889 murder trial without so much as a lawyer.
"I was absolutely ignorant of what was required of me," he told a local newspaper. Three months later, Carter was led to the scaffold.

Centre 1889 Clara Price Alfred Andrews
Murder of Clara Price, by Alfred Andrews in 1889
Cambria Oct1884 Michael Smith
Sunday, January 06, 2002
By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
EBENSBURG, Pa. -- In October 1884, the day before he was to be hanged for killing a Johnstown man, Michael "Smitty" Smith pretty much evaporated from the Cambria County Jail.

Cambria County Jail was built in 1872 and housed prisoners until 1997. It became the Cambria County records depository in January 1999. Since then, a museum has been added by the Cambria County Historical Society. (V.W.H. Campbell Jr, Post-Gazette)

His cell was a locked cage of iron bars inside a concrete room two sizes up from a clothespress.
The stone walls separating the jail yard outside from freedom were 22 feet high.
Small matter. On his mattress, Smith left a farewell note to the warden. Then he vanished for good.

Written 1896
Since the organization of this county there have been found by the grand jury forty-one indictments for murder. Of these four were found guilty of murder in the first degree. The others were acquitted or convicted of manslaughter or murder in the second degree. The four who were convicted of murder in the first degree were: Hutchinson, killing a negro; James Shirley, killing his wife; McKim, his young traveling companion, Samuel Norcross, and Dr. LewisBeach, killing his wife.
Hutchinson's case had a most unusual conclusion. He was convicted at the December sessions, 1850, near the close of Governor W. F. Johnston's official term. For some reason not explained the warrant for the prisoner's execution was not issued by the governor before his term expired. Governor William Bigler succeded him, and when his attention was called to the case, either for supposed legal reasons or from scruples of conscience, he declined to issue his warrant of death. Hutchinson remained a long time about the prison, helping in the daily work and going freely about the town, refusing in to leave. One day, however, he went quietly away, no man pursuing, and he died some years later in an eastern county.
Shirley was hanged in 1853, and his was the first capital execution. George A. Coffey was the prosecuting attorney, having been deputized by Joseph Kemp who was the district attorney.
1853 James Shirley, ws executed Aug 12, 1853 between 10AM and 3PM in Blair Co. Prison yard for the murder of his wife.

McKim's case attracted a good deal of attention. He had traveled to Altoona with young Norcross, a stranger here, won his confidence, beguiled him into leaving thentrain and going a short distance west t of town, to obtain the little money he learned from him he possessed, he cruelly murdered him. The prosecution was conducted by Mr. Hammond and William A. Stoke, then an eminent and able lawyer, employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad company.
The defendant relied upon Mr. Hofius. McKim was a large, fine looking man, and seemed incapable of committing such a crime. The jury on the 7th of May, 1857, convicted him, and he was executed on the 21st of August, following. Shippenville Furnace
Also known as Black's Furnace. Built in 1832 by Richard Shippen and Jacob Black. Daily operations were managed by Robert Montgomery and David McKim. The furnace was thirty two feet tall with a nine foot bosh.
LOCAL BREVITIES SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD.

On the morning of the 16th of January, 1857, Samuel L. Norcross was found
dead, with his throat cut and feet frozen, a short distance west of this city at
the place now known as "Norcross cut." His murderer, one McKim, was traced to
Wayne county, Pa., captured, brought back, tried, convicted and executed at
Hollidaysburg.

Altoona Sun, Friday, April 10, 1874, page 3

The most celebrated, however, of the homicide cases of the county, was the indictment and conviction of Dr. Beach. He was a practicing physichian in Altoona, where he lived I with his wife, but had no children. One morning at an early hour in the winter of 1884, he called at the house of Levi Knott, the brother of his wife, and informed him that he had killed his wife, but protested he had done the deed without present knowledge of the act. He was arrested and tried during that year and was convicted. Mr. Spang, Mr. Stevens and the writer defended him- the latter two by direction of the court. Hon. J. D. Hicks was then district attorney.
The defense was insanity and the proof showed that twelve of his blood relatives were either idiotic or insane, furnishing the argument that there was a hereditary taint, or predisposition. Counsel for defense asked the court to rule that if the jury had a doubt as to his sanity, it should operate to reduce the grade of the offense to murder in the second degree. Judge Dean refused the point. Counsel endeavored to have the case reviewed by the supreme court, but the preliminary requisites could not be complied with , and the judgment of the court was carried into effect on the 12th of Februarv, 1885.
We might add that there has been a fifth conviction of murder in the first degree, in the c case of Commonwealth vs. Frank Wilson. As the case is still pend ing, we forbear to note it further.
Cambria1876 Yost John Kehoe
Within two months of the Wiggans Patch Massacre, McParland left the coalfields. It has been widely reported that Kehoe had come to suspect him, if not of complicity in the murder of his kinsmen, at least of being a spy. Whatever the reason for his sudden departure, his return was easily explainable.
He had come back to testify against more than 50 men who he claimed were Molly Maguires.
The first trial for the Yost murder got under way in May 1876, and it marked the beginning of what historian Harold Aurand would later call one of the most outstanding surrenders of sovereignty in American history."
The prosecutor in the cases was none other than Gowen himself, and the judge was his old friend and Kehoe's old political nemesis, Cyrus L. Pershing, imported by the railroad from Cambria County especially for the trials.
The investigations had been conducted by Gowen's hired detectives, and the arrests not one of the men tried was apprehended while committing a crime were dragged from the homes by Gowen's private Coal and Iron Police. As Aurand put it, the state "provided only the courtroom and the hangman."

Schuylkill County Courthouse
After the five men accused of murdering Yost were convicted and sentenced to hang, "the same verdict was handed down in the cases of other innocent miners," Boyer and Morais wrote. "Mike Kelly and Ed Doyle received death sentences. Jack Kehoe as convicted for the murder ofLangdonwho had been killed fourteen years beforestoned by a crowd of miners."

Kehoe's House of the Hibernians
It didn't matter that witnesses had testified that they had seen Kehoe running past them at the very moment that Langdon was apparently being attacked, Wayne said. It didn't matter that Langdon, who lived three days after the attack and was apparently conscious, never identified Kehoe as one of his attackers even though Kehoe lived right around the corner from Langdon at the time. It didn't even matter that even the witnesses who claimed he was in the crowd, never testified that they actually saw him throw a stone.
The jury found Kehoe guilty and sentenced him to die. It was hardly a surprise, Wayne said. Gowen had handpicked the jury and though it did not include a single Irishman or Catholic, it did include one Dutch immigrant who noted in broken English that he didn't understand everything that was said, but all the same was "for hanging him."
In Kehoe's case, in Alex Campbell's case, in all the cases in fact, the principal testimony much of it hearsay evidence came directly from McParland.
As Boyer and Morais wrote; "McParlan[d] agreed to testifythat all those whom Gowen wanted removed had freely and voluntarily confessed to him that they had committed various murders. His word was to be corroborated by various prisoners at various of the county's jails, freedom the reward for corroboration.
Among them were men like Manus Coll, a man who even the Moffett in his glowing article in support of McParland's work acknowledged "had been a Molly for a number of years, but had been expelled from the order as being too bad even for that desperate organization."
In the Yost case, for example, the key corroboration for McParland's testimony testimony that sent five men to the gallows -- came from "Powder Keg Kerrigan," the man who most observers believe was Peter Yost's killer and who bought his freedom by implicating others.

John Kehoe death warrant

In all, between 1877 and 1879 nineteen miners were sent to their deaths as a result of the Molly Maguire trials. Among them were Kehoe, and Campbell.
All of them died proclaiming their innocence.
As a reporter for the New York World wrote of the last of the executions, those of Charles Sharpe and John McDonald, "the demeanor of the men on the scaffold, their resolute yet quiet protestations of innocencewere things to stagger one's belief in their guilt."
In a final irony, just moments after the limp bodies of the two hanged men were cut down from the gallows, a messenger arrived from Harrisburg, bearing an order, signed by the governor, commuting their sentences to life.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/molly_maguires/12.html
Cambria1865
Polly Paul referred to in the circular was the woman who was murdered near Summerhill in the summer of 1865 along with a girl named Cassie Munday, and that Betsey Paul was the wife of John Dunmyers. Polly Paul was over 70 years old at the time of her death. She was a daughter of Abraham and Elizabeth Paul, who came to Cambria County from Europe. Miss Paul was a cousin of W. W. Paul, whose parents were Isaac and Sophia Paul. It is believed the committee on investigation has as yet failed to establish any connection with the Paul or Dunmyer families of Cambria County.
The murder of Miss Paul and Miss Munday occurred in Croyle Township in the month of June, 1865, when they were clubbed to death by two men named Howser and Buser. Miss Paul, it was claimed, had a great deal of money about her farm and the men are said to have gone there to rob her. Miss Munday was a girl of 18 years and had been making her home with Miss Paul for some time.

Another Murder--Our town (Hollidaysburg?)was the scene of another and cold blooded murder on Tuesday morning last. A party of men met at a house near the weighlock, which, it is said, is not of very respectable character, and after a night of drunkeness and debaughery (sic), two men by the names of Wm. Gorsuch and Hugh Dairy got into a scuffle, which resulted in the death of Gorsuch. Dairy, the person killing Gorsuch, used a large knife, with which he cut the jugular vein of his adversary and caused his almost immediate death. Dairy is known to be a reckless and abandoned character. He has been arrested and lodged in our county jail.

(Source: The Blair County Whig, Vol. 1, No. 28, 5 Nov 1850.)

1860s Huntingdon
David R. P. Neely was born near Neelytown, Huntingdon Co., PA.,
August 18, 1836. His father James Neely, b.Oct. 2, 1794. The latter was
a farmer, and lived some five or six miles southeast of Shade Gap. In
1815 or 1816 he married Elizabeth Morton who was related to the ancestors
of the Levi P. Morton family.
Captain Neely was of Scotch-Irish descent. He was educated in
the public schools of Huntingdon Co. and at Milnwood Academy. His people
were among the arrivals in this country in the early part of the 18th
century: and his parents lived in or near Shade Gap about the time of his
marriage.
D. R. P. Neely was first a farmer. He worked occasionally for
his father-in-law, John Minick. David R. P. Neely owned considerable
amount of timber land and also some farm land. He laid out the town of
Neelytown back of Shade Gap on a piece of land that he owned. He lived
for a time too in Orbisonia where he owned some property.
When the Civil war broke out, young Neely helped to organise
a company of troops in Shade Gap. It was Co. I of the 149th regiment,
Penn Volunteers, (Bucktails). He enlisted as a private, and was in time
advanced through the usual channels to 2nd Lieutenant. At Gettysburg his
regiment was delegated to drive the Confederates out of Devils Den. They
did so; but got into the den themselves and could not get out. All of
the officers except himself were killed. In accordance with the custom
and right of volunteer companies, a "drumhead election" was held when the
firing slowed down, and he was elected captain. After the election the
firing was resumed again.
Captain Neely was married soon after the war, and a short
time later he was elected Sheriff of Huntingdon Co. While he was sheriff
a revolting murder was committed near Crafton by two Germans named Bonner
and Von Bodenburg who worked in the Altoona Shops. The latter was of
German Nobility. Capt.Neely went to Altoona without firearms, got his
men and took them to Huntingdon where they were later tried and
convicted. He hanged both of them. When he captured them, one of the
criminals tried to swallow two 10 dollar gold pieces which he had stolen
when the murder was committed. Sheriff Neely grabbed him quickly and
choked him until he spit them out of his mouth. Later, after his term of
Sheriff had expired, Dr. Shade of Shade Gap was shot in an altercation
with a customer in his drug store. The Murderer escaped, and Capt. Neely
took after him on horseback. He caught him single handed, and without
weapons, disarmed him and took him to jail in Huntingdon. The marks made
by the bullets are yet be seen in the house where the shooting took
place. The house is now owned by John Swan.
Huntingdon 1840s
The Brown Murders: The Crime of the Century

In 1840, Huntingdon County and the surrounding region was shocked by news of the
brutal murder of the family of William Brown-a wife and five children-in Hill
Valley near Shirleysburg. The murderer, Brown's son-in-law, was brought to
trial, found guilty and hanged.

Over the years the story of the Brown murders has entertained, intrigued, and
shocked area residents.

Not long ago the editor stumbled upon several fairly extensive accounts of this
brutal slaying. The story is being retold this week and next.

The late D.M. Bare of Roaring Spring, a founder of the paper mill in that
community, spent several of his childhood years on a farm near Three Springs,
Huntingdon County. In his autobiography, "Looking Eighty Years Backward," Bare
recalls the Brown murders.

Bare writes, "I do not remember any of the detail of the murder at the time it
was committed, but I do remember of six horsemen riding up to the front of our
house, who on the way to their homes had stopped to tell us of the happenings at
the hanging of the murderer. At that time the Sheriff of the county did the
hanging and it was open to any of the public who might want to see it."

Regarding the murder, Bare said, "My cousin Peter M. Bare heard the shooting and
I think was the first person to arrive on the scene and see the dead bodies
lying around. He was one of the witnesses at the trial that condemned
McConaughy."

Sherman Day's "History of Pennsylvania" gives the following account of the
incident: "On Saturday, the 30th of May, 1840 within two miles of Shirleysburg,
Huntingdon County, PA, a series of murders were committed which, for atrocity,
have scarcely a parallel on record. No less that six human beings were hurried
from time to eternity by the hand of a cold-blooded murderer, the victims being
a Mrs. Brown and her five children, from the ages of twenty-one to ten years.
The old lady was found with her throat cut, the son aged twenty-one and the
daughter about sixteen, with rifle balls through their bodies, three younger
ones with their brains knocked out with stones, in a field by the dwelling,
supposed to have fled on witnessing the butchering of their mother, etc. Mr.
Brown was away from home and upon his return a short time after his family were
murdered, was fired at twice from the barn, the last ball taking effect ranging
along the lower jaw and passing through the ear. He was stunned but did not
fall. At the moment of receiving the second fire, he saw a man jump from the
barn loft and make for the woods; this man, he believed, was his son-in-law, by
name McConaughy. On this suspicion, or rather strong belief, McConaughy was
arrested and the testimony taken before examining and committing magistrates
went to fix guilt strongly upon him."

"It appears that Brown, the father-in-law, owns a farm worth three or four
thousand dollars. McConaughy on the morning of the murder started with his wife
for the residence of his mother, some miles distant. He had contrived, however,
before starting to procure the return to their father's residence of the son and
daughter, who were absent aiding in his field labors a neighbor not far distant,
by coining a plausible story so that every opportunity for the deed might be
made fully and effectively available. Had he succeeded in destroying the
father-in-law, his (McConaughy's) wife, the only survivor, would have inherited
the estate. This was undoubtedly the moving cause of this fiendish deed. In
addition it was evidence that he had borrowed his father-in-law's two rifles and
they were found in the barn from whence the murderer fled. McConaughy was
arrested in bed at his mother's residence the same night."

A more detailed and descriptive account of the crime was printed in the
"Philadelphia North American" in 1911 was part of a series titled,
Pennsylvania's Greatest Crime Mysteries. Others called it, The Murders of the
Century. The following account is taken from the "North American" account: The
family which was to be annihilated was that of William Brown, whose home was in
Cromwell Township, Huntingdon County about 10 miles southward from Mount Union.

The family, in that region, primitive as it was, was making its struggle for
existence, and though the life was a hard one it was not altogether
unsuccessful. Brown had acquired a farm of about 120 acres on the east slope of
Jack's Mountain, with a one-story log house on it small and crude, it is true,
but sufficient for the rearing of his children. There was a barn, larger than
the house, in which to shelter animals and store the crops and some other small
buildings. In one of them lived Robert McConaughy, whose wife was Brown's
daughter. The owner of so much land could not be regarded as poor in those
days. It was the possession of this land that was to bring death on all his
household but himself.

Beneath Brown's roof were sheltered, besides himself, his wife, Roseanna; his
daughter Elizabeth 17, and his sons George, 16; Jacob, 14; and David, 10. He
had another son John, just reaching manhood, who on account of quarrels with his
father did not live at home but worked on a farm in Shirleysburg, four miles
away. He had two other daughters, the wife of McConaughy and one living in
Centre County. Brown did not do his own farming but worked at Matilda Furnace
on the Juniata River opposite Mount Union and McConaughy did the farm work in
exchange for a share of the crops.

William Brown was held in respect and good will by the mountaineers. He was the
best marksman in the neighborhood, defeating all who contested with him at
target shooting and proving himself the most successful huntsman, at a time when
game abounded plentifully and hunting was repaid with ample returns. There were
others, however, who did not regard him with favor; not that he had ever
committed any violence, but he was rough in his ways and prone to dire threats,
which he never carried out.

McConaughy had spent the 31 years of his life in the vicinity. He was
illiterate; he could not write or read. He had no money and no means of getting
it, except from the proceeds from the farm. How could he acquire wealth? He
resolved that the only way he could become wealthy was to become the owner of
the farm. The idea became a passion and he resolved to let noting stand between
him and his desire. Human life was not worth considering, if it were an
obstacle to the execution of his purpose. He did not recoil from the taking of
seven lives that were preventing, and might forever prevent, the descent of the
land to his wife. The whole family, except McConaughy's own wife and her sister
in Centre County, were to be wiped out.

He laid his plans with the deliberation of the born murderer. It was first
necessary to find or create the opportunity. He must bring his intended victims
together at the farm in such manner and such order-Brown from Matilda Furnace
and John from Shirleysburg so that he could kill them in such detail that the
survivors were not aware of what had happened to those who were dead. It must
be done in one day and nothing must be permitted to occur that would cause any
to take alarm and escape.

On what day of the week could these conditions be best brought about?
Apparently on Saturday, for on that day Brown came home from the furnace. So
Saturday, May 30 was fixed. It was only necessary to induce John to come and
all would be there, the father and oldest son arriving at different hours.

How could John be lured to the death prepared for him? He was not in the habit
of visiting the old home, he and his father not being good friends. What
inducement could be offered? McConaughy had a story ready. Brown was raising a
colt, then just a year old. John had been anxious to own it ever since it was
foaled. He had asked his father to sell it to him when they were on better
terms but the request had been refused.

Knowing John's desire to own the colt, McConaughy went on Friday, the day before
the one set for the murder, to the farm where John was employed. He first
sought Samuel Carothers, the farmer. He pretended to be much interested in
John's health and welfare and expressed a suspicion that the young man was
spending his money and running into debt. Carothers assured him there was no
truth to the report; that John had contracted no debt he could not pay and had
money coming, which he could get at any time. This was the information
McConaughy received. He went to the field where John was plowing corn, and told
him his father had decided to sell the colt to him. John asked how much his
father wanted for it, and McConaughy said it was about $10 or $15, he thought.
The young man had better get the money and come home with it the next day. John
was not sure that he would be done plowing in time to go on Saturday, and it
would not do. His father would go back to the furnace on Sunday, McConaughy
told him, and if the son wanted to see him he must go the next day. John
promised to go.

McConaughy had now arranged for the presence of every member of the family at
the farm on Saturday. He went there himself and spent the night. Not desiring
his wife and children to see what was to occur, he aroused them early the next
morning and took them without breakfast, to his mother's home further up the
mountain, several miles away. There he ate his breakfast and returned to the
farm, ready to perform his ghastly work. It was not later than 10 o'clock when
he arrived.

Mrs. Brown was engaged in her household duties, assisted by daughter Elizabeth.
They were baking that day and were kneading the dough and preparing it for the
oven. The younger children were amusing themselves in the fields and in the
woods.

It is not clear which of the children was killed first. The indications given
by the bodies did not agree with the statements made by McConaughy in his
confession. Dr. D. J.D. Lightner, the physician who made the post-mortem
examinations, said in his testimony that he thought Jacob and Elizabeth were the
first killed. This fact was argued to the jury by attorney George Taylor, who
later served as President Judge of Huntingdon County. Taylor was counsel for
the Commonwealth. But in his last words McConaughy said that the order of the
killing was George, David, Jacob and Elizabeth. The bodies of Jacob and
Elizabeth were the first to be found on Sunday morning, and those of David and
George were the last, in the afternoon. Taking them in the order in which they
were found, the tragedies were successively these: McConaughy told Jacob that
the "boys were gunning back there." This was westward from the house, past the
barn, and up toward the mountain. The boy ran ahead and McConaughy falling
behind, sent a bullet through his brain. It entered his head near the top and
came out in front, breaking a piece from the skull. The boy fell dead. His hat
was found with stones on it, bloody inside with the bullet hole in it. The
murderer had partially covered the body with old leaves and sticks.

The sound of the shot was heard far and wide on the mountainside and down the
valley, as were others fired by McConaughy that day, but excited no interest,
gunshots being of frequent occurrence. McConaughy then went to the barn, which
gave him a view of the front door of the house. Here he could see who was
coming and going. There were spaces between the log of the upper part of the
barn through which he could see. He partly closed these openings with straw,
leaving an opening large enough to peer and fire through.

His plan called for killing the three boys first, leaving the two women inside
the house. But not finding the chance he sought, he went to the house he told
Elizabeth he had found a patch of strawberries and asked her to go with him to
gather them. She assented and took a little bucket with her. He led her toward
the spot where Jacob's body was lying. When she was near it, he struck her on
the head with a stone and beat her with it, until there were incisions through
the scalp two and three inches long. Then he put his foot on her and choked her
until he was sure she was dead. He then covered her with leaves and sticks.
Decomposition had set in when she and Jacob were found; it was this fact that
led Dr. Lightner to believe they were killed first.

George was enticed in the opposite direction and beaten to death with the supple
of a flail. The back of his skull was fractured, both bones of his right arm
two inches above the wrist were broken, and his lower jaw was fractured.
Finding the boy still alive, McConaughy choked him to death. When found, the
flesh from his head and neck had been eaten by some animal.

McConaughy and George had been especially close for some months and seemed to
have matters of confidential nature to talk about. According to the confession,
George was the first one killed.

David, the youngest, easily persuaded, was led into the woods near where George
had been killed. He was knocked down with a stick and strangled. His face was
black and his tongue swollen and protruding when the boy was found. There was a
bullet hole through his trousers, the ball having grazed him in passing.

Four of the children were lying dead, but Mrs. Brown was unaware that anything
had happened. McConaughy returned to the barn and awaited her appearance at the
door.

It was not long before she came near the door. He shot, the ball striking her
arm. He ran into the house under pretense to help her, and asked if she knew
who shot her. She replied she did not; he gave her a drink of water and urged
her to go to bed. Then got the axe and struck her above the right eve, knocking
her over on the bed. He cut her throat with the axe and covered her with a
quilt. A fractured skull was sufficient to cause death and the slit throat was
unnecessary, it was reported later.

Alone, McConaughy searched the house for valuables. He had ascertained several
days earlier, by a ruse, that Brown had $30 in the house. He had showed his
father-in-law a Mexican dollar and asked him if he had any money like it. Brown
took a key from the top of the clock, unlocked a small chest, took out the money
and showed McConaughy he had a dollar like it. He replaced the money, locked
the chest, and put the key back.

McConaughy took the key, opened the chest and took the money except $5, which in
a pocketbook, was overlooked. He also took some tobacco, together with
percussion caps and lead, and hid them in a jar.

Covered with the blood of his victims, McConaughy washed the axe, fastened down
the windows of the house, shut the door and took off the handle of the door so
it could not be opened. In the barn he hid the tobacco, caps and ammunition.
After a brief rest he walked to his own house, about 100 yards away, procured
water and soap, washed his shirt and trousers and hung them in the sun to dry.
He put on an old shirt and pants.

After washing McConaughy returned to the barn to wait for John. Just as he had
promised, John appeared. He had gone to his employer, Mr. Carothers and had
received $10 of his wages with which to by a colt from his father. He arrived
at the farm abut 2 p.m., and dismounted, tying the horse to the fence. He was
unable to enter the house because the door handle was gone. McConaughy fired;
the bullet struck the young man in the chest, passing through his body and into
the door. He started to run, climbed a fence, and fell dead as he approached
the barn. John was of large stature and heavy; McConaughy dragged the corpse to
the house and into the little back room, and pushed it under the bed in which
his dead mother was lying.

He rifled John's pockets, removing the $10 and another dollar, took John's horse
to the barn, and waited for the arrival of his father-in-law.

Mr. Brown had left Matilda Furnace early in the afternoon, crossed the river and
canal at Mount Union, and during the walk he had company part of the way and was
seen by others. This proved important later on, when some suspected that Brown
had murdered his family. He carried a skillet (griddle) and a sledge hammer,
which were tied together and thrown across his shoulder.

He was not in a hurry and the trip of ten miles was made in about four hours.
He went to the door, as John had done, but it couldn't be opened. All was
silent.

As Brown turned his head to look around, a shot rang out; the bullet glanced off
the iron griddle and went into the door. He saw the blaze from the mow of the
barn, nothing more. A second shot was fired; the ball cut Brown's cheek and the
lower part of his ear and also crashed into the door. As the smoke cleared
away, Brown could see a figure looking from the barn. They were the figure and
face of Robert McConaughy, Brown declared, "You damned rascal! What are you
doing there?"

Brown ran to the rear of the barn, but nobody could be seen. He searched the
barn. In the mow he found the door handles and his two rifles. He took the
door handle and went into the house for some lead, but there was none there as
it had been taken by McConaughy. Brown ran from the house and soon located some
neighbors, Lewis Brothers, John Rinker, John Taylor and William Atherton, who
were chopping in a nearby orchard. He told them how he had been shot and his
son John murdered. At the time he assumed the rest of his family had gone away.
Taylor went with him to the house where they made a general survey of the
premises. They returned to the bedroom. Taylor saw blood on the headboard of
the bed and on the partition above. He asked, do you think there is somebody in
the bed? Brown pulled down the quilt and saw his wife, dead and bloody. The
man broke into tears, saying he did not know what he had done to have his family
killed off so.

People started gathering, and a justice of the peace, Randall Alexander came and
organized an inquest. At first the suspicions were on Brown; it was thought
that his wound was self-inflicted to remove suspicion from himself. The
children had not yet been found but all fingers were being pointed at Brown.

Brown was held overnight, but the testimony of persons who had seen him on his
walk from Matilda Furnace compelled his release.

McConaughy had eluded Brown after shooting at him. He appeared at 7 p.m. on the
east side of Clear Ridge n Hare's Valley. Those who saw him, said he was in a
big hurry but whistling, wearing a clean shirt and with his sleeves rolled up to
his elbows. He spent the night at the home of his mother.

Several days later McConaughy and his family were called before the inquest.
The only account of his whereabouts he could give, was that he spent the day in
Hare's Valley looking for a house. But he could not give the name of one person
who had seen him. He said his wife wanted to move out of fear of her father.

He changed the story several times and his hands were examined by a physician.
Blood was clearly visible under his fingernail. Soap and water had failed to
take it off. McConaughy repeatedly and persistently denied his guilt.

His trial in Huntingdon County Court in August was one of the most notable
trials of the day. The direct testimony of Brown and the circumstances brought
a speedy verdict of guilty. It was shown that McConaughy was the only person
with a motive for the crime; that he sought, created and possessed the
opportunity to commit it; that he prepared for its perpetration' gave nor
reasonable account of his whereabouts' that no other person could have committed
it' and that his fingers bore un-mistakeable evidence of his guilt.

He was found guilty of murder in the first degree. McConaughy had perceived
that he could not be hanged unless he confessed. He continued to assert his
innocence. In the last conversation he had with the two clergymen who attended
him, he denied his guilt and afterward evaded the subject.

On the day of his execution, November 6, 1840, he asked the clergymen to pray
for him. When the services on the scaffold were concluded and the drop fell,
instead of being rushed into eternity, the rope broke and he fell, landing on
his feet and falling backward to the ground. His hopes were revived and he said
he ought to be free. But the Sheriff returned him to the scaffold the rope was
doubled and again put around his neck.

Realizing that the hanging was to be a reality, he asked for some time to speak
to the ministers. He agreed to make a complete confession of the crime. "I
want you," he exclaimed, to make the best you can of my confession for my poor
wife and children." The confession was made and recorded, the drop fell again,
a half minute after 3 o'clock, and this time the penalty was paid.

One more man of the fifty-two remains to be noted, George W. Taylor. He was
then 34 years of age and a resident of Huntingdon. He early gave promise of the
future jurist. His prosecution of the case of the Commonwealth vs. McConaughy in
1840, and the Flanigans in Cambria County in 1842, on indictments for murder, it
was customarily said, drew him from obscurity and established him permanently in
the public estimation as a great lawyer. He succeeded Judge Black as president judge, April 5, 1849, and remained upon the
bench till November, 1871. He tried many important cases and was widely known in
the state and recognized by the supreme court as an able and learned judge.

"Judge Taylor made his reputation while serving as district attorney of
Huntingdon County. A peculiarly atrocious crime gave him his opportunity.
Several members of one family were murdered from the father and mother down to
the youngest child. A man named Robert McConaghy, married to one of the
daughters of the family, we believe, was arrested on suspicion of having
committed the crime. District Attorney Taylor wove so convincing a web of
circumstantial evidence around the suspected man that the jury found him guilty
of murder in the first degree. The speech of the district attorney was long
regarded as one of the most powerful arraignments of a criminal ever made in a
court of justice, tracing as it did the course of the murderer from the
inception of his crime until its consummation. Joseph Shannon, who spent the
closing years of his life in this county, was sheriff of Huntingdon County and
had charge of the execution. The murderer protested his innocence to the last.
The drop fell and the rope broke. Then he told the whole story of his bloody
deed, the narrative showing how truly District Attorney Taylor had conceived the
actual facts."

1700s
As Mrs. Elder who was captured on the branch must have been in the fort at Detroit as a companion of Mrs. Earnest, I give her history from Jones' History of Juniata Valley in full. I was impressed when I read that Mrs. Elder was captured while visiting the sick.
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I have known one family of her descendants all my life - George Elder's of Buffalo Mills, Pa. I think he was a grandson of this Mrs. Elder. I have known of Mrs. George Elder (Peggy Cessna) walking miles and visiting the sick and carrying things to the poor, and of her children doing similar deeds of kindness.
My aunt Agnes says, "Mrs. Elder heard her children coming singing through the woods to meet her just when she was captured. She told the Indians to hurry off for she heard the whites coming and thus saved her children from being killed, or captured with her."
Mrs. Elder was gone two years. The family have in their possession a Bible printed in 1748, presented to her by a British subject for her bravery when she was exchanged, also other relics. She was born in 1741.
I quote also from "Jones" about her husband, which does not agree with the sketches of the Elders in later histories, giving it that Mrs. Elder and her husband settled in Cumberland Valley Township in 1781.
"The first murder committed in Woodcock Valley during the Revolutionary struggle occurred at Coffey Run near the present residence of Mr. Entriken. The victim was a man named Elder, the husband of the woman mentioned in a preceding chapter as having been carried a captive to Detroit by the Indians. He was on his way home with Richard Shirley*, when he was shot and scalped. This was in 1778."
*Richard Shirley, a widower and a farmer, born in Maryland, died of "old age" in December of 1869 at age 87 in Juniata township, Blair county, Pennsylvania (mortality schedule, M-1838, roll 3, page 169, line 14). This Richard Shirlely was born in 1764 in Washington County, Maryland, married Sarah Jane Cassidy (daughter of Patrick Cassidy and Mary Jane Mooney) in Loretto, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and died on December 21, 1849, in Juniata Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania. See: Cassity/Cassidy Family Association-especially All the Surnames in the C.C.F.A. Database! "Richard Shirley, son of John Shirley, and his wife, Sarah Jane, homesteaded in the northeast corner of Old Greenfield circa 1793 near the farm of Sarah's parents, Patrick and Mary Cassidy." The Early Settlers Of Old~Greenfield Township.
"The country between the mouth of the Raystown Branch of the Juniata and what is called the Crossings was thinly settled prior to the Revolution. The land, and general appearance of things, did not strike
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settlers very favorably; hence it may be assumed that it was only taken up about 1772, when the new-comers from the eastern counties had already taken up the choice tracts lying contiguous to the river .
The first depredation committed on the Branch, near its mouth, by the savages, occurred in May, 1780. A band of roving Indians were known to be in the country, as several robberies had occurred in Hartslog Valley, at houses belonging to men who with their families were forted either at Lytle's or at Huntingdon. A scout had ranged the entire frontier in search of these depredators, but could not find them. They were seen in Woodcock Valley, and information immediately conveyed to the commander at the fort in Huntingdon. A scout was sent to Woodcock Valley, but got upon the wrong trail, as the Indians had crossed the Terrace Mountain, where, it appears, they divided into two parties. One of them went to the house of one Sanders, on the Branch; and just as the family were seating themselves at the table to eat dinner, five of the savages bounded in, and killed Sanders, his wife, and three children. An Englishman and his wife, whose names are not recollected, were in the house at the time, both of whom begged for their lives, declared they were loyal to the king, and would accompany them. The Indians agreed to take them along as prisoners, notwithstanding at that period scalps commanded nearly as high a price as prisoners. The Englishman and his wife were taken to Montreal.
The day following the above massacre, the other party of savages, who it appears had taken the country nearer the Juniata to range through, made their appearance at the house of a Mrs. Skelly, who was sick in
25
bed at the time, and her nearest neighbor, Mrs. Elder, being there on a visit. It was a beautiful May-day Sabbath afternoon, when Mrs. Elder prepared to go home, and Felix Skelly, the son, agreed to accompany her part of the way. They had gone probably a hundred rods through a meadow, when Mrs. Elder noticed a savage, partly concealed behind some elder-bushes. She stopped suddenly, and told Felix, who had got a little in advance, to return, as there were Indians about. Skelly said he thought not, and advised her to come on, or it would be night before he could return. Mrs. Elder stood still, however, and soon saw the figure of the Indian so plainly as not to be mistaken, when she screamed to Felix to run, and, when in the act of turning around, a savage sprang from behind an elder-bush into the path, and seized her by the hair. Another seized Skelly, and in a moment the shout of victory went up, and three or more Indians came from their places of concealment. Finding themselves captives, and unable to remedy matters, they submitted with a good grace.
Fortunately for them, the warrior who had command of the party could speak a little English, and was a little more humane than the generality of savages of the day. He gave Mrs. Elder positive assurance that no harm should befall her. He would not, however, give the same assurance to Skelly. They took up their line of march over the Terrace Mountain, crossed over to the base of the Allegheny, avoiding as much as possible the white settlements, and crossed the mountain by the Kittanning Path.
Skelly, although but seventeen years of age, was an athletic fellow, well built, and weighed in the
26
neighborhood of one hundred and eighty pounds. The Indians, noticing his apparent strength, and in order probably to tire him, so that he would make no effort to escape, loaded him down with the plunder they had taken in Hartslog Valley. In addition to this, they found on the Allegheny Mountains some excellent wood for making bows and arrows, a quantity of which they cut and bound together, and compelled Skelly to carry. Mrs. Elder was obliged to carry a long-handled frying pan, which had been brought all the way from Germany by a Dunkard family, and had, in all probability, done service to three or four generations. Of course, Mrs. Elder, burdened with this alone, made no complaint.
At length the party reached an Indian town on the Allegheny River, where it was determined that a halt should take place in order to recruit. One of the Indians was sent forth to apprise the town of their coming; and on their entering the town they found a large number of savages drawn up in two lines about six feet apart, all armed with clubs or paddles. Skelly was relieved of his load and informed that the performance would open by his being compelled to run the gauntlet. Skelly, like a man without money at one o'clock who has a note to meet in bank before three, felt the importance and value of time; so, walking leisurely between the lines, he bounded off at a speed that would have done credit to a greyhound, and reached the far end without receiving more than one or two light blows. He was then exempt, as no prisoner was compelled to undergo the same punishment twice.
The Indians, disappointed by the fleetness of Skelly, expected to more than make up for it by pum-
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melling Mrs. Elder; but in this they reckoned without their host. The word was given for her to start, but the warrior who had captured her demurred, and not from disinterested motives either, as will presently appear. His objections were overruled, and it was plainly intimated that she must conform to the custom. Seeing no method of avoiding it, Mrs. Elder, armed with the long-handled pan, walked between the lines with a determined look. The first savage stooped to strike her, and in doing so his scant dress exposed his person, which Mrs. Elder saw, and anticipated his intention by dealing him a blow on the exposed part which sent him sprawling upon all fours. The chiefs who were looking on laughed immoderately, and the next four or five, intimidated by her heroism, did not attempt to raise their clubs. Another of them, determined to have a little fun, raised his club; but no sooner had he it fairly poised than she struck him upon the head with the frying pan in such a manner as in all likelihood made him see more stars than ever lit the "welkin dome." The Indians considered her an Amazon, and she passed through the lines without further molestation; but, as she afterward said, she "did it in a hurry."
The squaws, as soon as she was released, commenced pelting her with sand, pulling her hair, and offering her other indignities, which she would not put up with, and again had recourse to her formidable weapon- the long-handled pan. Lustily she plied it, right and left, until the squaws were right glad to get out of her reach.
In a day or two the line of march for Detroit was resumed, and for many weary days they plodded on
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their way. After the first day's journey, the warrior who had captured Mrs. Elder commenced making love to her. Her comely person had smitten him; her courage had absolutely fascinated him, and he commenced wooing her in the most gentle manner. She had good sense enough to appear to lend a willing ear to his plaintive outpourings, and even went so far as to intimate that she would become his squaw on their arrival at Detroit. This music was of that kind which in reality had "charms to soothe the savage, " and matters progressed finely.
One night they encamped at a small Indian village on the bank of a stream in Ohio. Near the town was an old deserted mill, in the upper story of which Skelly and the rest of the male prisoners were placed and the door bolted. That evening the Indians had a grand dance and a drunken revel, which lasted until after midnight. When the revel ended, Skelly said to his comrades in captivity that he meant to escape if possible. He argued that if taken in the attempt he could only be killed, and he thought a cruel death by the savages would be his fate, at all events, at the end of the journey. They all commenced searching for some means of egress, but none offered, save a window. The sash was removed, when, on looking out into the clear moonlight, to their horror they discovered that they were immediately over a large body of water, which formed the mill dam, the distance to it being not less than sixty feet. They all started back but Skelly. He, it appears, had set his heart upon a determined effort to escape, and he stood for a while gazing upon the water beneath him. Every thing was quiet; not a breath of air stirring. The sheet of water lay like a
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large mirror, reflecting the pale rays of the moon. In a minute Skelly formed the desperate determination of jumping out of the mill-window.
"Boys," whispered he, "I am going to jump. The chances are against me; I may be killed by the fall, recaptured by the savages and killed, or starve before I reach a human habitation; but then I may escape, and, if I do, I will see my poor mother, if she is still alive, in less than ten days. With me, it is freedom from this captivity now, or death." So saying, be sprang from the window-sill, and before the affrighted prisoners had time to shrink, they heard the heavy plunge of Skelley into the mill-dam. They hastened to the window, and in an instant saw him emerge from the water unharmed, shake himself like a spaniel, and disappear in the shadow of some tall trees. The wary savage sentinels, a few minutes after the plunge, came down to ascertain the noise, but Skelly had already escaped. They looked up at the window, concluded that the prisoners had amused themselves by throwing something out, and returned to their posts.
The sufferings of Skelly were probably among the most extraordinary ever endured by any mortal man. He supposed that he must have walked at least forty miles before he stopped to rest. He was in a dense forest, and without food. The morning was hazy, and the sun did not make its appearance until about ten o'clock, when, to his dismay, he found he was bearing nearly due south, which would lead him right into the heart of a hostile savage country. After resting a short time, he again started on his way, shaping his course by the sun northeast, avoiding all places which bore any re-
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semblance to an Indian trail. That night was one that he vividly remembered the balance of his life. As soon as it was dark, the cowardly wolves that kept out of sight during the day commenced howling, and soon got upon his track. The fearful proximity of the ravenous beasts, and he without even so much as a knife to defend himself, drove him almost to despair, when he discovered a sort of a cave formed by a projecting rock. This evidently was a wolf's den. The hole was quite small, but he forced his body through it, and closed the aperture by rolling a heavy stone against it. Soon the wolves came, and the hungry pack, like a grand chorus of demons, kept up their infernal noise all night. To add to the horrors of his situation, he began to feel the pangs of both hunger and thirst. With the break of day came relief, for his cowardly assailants fled at dawn. He ventured out of the den, and soon resolved to keep on the lowlands. After digging up some roots, which he ate, and refreshing himself at a rivulet, be traveled on until after nightfall, when he came upon the very edge of a precipice, took a step, and fell among five Indians sitting around the embers of a fire. Uninjured by the fall, he sprang to his feet, bounded off in the darkness before the Indians could recover from their surprise, and made good his escape.
In this way he travelled on, enduring the most excruciating pains from hunger and fatigue, until the fourth day, when he struck the Allegheny River in sight of Fort Pitt; at which place he recuperated for a week, and then returned home by way of Bedford, in company with a body of troops marching east.
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His return created unusual gladness and great rejoicing, for his immediate friends mourned him as one dead.
Mrs. Elder gave a very interesting narrative on her return, although she did not share in the sufferings of Skelly. She was taken to Detroit, where she lived in the British garrison in the capacity of a cook. From there she was taken to Montreal and exchanged, and reached home by way of Philadelphia.
Felix Skelly afterward moved to the neighborhood of Wilmore, in Cambria County, where he lived a long time, and died full of years and honor."
rom: The Revolutionary War-Soldiers of Blair County (PDF), page 45
"PHILLIPS, WILLIAM Served as a Captain of Rangers, Bedford County Militia; and was captured the 16th of July, 1780, in Woodcock Valley, Bedford County, now Huntingdon County, when the Rangers were attacked by a band of Indians. An account of this massacre is found in a letter written the 6th of August, 1780, by Colonel John Piper to President Reed, as follows: 'Your favor of the 3d of June, with the blank commissions, has been duly received. Since which we have been anxiously employed in raising our quota of Pennsylvania volunteers, and, at the same time, defending our frontiers; but, in our present shattered situation, a full company cannot be expected from this county, when a number of our militia companies are entirely broken up and the townships laid waste, so that the communication betwixt our upper and lower districts is entirely broken, and our apprehensions of immediate danger are not lessened. but greatly aggravated by a most alarming stroke. Captain Phillips, an experienced, good woodsman, had engaged a company of Rangers for the space of two months for the defense of our frontiers, was surprised at his post on Sunday, the 16, day of July (1780) when the Captain with eleven of his Company were all taken and killed. When I received the intelligence, which was the day following, I marched with only ten men directly to the place, where we found the house burned to ashes, with sundry Indian tomahawks that had been lost in the action, but found no person killed at that place. But, upon taking the Indian tracks, within about half a mile we found ten of Captain Phillips' Company with their hands tied and murdered in the most cruel manner. This bold enterprise so alarmed the inhabitants that our whole frontiers were on the point of giving way; but upon application to the Lieutenant of Cumberland County, he hath sent to our assistance one company of the Pennsylvania volunteers, which, with the volunteers raised in our own county, hath so encouraged the inhabitants that they seem determined to stand it a little longer." The names of those who were massacred are believed to be as follows: Philip Skelly, Joseph Roberts, Hugh Skelly, Philip Sanders, Thomas Sanders, Richard Shirley, M. David, Thomas Gartrell, Daniel Kelly, and one other.
A monument now stands at the spot where the massacre took place and while grading around the site, members of the Saxton American Legion Post, on the 25th of January, 1933, unearthed the bones of seven of the Rangers. The bones, discovered only eighteen inches under the ground, were re-buried at the spot where they were found. Captain Phillips with his son Elijah, were taken into captivity by the Indians and not released until the close of the War when they returned to their home which was located about two miles south of Williamsburg, along Clover Creek. William Phillips disposed of his property in 1796, and moved his family to Boone County, Kentucky.
For a detailed account of the massacre, see: The Massacre Of Philips' Rangers on Mother Bedford-a website devoted to the history of Old-Bedford County, Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War period.
Philip Skelly, who was massacred, left a son, Philip Skelly, Jr., who was often called Felix in order to distinguish him from his father. He was born in Bedford County (in the Woodcock Valley), on December 16, 1759. According to Jones' History of the Juniata Valley, Philip (Felix) Skelly and Mrs. Elder, who was his aunt, the wife of William Elder, were both captured in May 1780. This was near Cove Station. They were carried to an Indian town on the Allegheny River, family tradition says Kittaning, and later to Ohio. Both were compelled to run the gauntlet. Skelly escaped from his captors somewhere in Ohio and made his way to Fort Pitt. Mrs. Elder was taken to Detroit, where she lived in the British garrison in the capacity of a cook. From there she was taken to Montreal where she was exchanged and made her way back to her home by way of Philadelphia. Philip Skelly remained at Fort Pitt for about two weeks after arriving there from his escape from the Indians. From Fort Pitt he went to Fort Bedford in company with a band of soldiers going east to join Washington's army, and from Fort Bedford he returned to his mountain home. Upon his arrival at home, he learned the news of the murder of his father (Philip Skelly, Sr.) at the hands of the Indians.

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