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The Washington County Strangler - True Crime Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:00
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a warning.
0:04
Speaker 2: Thank you.
0:08
Speaker 3: The late nineteen seventies around western Pennsylvania would start peacefully.
0:13
Speaker 3: The Super Bowl t J Gold up the Petsburgh. The
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Speaker 3: Pittsburgh Steelers had won their first Super Bowl and continuing
0:23
Speaker 3: on a winning streak the following season. The Nations VI
0:26
Speaker 3: centennial events were in full swing the summer of seventy six,
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Speaker 3: and Jimmy Carter would win the election that ball, but
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Speaker 3: also starting that November, in the small southwestern city of Washington, Pennsylvania,
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Speaker 3: the first of five young women would be found strangled
0:43
Speaker 3: over the following eight months That would kick off a
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Speaker 3: reign of terror in the region that had everyone wondering
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Speaker 3: if a serial killer was sulking their streets. While DNA
0:54
Speaker 3: evidence would eventually solve one of these crimes, it has
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Speaker 3: only linked some of these murders between themselves with the
1:00
Speaker 3: DNA of an unknown person. To this day, whether they
1:05
Speaker 3: are responsible for just a few or all of the
1:08
Speaker 3: crimes remains as unanswerable as just who exactly the person
1:12
Speaker 3: or person's known as the Washington County Strangler is.
1:18
Speaker 1: Goes on in San Francisco for the man known as
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Speaker 1: the Zodiac Killer.
1:22
Speaker 3: There could be a serial killer in Chicago, the Open
1:25
Speaker 3: County child killer killer Frankfurt slasher four children have now
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Speaker 3: been murdered.
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Speaker 4: As killed five says you'd go to kill again.
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Speaker 5: His team brutally murdered young women.
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Speaker 6: The pattern is the same, one by one.
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Speaker 1: Death job started rising a man in a mask, robbed
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Speaker 1: hide and stab him.
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Speaker 3: Strengthen stuff you were lapped backs.
1:44
Speaker 6: It is highly unlikely that these women were murdered by
1:47
Speaker 6: separate men.
1:48
Speaker 7: Where will the killer strength next?
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Speaker 3: Police can't answer food or why. That's the question that
1:53
Speaker 3: we'll never known.
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Speaker 8: I don't want to live the rest of my life
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Speaker 8: wondering if this person's going to be caught. I believe
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Speaker 8: that there's someone out there that has knowledge.
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Speaker 3: And he's probably still at large. If you know a
2:05
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Speaker 3: below in the description. As the body count began to
3:28
Speaker 3: add up, Menia outlets would focus on the five women
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Speaker 3: killed in that eight month time span, but if we
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Speaker 3: widen our search. There are several other early murders that
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Speaker 3: remain unsolved, with a number of similarities. The first possible
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Speaker 3: victim to follow this killer was fourteen year old Rita Charet.
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Speaker 3: It was the final school day before summer break when
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Speaker 3: Rita got off her bus stop at the intersection of
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Speaker 3: Valoma and Hamil Streets and began walking home in the
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Speaker 3: Hills area north of Pittsburgh, a high school had gotten
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Speaker 3: out early due to racial tensions, with desegregation having just
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Speaker 3: been approved that April. About five hours later, a neighbor
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Speaker 3: walking about one hundred feet in these woods off of
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Speaker 3: Hunter Road, just two hundred yards from Cheret's home, would
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Speaker 3: find her corpse. She had been strangled with her own
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Speaker 3: belt and left partially nude, though there were no signs
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Speaker 3: of sexual assault. With little to go on, Rita's case
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Speaker 3: would be forgotten about for over a decade. Forty miles
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Speaker 3: southwest Rice's Landing is a small town of just four
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Speaker 3: hundred and seventy residents in nineteen seventy three. It was
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Speaker 3: October fifth that year when eight year old Deborah Mackle
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Speaker 3: got off her bus stop at Ferncliffe Road in the
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Speaker 3: small river town and began the five minute walk back
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Speaker 3: to her home, which at the time was the last
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Speaker 3: house of on the left of Hoy Street, across the
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Speaker 3: road from the home with the Star. Described as a
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Speaker 3: warm and outgoing girl, she loved to dance and cheer
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Speaker 3: at her brother's sporting events, along with hanging upside down
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Speaker 3: from trees and letting her long hair brush against the ground.
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Speaker 3: When her brothers arrived home later, they discovered their sister's
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Speaker 3: books and keys on the table, but Deborah had vanished.
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Speaker 3: A search party totally two hundred was launched the very
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Speaker 3: next day, and they would head east into the wooded
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Speaker 3: valley where Pumpkin Run Creek winds through the area. With
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Speaker 3: no luck, the searches returned the following day, and this
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Speaker 3: time across the water about two hundred yards from the
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Speaker 3: Maple home, inside the stone wall of an old distillery building,
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Speaker 3: someone looked under a pile of branches to find the
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Speaker 3: body of Deborah. Though it was theorized someone had moved
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Speaker 3: the body overnight, it would eventually be determined that her
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Speaker 3: body was there the whole time. Someone had placed a
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Speaker 3: pillowcase over the young girl's head, sexually assaulted her, and
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Speaker 3: then strangled her with a piece of twine so viciously
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Speaker 3: it had broken her larynx. The brutal murder shocked Rice's
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Speaker 3: landing to its core, with articles noting the area changed
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Speaker 3: from that day on. In an area so small it
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Speaker 3: didn't even have its own post office, children were terrified
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Speaker 3: to sleep alone. Kentucky Baptist minister and self proclaimed psychic
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Speaker 3: David hoy offered his assistance on the case in April
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Speaker 3: the following year, and after investigating, stated he had given
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Speaker 3: the killer's name to police, but if that is so,
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Speaker 3: no one would ever be arrested. Since the nineteen thirties,
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Speaker 3: the population of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, had been declining, dipping below
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Speaker 3: ten thousand and at the end of the seventies for
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Speaker 3: this northern borough of Pittsburgh. Three years after the deab
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Speaker 3: Maker murder. It was the early morning hours of September thirteenth,
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, when the morning Star family received a
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Speaker 3: phone call from their grandmother, who believed another one of
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Speaker 3: her sons had gotten into a car accident in front
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Speaker 3: of her home. Rushing out of their apartment at fifteen
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Speaker 3: fourteen Church Street, they left their daughter, twelve year old
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Speaker 3: Heidi Morning Star, telling her to keep the door locked
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Speaker 3: and not answer it for anyone. But after they learned
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Speaker 3: Heidie's grandmother was mistaken and they returned home. Two hours later,
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Speaker 3: her parents discovered their front door was left open and
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Speaker 3: someone had stood on a cart to get high enough
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Speaker 3: to open a way window and gain access. Heidi was missing,
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Speaker 3: but her younger brother was still fast asleep and had
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Speaker 3: heard nothing. It was two days later, four miles south
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Speaker 3: in the upper class neighborhood of Edgeworth, when trash collectors
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Speaker 3: turn onto Shield's Lane, just two hundred and seventy some
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Speaker 3: feet down on the front lawn of the home of
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Speaker 3: David Zug, they noticed something about three or four feet
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Speaker 3: past at what that time was tall hedges. It was
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Speaker 3: Heidi morning Star. Someone had bound her hands behind her back,
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Speaker 3: shoved multiple handkerchiefs down her throat before gagging her and
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Speaker 3: finally strangling her to death. As they each occurred in
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Speaker 3: different outer burrows of Pittsburgh over five years, it would
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Speaker 3: take two or more heinous crimes before the public would
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Speaker 3: take notice that young women were dying in remarkably similar ways. However,
9:02
Speaker 3: it was less than two months after Heidi's murder that
9:05
Speaker 3: the next crime occurred. Penhills lies to the east of Pittsburgh,
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Speaker 3: just four miles south from where Rita Cher lived. Barbara
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Speaker 3: Lewis had turned thirty just a few days before November nineteenth,
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, when she left her parents home at
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Speaker 3: four to twenty five Long Road to go to work.
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Speaker 3: Barbara would walk up the block to the bus stop
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Speaker 3: where Long intersects with Paris and Joan Drives just before
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Speaker 3: six thirty am. By the time the bus would arrive,
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Speaker 3: Barbara had disappeared. No one even had a chance to
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Speaker 3: realize she was missing when three hours later, a mile
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Speaker 3: down the road, a cleaning woman at the Blackridge Civic
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Speaker 3: Association would exit out the rear of the building to
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Speaker 3: take some trash to the dumpster in the barking lot.
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Speaker 3: When she opened the receptacle, she saw something that would
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Speaker 3: haunt her forever. The partially nude body of Barbara Lewis
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Speaker 3: had been tossed inside, Her hands had been tied behind
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Speaker 3: her back, and a paper gauze had been violently stuffed
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Speaker 3: into her nose and mouth before she too had been strangled.
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Speaker 3: Six days later, another couple miles down the road, children
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Speaker 3: playing in the woods behind Woodlawn Cemetery in Wilkinsburg would
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Speaker 3: discover Barbara's coat, blouse, and purse. While Barbara would never
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Speaker 3: be officially counted as a victim of the Washington Strangler,
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Speaker 3: it was that very same day down in Washington that
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Speaker 3: the serial killer would claim another life. Just one day
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Speaker 3: before Thanksgiving, Susan Rush would clock out of her job
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Speaker 3: at Murphy mar inside the Washington Mall. The twenty one
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Speaker 3: year old was described by our family as a deeply
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Speaker 3: religious woman who had never been on a date. She
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Speaker 3: had just earned her beautitian license and was hoping to
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Speaker 3: get a job in that career feel when she went missing.
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Speaker 3: Susan's family would begin searching for her on their own,
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Speaker 3: and the next morning, one of her brothers would spot
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Speaker 3: her car about a quarter of a mile away from
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Speaker 3: the mall, near the beginning of North Avenue. Inside the trunk,
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Speaker 3: he found the body of his sister after being sexually assaulted.
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Speaker 3: Susan had been strangled with what was believed to be
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Speaker 3: a shoe string so tightly that her larynx was fractured.
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Speaker 3: Her bron canties were left on the front seat, while
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Speaker 3: her clothing had been put back on, but was inside out.
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Speaker 3: A detective would be assigned to look at the Barbara
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Speaker 3: Lewis murder to see if there was any connection, but
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Speaker 3: less than a month later, they stated the murders were unrelated,
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Speaker 3: as was the strangulation of sixteen year old Donna Murphy
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Speaker 3: one month later, when they arrested Donna's fifteen year old
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Speaker 3: neighbor after he reported he discovered the girl's body in
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Speaker 3: the woods behind Heron Hill Middle School in pittsbe located
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Speaker 3: nineteen miles up river from Ambridge. Beaver Falls, had also
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Speaker 3: been losing its population at a similar rate, with the
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Speaker 3: nineteen eighty census recording just over twelve thousand, five hundred
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Speaker 3: residents in the hills. To the west of the city,
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Speaker 3: Twelfth Avenue was and still is, a quiet residential street
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Speaker 3: separated by the railway from the main roads. It was
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Speaker 3: on this street that five year old Stephanie Ann Bowler
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Speaker 3: would leave her house to walk a block and a
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Speaker 3: half up to visit a friend on Saturday, January eighth,
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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven, But as several of that family's children
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Speaker 3: had a flu, their mother turned the child away so
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Speaker 3: she would not catch the bug as well, and watched
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Speaker 3: as she would again the short walk back home. Typically,
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Speaker 3: Stephanie would bring Genghis, the family dog, with her, but
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Speaker 3: that day she had chosen to walk alone. Her parents
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Speaker 3: were divorced, so was not until that night, when her
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Speaker 3: mother returned home from work that she found her daughter missing.
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Speaker 3: The Army Reserve would join with local police to form
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Speaker 3: a search party, going under the premise that either a
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Speaker 3: transient or someone she knew had picked her up off
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Speaker 3: the street. As days turned into weeks, her family would
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Speaker 3: remain hopeful that Stephanie was still alive. One day before
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Speaker 3: Valentines that year, twenty miles to the east of Washington,
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Speaker 3: in the small river town of North Charleroi, sixteen year
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Speaker 3: old Mary Jensey would leave her home at five seven
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Speaker 3: four seventh Street to take the bus to a soda
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Speaker 3: shop where she liked to hang out. When she didn't arrive,
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Speaker 3: her friend reported her missing, and her purse would be
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Speaker 3: found on the ground about four miles away in Fallolfield Township.
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Speaker 3: Just over a week later, about two and a half
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Speaker 3: miles southwest of her, a pair of deer hunters were
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Speaker 3: walking along gun Club Road when they spotted something one
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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty feet off the road into a hayfield.
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Speaker 3: Lying amongst her scattered clothing was the frozen, naked body
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Speaker 3: of Mary Gensey. Investigators would state that this would be
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Speaker 3: one of the most brutal murders they had ever seen.
14:23
Speaker 3: After being sexually assaulted, someone would bash her head with
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Speaker 3: what appeared to be a hammer just four hours after
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Speaker 3: she had vanished. An autopsy would show she had been pregnant.
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Speaker 3: Just below the Pittsburgh International Airport, to the west of
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Speaker 3: Pittsburgh itself is the rural area of Imperial. It was
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Speaker 3: Saint Patrick's Day that year March seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 3: when Deborah Capiola left her family's isolated home on Point
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Speaker 3: Park Road to make the nearly mile walk up to
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Speaker 3: her bus stop by the intersection with lincol Highway. Typically,
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Speaker 3: the seventeen year old's brother accompanied her, but today he
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Speaker 3: was home sick. When her mother left for work twenty
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Speaker 3: minutes later, she noticed Debbie's books and nurses smock about
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Speaker 3: seventy five feet from the bus stop, but she wasn't
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Speaker 3: too worried, assuming that Debbie had dropped them in a
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Speaker 3: rush to catch the bus, so she collected them and
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Speaker 3: brought them to the technical school where the girl was
15:24
Speaker 3: taking nursing classes, only to learn that Deborah had not
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Speaker 3: made it there. As a search intensified and prayer meetings
15:33
Speaker 3: were held at the family's church, information about Debbie's home
15:36
Speaker 3: life came out. Reportedly she was unhappy living with her
15:40
Speaker 3: mother and stepfather, and she and her brother wanted to
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Speaker 3: move to her grandparents. But ten days later, what everyone
15:48
Speaker 3: suspected as being a runaway would take a dark turn
15:52
Speaker 3: when her coat, shoes, and purse were found in the
15:55
Speaker 3: woods near an old strip mine in the Sunny Hill
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Speaker 3: Farms area off a Bald Knob Road, three miles from
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Speaker 3: her home. Today that area has been developed extensively, but
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Speaker 3: the body of water that her yellow jacket was pulled
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Speaker 3: from still remains. Police began to drain the pond, expecting
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Speaker 3: to find her body, but the next day two searchers
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Speaker 3: would find Debbie beneath a row of pine trees about
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Speaker 3: two miles away, lying face down, just three hundred feet
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Speaker 3: from the Greater Pittsburgh Gun Club, clothed in just her brawl.
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Speaker 3: One of the girl's jean pant legs had been used
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Speaker 3: to strangle her and was left wrapped around her throat.
16:40
Speaker 3: A composite was released of a man scene speeding along
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Speaker 3: this road recently, along with another composite of a man
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Speaker 3: who attempted to adopt a forty three year old housewife
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Speaker 3: as she was jogging one month prior, and that incident
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Speaker 3: was investigated as being linked. Two months after Capuola's disappearings,
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Speaker 3: eighteen year old Brenda Ritter left her boyfriends to drive
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Speaker 3: back home after they had a dinner day in the
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Speaker 3: Washington Mall on the stormy night of May eighteenth, nineteen
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Speaker 3: seventy seven. Well aware of the recent murders, Brenda's boyfriend
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Speaker 3: and his mother both ensured that her car doors were
17:18
Speaker 3: locked before sending her on her way. She would always
17:22
Speaker 3: phone her family to let them know if she was
17:24
Speaker 3: running late, so when she did not arrive home that night,
17:28
Speaker 3: her parents assumed the storm had knocked the lines out,
17:31
Speaker 3: but when they called her boyfriend the next morning, they
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Speaker 3: learned she had indeed left, and panic set in. That
17:43
Speaker 3: same morning, her abandoned car would be found on Rankin Road,
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Speaker 3: just before the intersection with Zedeker outside of town of
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Speaker 3: eighty four, which was strangely in the opposite direction of
17:54
Speaker 3: her own home. Her car door window was rolled halfway down,
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Speaker 3: and her purse and belongings were scattered on the passenger
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Speaker 3: side seat, but her driver's license and wallet were missing,
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Speaker 3: leading to the speculation that a cop or someone pretending
18:10
Speaker 3: to be one had pulled her over. Just as a
18:16
Speaker 3: search party was being formed, a police helicopter would spot
18:20
Speaker 3: the nude body of Brenda about two hundred yards off
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Speaker 3: Roupe Road on this grassy hill, less than a mile
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Speaker 3: from where her car was found. She was wearing only
18:33
Speaker 3: her socks and shoes, while the rest of her clothes
18:36
Speaker 3: were found fifty feet away. After sexually assaulting her, her
18:41
Speaker 3: killer had used a stick to twist Brenda's underwear around
18:45
Speaker 3: her neck to strangle her. A horse brush would be
18:51
Speaker 3: discovered in the area, but the owner of the property
18:54
Speaker 3: stated it was not his, nor had it been there
18:57
Speaker 3: earlier that week. However, a woman would eventually come forward
19:01
Speaker 3: that she had lost it while driving along the road.
19:05
Speaker 3: A sketch of a man seen hitchhiking in the area
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Speaker 3: the day of the murder would be released, along with
19:11
Speaker 3: the image of a bracelet engraved with the name Jack
19:14
Speaker 3: that had been discovered in the woods about a mile away.
19:19
Speaker 9: Is it a man's bracelet? Yes, it's a man's bracelet.
19:22
Speaker 9: It's a spy Dell bracelet and it has the name
19:25
Speaker 9: of the Jack on it. We've taken this bracelet to
19:28
Speaker 9: the jewelers in the Washington area. They were unable to
19:32
Speaker 9: identify the printing.
19:34
Speaker 1: They say.
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Speaker 9: The unusual thing about it that there's both upper and
19:38
Speaker 9: lower case ladders used on the engraving, and most of
19:43
Speaker 9: the engraving done in this area is all upper case.
19:48
Speaker 3: Well, these were all tenuous close at best. The public
19:51
Speaker 3: was terrified with four women dying in such a short time,
19:54
Speaker 3: and petitions were started pleading that the FBI joined in
19:57
Speaker 3: the search for the killer, which turned into the outright
20:00
Speaker 3: protest after the local district attorney did not reach out.
20:08
Speaker 3: Brenda's former employers would put out a five thousand dollars reward,
20:12
Speaker 3: while Deborah Capiola's friends and family would raise seventy five
20:16
Speaker 3: hundred of their own money for a reward. Bell Telephone
20:21
Speaker 3: Company reported that their had bended influx of obscene phone
20:24
Speaker 3: calls reported in the wake of the media, with people
20:28
Speaker 3: calling telling women that they were next or other things,
20:31
Speaker 3: leading many phones to be tapped for evidence. Police stated
20:35
Speaker 3: a twenty person task force was working on the Ritter, Capiola,
20:39
Speaker 3: Genzy and Rush murders. While they were hesitant to link
20:44
Speaker 3: those murders, it was learned that Brenda's sister worked at
20:47
Speaker 3: the Murphy Department store in the mall with Susan Rush,
20:51
Speaker 3: and Brenda's carr was previously owned by that same sister.
20:55
Speaker 7: We're not rolling it out, but we just wouldn't say
20:58
Speaker 7: as just like you, we wouldn't state that, uh they're
21:02
Speaker 7: directly lengthd Whether they or not, we don't know. There's
21:06
Speaker 7: nothing to show us that they are. Three were strangled
21:10
Speaker 7: out of the four, all all were uh sexually assaulted.
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Speaker 6: We have no concrete evidence which ties in four or
21:21
Speaker 6: five which have taken place in this county and the
21:23
Speaker 6: surrounding area. Uh, it could go either way at this
21:27
Speaker 6: point we were talking earlier. I'm not convinced in either
21:31
Speaker 6: way right now. We hope evidence in the next day
21:35
Speaker 6: or so, maybe the next few hours would uh change
21:38
Speaker 6: that give some lead lead us to a specific person
21:43
Speaker 6: that's not forthcoming this present time. And I have you know,
21:46
Speaker 6: I can't give you any more.
21:47
Speaker 10: So I've checked and other police officials say that there's
21:50
Speaker 10: no need to panic, but the concern is evident among
21:53
Speaker 10: some Washington County residents. It's been reported applications for gun
21:57
Speaker 10: permits and increased, and parents are walking their children too
22:00
Speaker 10: from bus stops. But Zavchek and the other police officers
22:03
Speaker 10: say they're optimistic that the beefed up investigation will net results.
22:07
Speaker 10: Her news friend, I'm andreing a weiskerber.
22:11
Speaker 3: As the panic mounted in Washington County. Less than a
22:14
Speaker 3: month after Brenda's murder, another crime would occur about twenty
22:17
Speaker 3: miles west near Wheeling, West Virginia. It would soon be
22:21
Speaker 3: proven the killer had moved to a new state after
22:30
Speaker 3: completing her master's degree in theology. Twenty six year old ROBERTA.
22:34
Speaker 3: Elamb had moved to Ogle Bay Park, West Virginia to
22:37
Speaker 3: enter into the novitiate to become a nun. Sister Robin,
22:42
Speaker 3: as she was known, was well liked by all. She
22:45
Speaker 3: loved jogging and writing poetry. She drove around an orange
22:49
Speaker 3: sports car, and, despite it being forbidden, wanted to become
22:52
Speaker 3: a priest. She had just moved into the motherhouse at
22:57
Speaker 3: the Sisters of Saint Joseph to begin the process of
23:00
Speaker 3: becoming a nun, when less than two weeks later, on
23:03
Speaker 3: June thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven, she left the building to
23:06
Speaker 3: sit on a bench overlooking the convent at one hundred
23:09
Speaker 3: yards away, in the middle of an eight day silent retreat.
23:18
Speaker 3: Roberta was only allowed to leave the building to prey,
23:21
Speaker 3: which is what she had been planning to do this morning.
23:28
Speaker 3: A little less than four hours later, a caretaker would
23:31
Speaker 3: notice the bench had been overturned and followed it thirty
23:34
Speaker 3: feet down to discover sister Robin's body. A trail of
23:42
Speaker 3: broken grass made police believe her killer had snuck up
23:46
Speaker 3: behind her as she sat on the bench, then dragged
23:49
Speaker 3: her over a fence where they were out of sight
23:51
Speaker 3: for both the convent and the next door golf course.
23:56
Speaker 3: Her body showed no signs of defensive wounds, and she
24:00
Speaker 3: had been strangled by hand face to face. Her shirt
24:04
Speaker 3: had been ripped down a skeedule. A man scene walking
24:11
Speaker 3: up to the convent grounds right before the murder was released.
24:15
Speaker 3: His car was also witnessed sitting around outside the convent
24:18
Speaker 3: a few days prior, and it was noted that several
24:21
Speaker 3: religious bumper stickers and pamphlets were inside the vehicle. He's
24:25
Speaker 3: never been identified. Likewise, a group of salvage workers were
24:31
Speaker 3: interviewed because they had made crude remarks for Roberta and
24:33
Speaker 3: other nuns a few days prior, but they were all
24:36
Speaker 3: declared innocent. A local man named John Shoplack, who had
24:40
Speaker 3: made incriminating comments, was also eliminated via blood found at
24:44
Speaker 3: the crime scene.
24:45
Speaker 10: But Rendar says that the case is far from being
24:47
Speaker 10: at a standstill. The investigation, he says, has taken on direction.
24:51
Speaker 10: The number of men working on the case has been
24:53
Speaker 10: increased to twenty five, and there are new leads coming
24:56
Speaker 10: in every day from citizens. For newsprint, I'm Andrea Weis.
25:00
Speaker 3: Gerber police would investigate for links between the Washington murders,
25:05
Speaker 3: and despite publicly stating they did not believe there could
25:08
Speaker 3: be any, still continue to work with the Pennsylvania police.
25:11
Speaker 8: A connection between the sister Roberta Elam rape murder and
25:16
Speaker 8: four similar cases since last November in Washington County, Pennsylvania
25:20
Speaker 8: still has not been ruled out, and authority say they
25:23
Speaker 8: are depending on the public conscience to help them out
25:26
Speaker 8: in this investigation.
25:31
Speaker 3: This is Brady Run Park in Beaver Falls, just five
25:35
Speaker 3: miles south from where Stephanie Boeller went missing in January
25:38
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six. Some ten months later, on November sixth,
25:45
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven, a pair of boys would head off
25:48
Speaker 3: the trail to search for some bottles and would inadvertently
25:52
Speaker 3: solve a mystery. As they were walking, they discovered a
26:02
Speaker 3: boot lying on the ground. Next, they found a coat
26:06
Speaker 3: lying close by. Something white was protruding from the arm
26:11
Speaker 3: of that coat. It was a bone. Police would find
26:17
Speaker 3: the rest of the bones, identified as Stephanie Bohler, scattered
26:20
Speaker 3: in close proximity, and an autopsy would reveal she had
26:24
Speaker 3: died from a heavy blow that would crush her skull.
26:30
Speaker 3: It was believed she had been killed elsewhere and then
26:32
Speaker 3: taken into the woods and dumped. Less than three weeks
26:42
Speaker 3: after the discovery of that, another young girl would go missing.
26:48
Speaker 3: On the anniversary of Susan Rush's murder. The day before
26:51
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving nineteen seventy eight, six year old Beth Barr's class
26:55
Speaker 3: would be let out an hour early from the Johnston
26:57
Speaker 3: Elementary School in the Wilfinsburg neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Her walk
27:03
Speaker 3: home was a short one, heading behind the school down
27:06
Speaker 3: Ardmore Boulevard on a Marrow boomer and then on a
27:09
Speaker 3: Treymoor Avenue. It was here that someone a report seeing
27:16
Speaker 3: a man carrying a girl matching Beth's description and putting
27:19
Speaker 3: her into his car. The description of that man and
27:24
Speaker 3: his vehicle would then match that of a man who
27:27
Speaker 3: had accost a woman standing at the bus stop in
27:29
Speaker 3: front of what was then in automotive repair shop just
27:32
Speaker 3: across the street from the school. After pulling into this
27:37
Speaker 3: parking lot, he made a crude comment, to which she
27:39
Speaker 3: replied she would call the police, causing him to do
27:42
Speaker 3: a U turn and drive off. She still decided to
27:46
Speaker 3: write the car's license plate number down. That same car
27:49
Speaker 3: would be the one seeing of adducting Beth. A similar
27:55
Speaker 3: car would be traced down belonging to a rental agency,
27:58
Speaker 3: but had no records of being used on the day
28:00
Speaker 3: of the abduction. In December the following year, police found
28:06
Speaker 3: yet another car matching the description abandoned in the Oakland
28:09
Speaker 3: neighborhood of Pittsburgh, inside or sunglasses and axe handle, empty
28:15
Speaker 3: beer cans, and a large amount of gravel. The car
28:20
Speaker 3: would be dismissed as related, but the very next day
28:24
Speaker 3: a salesman would be arrested for Beth's murder. He would
28:31
Speaker 3: be released just a few days later, after he provided
28:34
Speaker 3: a solid alibi for being in Johnstown at the time
28:37
Speaker 3: of the abduction. Two weeks later, two girls would report
28:42
Speaker 3: that a man matching the composite had attempted to abduct
28:45
Speaker 3: them in north Swickley Township before a neighbor intervened. It
28:55
Speaker 3: was March twenty ninth, nineteen seventy nine, when a man
28:58
Speaker 3: walking his dog in the woods across from the Duck
29:01
Speaker 3: Pond area of Wrestling Memorial Park in Monroauville would stumble
29:05
Speaker 3: an Abeth's skeleton. The area had been searched extensively following
29:15
Speaker 3: her abduction, as the car rental was located nearby. In
29:20
Speaker 3: Autousie would conclude she had been stabbed several times in
29:23
Speaker 3: the chest before being covered with brush. Two months later,
29:30
Speaker 3: just outside of Washington, another woman would be strangled. Police
29:38
Speaker 3: responded to a wellness check at the small upper apartment
29:42
Speaker 3: of twenty four year old Margie Marie Fitch, where they
29:45
Speaker 3: found her beaten and strangled body. She had last been
29:50
Speaker 3: seen leaving her factory job the morning prior. Her killer
29:54
Speaker 3: had busted a window in the back to enter, smashed
29:57
Speaker 3: her over the head with a soda bottle, and then
29:59
Speaker 3: strang her with his bare hands on the living room
30:02
Speaker 3: floor this time. In a matter of weeks, police had
30:06
Speaker 3: an arrest. Twenty two year old Floyd Philby lived just
30:11
Speaker 3: a mile away and was known to have frequently bothered
30:14
Speaker 3: the woman. She would be given a life sentence for
30:17
Speaker 3: the murder. In October that year, three men would also
30:22
Speaker 3: be arrested for the nineteen seventy six murder of Heidi
30:25
Speaker 3: morning Star, a fifteen year old girl at the time
30:29
Speaker 3: of the crime, had come forward saying that she had
30:32
Speaker 3: helped aduct Heidie as part of retaliation for someone in
30:35
Speaker 3: the family owing the men money. The group then drove
30:40
Speaker 3: to Brady's Run Park and camped out before taking her
30:43
Speaker 3: to a nearby parking lot and finally strangling her with
30:46
Speaker 3: a nylon stocking. At the trial, her testimony would be
30:52
Speaker 3: disputed as by her own admission she had taken multiple
30:55
Speaker 3: drugs throughout the time of the kidnapping, as well as
30:58
Speaker 3: of being learned that this story had come out during
31:00
Speaker 3: a hypnotism session. After a very lengthy case, even going
31:06
Speaker 3: to the Supreme Court for a ruling on hypnotism, the
31:09
Speaker 3: charges will be dropped after her testimony was ruled in
31:12
Speaker 3: admissible as the county entered the nineteen eighties, the panic
31:17
Speaker 3: around western Pennsylvania subsided. Had the killer stopped, had he
31:23
Speaker 3: been caught, or had police simply stopped looking for links.
31:31
Speaker 3: About thirty miles north of Pittsburgh lies the small city
31:34
Speaker 3: of Xillianople. It was September twenty second, nineteen eighty one,
31:40
Speaker 3: when sixteen year old Michelle Riedenbach will leave her after
31:43
Speaker 3: school job at this building, which at that time was
31:46
Speaker 3: mel Den's Appliances, to walk a few blocks cell to
31:50
Speaker 3: the shop and safe. Though she had felt sick that morning,
31:59
Speaker 3: senior pictures were scheduled at her high school, so Michelle
32:02
Speaker 3: got dressed and headed in after school at Meldon, she
32:08
Speaker 3: had phoned a coworker who called out sick and asked
32:10
Speaker 3: how she was feeling. Before Michelle said she was going
32:13
Speaker 3: to head one block southwest to what at that time
32:16
Speaker 3: was the shop in Save Pharmacy to make up some
32:19
Speaker 3: coal medicine for herself. Just twenty five minutes later, Michelle's
32:25
Speaker 3: mother stopped in to ask if she would like to
32:27
Speaker 3: come visit with her sister, who was in the hospital
32:30
Speaker 3: at a time after she suffered a stroke some months before.
32:36
Speaker 3: Though she was known to be an avid smoker. Michelle
32:38
Speaker 3: had not taken her purse or cigarettes with her, intending
32:42
Speaker 3: to head right back from the store, which she was
32:44
Speaker 3: confirmed to have arrived too. However, on her walk back,
32:49
Speaker 3: after she was reported by her boss seen speaking of
32:51
Speaker 3: someone in a red car in the parking lot, she vanished.
32:58
Speaker 3: One month later, twenty five miles to the south, just
33:01
Speaker 3: below Pittsburgh. It was October twenty sixth, nineteen eighty one
33:05
Speaker 3: when fifteen year old Christine Gunther left her home to
33:08
Speaker 3: walk to the bus stop in front of this gas
33:10
Speaker 3: station across from Donaldson's Crossroads Plaza in McMurray, a small
33:14
Speaker 3: city about halfway between Pittsburgh and Washington. Christine had plans
33:20
Speaker 3: to attend a Steelers game with her father that night,
33:23
Speaker 3: and when she had him return home in time, they
33:25
Speaker 3: fell on the police. This time, it did not take
33:32
Speaker 3: long to learn what happened to Christine. Five days later,
33:37
Speaker 3: on Halloween, a hunter was coming to this gravel area
33:40
Speaker 3: off Cecil Sturgeon Road, just over the Washington County line
33:44
Speaker 3: and just south of the airport. Only twenty feet into
33:50
Speaker 3: the brush was the partially covered body of Christine. Unlike
33:58
Speaker 3: the previous decades murderers where it here the women were
34:00
Speaker 3: murdered shortly after their abductions. Christine had been held captive
34:04
Speaker 3: for around three days before she was hit on the
34:07
Speaker 3: head with an axe so violently that the blade sunk
34:10
Speaker 3: into her skull. Her killer then brought her fully clothed
34:16
Speaker 3: here and threw leaves over her corpse at some point
34:19
Speaker 3: less than twenty four hours before she was discovered. A
34:25
Speaker 3: ward fund would be started, just as the money from
34:28
Speaker 3: Susan Rush's murder five years prior was being returned after
34:31
Speaker 3: her case had gone cold. It was just five days
34:36
Speaker 3: after Christine was found that the next schoolgirl would go missing,
34:44
Speaker 3: about thirteen miles directly east of McMurray as the small
34:48
Speaker 3: riverside city of Clareton. It is here on Van Kirk
34:53
Speaker 3: Street where fourteen year old Tony McNatt left her house
34:56
Speaker 3: on November fifth, nineteen eighty one, to walk to her
34:59
Speaker 3: high school's pep rally. She would last be spotted about
35:05
Speaker 3: half a mile north on this section of Miller Street
35:08
Speaker 3: by her own mother, who worked at a bar formerly
35:11
Speaker 3: located here.
35:13
Speaker 8: Here's my body.
35:14
Speaker 6: No nothing, well, I mean we had we were clueless.
35:17
Speaker 8: It's like she just discovered off the place of arth
35:19
Speaker 8: and nobody just disappears.
35:21
Speaker 3: Perhaps optimistically, similarities to Michelle Riadenbach's disappearance were noted far
35:27
Speaker 3: more than Christine Gunther's murder, and a massive search around
35:31
Speaker 3: Clareton was conducted, but Tony was not found. A year later,
35:40
Speaker 3: though investigators would learn an ominous bit of information that
35:44
Speaker 3: her mother had withheld at the time. When she had
35:48
Speaker 3: returned home from work that night, the woman saw the
35:51
Speaker 3: clothes Tony was wearing as she passed by the bar
35:54
Speaker 3: hanging in the basement, soaking wet. Tony's father was known
36:00
Speaker 3: to be abusive towards his children, and the girl had
36:02
Speaker 3: previously made statements that she wanted to run away. Sam
36:08
Speaker 3: would be given a polygraph test, which he reportedly failed. However,
36:12
Speaker 3: he was never charged, and both Tony's parents have since
36:15
Speaker 3: passed away, perhaps taking the truth of where their daughter
36:19
Speaker 3: is to their grave. As with the previous string of murders,
36:29
Speaker 3: they seemed to stop as suddenly as they started. E
36:35
Speaker 3: t and Thriller would sweep across the nation, while cabbage
36:38
Speaker 3: patch kids became holiday sensation. A bombing in Beirut would
36:43
Speaker 3: kill two hundred four US military personnel, while the Soviet
36:47
Speaker 3: Union would shoot down Korean Airlines Flight Double O seven
36:50
Speaker 3: when it mistakenly entered Soviet airspace. The first update any
36:57
Speaker 3: of these cases would come in nineteen eighty four, when
37:00
Speaker 3: police would announce they had made an arrest in Rita
37:02
Speaker 3: Cheret's nineteen seventy one murder. Joseph Marine Junior had been
37:08
Speaker 3: fifteen at the time and lived in the same neighborhood.
37:13
Speaker 3: Rita's family stated they knew the two children had gotten
37:16
Speaker 3: into arguments in the past, but recently. After rereading statements
37:20
Speaker 3: from Joseph at the time, police would travel down to Louisiana,
37:24
Speaker 3: where Joseph was in jail for two attempted assault on women. There,
37:29
Speaker 3: he would be extra guided back to Pennsylvania, and after
37:32
Speaker 3: several years delays, the case would eventually be overturned when
37:36
Speaker 3: it was learned he had not been read his miranda
37:38
Speaker 3: rights at the time of the interview. In the ensuing decades,
37:44
Speaker 3: cases would be periodically reopened and close with little findings,
37:48
Speaker 3: until DNA evidence would get the first hit in the
37:51
Speaker 3: year two thousand, seamen found on Deborah Capiola's genes back
37:57
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy seven would get a hit to a
37:59
Speaker 3: man named David Kennedy at the time. On the murders,
38:05
Speaker 3: witnesses saw a maroon Oldsmobile speeding in the area of
38:08
Speaker 3: Deborah's abduction. The car matched one owned by David, who
38:13
Speaker 3: was twenty at the time and told his coworkers he
38:15
Speaker 3: was late that day because his car had gotten a
38:17
Speaker 3: flat tire. In two thousand and one, David Kennedy would
38:23
Speaker 3: receive a life sentence for just Deborah Capiola's murder. DNA
38:31
Speaker 3: evidence found on Susan Rush and ROBERTA. Elam would match
38:35
Speaker 3: to the same unknown person, but it was not David Kennedy.
38:41
Speaker 3: In twenty ten, DNA evidence found on Mary Jenz would
38:45
Speaker 3: match her boyfriend at the time, Robert Irwin, and that
38:49
Speaker 3: of another man, David Devali, though not everyone was convinced
38:54
Speaker 3: of their guilt.
38:56
Speaker 4: Well the murder happened back in nineteen seventy seven. You're
38:58
Speaker 4: in the Charleroi area when a pregnant sixteen year old
39:01
Speaker 4: was murdered, and now five decades later, both the family
39:05
Speaker 4: of the man who's in jail for her murder and
39:08
Speaker 4: some of the victim's family both say he's innocent.
39:11
Speaker 3: It's hard every day.
39:14
Speaker 4: Cindy Erwin says her brother Robert is in jail for
39:18
Speaker 4: something he didn't do. His sixteen year old girlfriend, Mary Gensey,
39:21
Speaker 4: was killed in nineteen seventy seven, brutally beaten to death
39:25
Speaker 4: while pregnant with his child at the time, but it
39:28
Speaker 4: wasn't until twenty ten that DNA evidence emerged in both
39:32
Speaker 4: Erwin and a man named David Devali were arrested. Erwin
39:35
Speaker 4: was convicted in twenty eleven, sentenced to a minimum of
39:38
Speaker 4: ten years in prison.
39:39
Speaker 5: We want the truth to comral.
39:42
Speaker 4: It was wrongfully convicted, of course. It's one thing that
39:45
Speaker 4: Erwin's own sisters believe he's innocent. Another though, that Mary
39:49
Speaker 4: Gensey's own brother does too.
39:52
Speaker 3: I know he's innocent.
39:53
Speaker 6: Here is enough other us against him.
39:56
Speaker 4: Gensey and the Irwin sisters also question the integrity of
39:59
Speaker 4: the judge who convicted Robert Irwin. Judge Paul Pozanski himself
40:04
Speaker 4: was later convicted of stealing and using cocaine that was
40:07
Speaker 4: criminal evidence. Pazansky convicted Erwin during the time of his
40:11
Speaker 4: cocaine theft in use. The Irwin family's attorney filed a
40:15
Speaker 4: petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act, a type of appeal.
40:19
Speaker 4: Next the DA has to respond, and the new judge
40:21
Speaker 4: will schedule an evidentiary hearing and then make a ruling.
40:25
Speaker 4: If he grants the petition, the conviction against Robert Erwin
40:29
Speaker 4: is thrown.
40:29
Speaker 3: Out, while the appeal would be denied. Robert Irwin would
40:33
Speaker 3: be quietly released from prison. In twenty twenty, David Devali
40:37
Speaker 3: would receive just a few years jail time for stating
40:40
Speaker 3: he witnessed Irwin beat his girlfriend to death, while Erwin
40:44
Speaker 3: insisted it was Devali who killed her. In twenty twenty one,
40:50
Speaker 3: after airing a story on beth Barr's cold case, an
40:53
Speaker 3: anonymous letter arrived to police.
40:55
Speaker 5: Anight in an unsolved murder case dating back decades. We
40:59
Speaker 5: told you the deivating story of the abduction and murder
41:02
Speaker 5: of six year old beth Lin Barr last year. After
41:05
Speaker 5: our story aired, we heard from many of you.
41:08
Speaker 3: Yes we did, and police got an anonymous letter lisappointing
41:11
Speaker 3: the finger at a possible suspect.
41:13
Speaker 1: A four page handwritten letter suggests that a deceased former
41:17
Speaker 1: police officer may have abducted and murdered six year old
41:19
Speaker 1: Bethln Barr. She vanished the day before Thanksgiving nineteen seventy seven.
41:24
Speaker 1: The anonymous author writing quote, in nineteen seventy seven, I
41:28
Speaker 1: was one of many who went to search for this beautiful,
41:30
Speaker 1: innocent little girl. This case has affected me my entire
41:33
Speaker 1: adult life. She goes on to say she knows Beth's
41:36
Speaker 1: parents and then poses this question. I'm wondering and have been,
41:40
Speaker 1: if someone is deceased yet worked as a police officer,
41:43
Speaker 1: if perhaps their fingerprints DNA could possibly help to solve
41:46
Speaker 1: this horrendous, heartbreaking case, so that Best's soul, spirit and
41:50
Speaker 1: Charlie and Donna could finally have closure. I feel so
41:53
Speaker 1: terrible at even writing and sending this to you.
41:56
Speaker 3: I've read this letter many times.
41:57
Speaker 1: Bobby Pain is a retired Alleghany County detect who worked
42:00
Speaker 1: the case for years. He's now the chief in Edgewood.
42:03
Speaker 1: He says the officer in question was never a suspect,
42:06
Speaker 1: and he says the letter fails to.
42:08
Speaker 3: Offer any real proof.
42:09
Speaker 1: While the author of this letter, who says she was
42:11
Speaker 1: a teenager at the time, raises some facts about the case,
42:14
Speaker 1: she then goes off on some tangents describing strange interactions
42:18
Speaker 1: with that police officer and how she loved him. She
42:21
Speaker 1: ends the letter writing quote, I'm not ending this by
42:24
Speaker 1: signing my name. I will come forward if this is
42:27
Speaker 1: ever proven. I vowed years ago that I will not
42:30
Speaker 1: stop when it comes to Bethlyn Barr, and after seeing
42:33
Speaker 1: Donna Bar on the news last night, I knew I
42:35
Speaker 1: had to reach out to you. Please take me seriously.
42:38
Speaker 1: Donna Barr still doesn't know who wrote the letter. Meanwhile,
42:41
Speaker 1: Chief Pain is urging the author to come forward.
42:44
Speaker 9: As it stands right now, unless this woman is wanting
42:46
Speaker 9: to come forward and sit down face to face and
42:49
Speaker 9: not have an interview but an interrogation, I don't see
42:52
Speaker 9: any value in that letter.
42:53
Speaker 3: There's no evidentiary value about you are. If there is
42:59
Speaker 3: any truth these letters, it has never been stated. A
43:06
Speaker 3: police officer or someone impersonating one was suspected at the
43:09
Speaker 3: time of the murders. David Kennedy would be intensely looked
43:15
Speaker 3: at in relation to the rest of the cases, but
43:17
Speaker 3: no links could ever be found. In a time period
43:22
Speaker 3: when it was all too frighteningly easy to abduct children,
43:26
Speaker 3: we know for a fact that at least one serial
43:28
Speaker 3: killer was prowl in western Pennsylvania for young women, and
43:32
Speaker 3: many believe that two or more others were operating in
43:35
Speaker 3: the region. At the same time, DNA evidence in Deborah
43:41
Speaker 3: Makeles and several other of these cases has been entered
43:44
Speaker 3: in the national database, but as yet no matches have
43:48
Speaker 3: ever been announced. In time, future developments may have success,
43:56
Speaker 3: but as the years go on, justice for the murdered
43:59
Speaker 3: women of Walking Shington County, Pennsylvania gross colder.
44:13
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
44:42
Speaker 2: yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah now now now now.
45:14
Speaker 7: Now now
45:19
Speaker 2: Now