Search Captions & Ask AI

Sleep in Peace /// Part 2 /// 740

February 28, 2024 / 50:26

This episode of True Crime Garage covers the murders of Joan Berghard and Charlotte Schmoyer, as well as a series of violent attacks in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the early 1990s. The hosts, Nick and Captain, discuss the details of the crimes, the investigation, and the eventual arrest of Harvey Robinson.

Joan Berghard was murdered in her apartment in August 1992, while Charlotte Schmoyer was killed in June 1993 during her newspaper route. The hosts detail the similarities and differences in the attacks, including the methods used and the proximity of the crime scenes.

Following these murders, there were multiple violent incidents in the same neighborhood, including the attempted murder of a five-year-old girl and the murder of Jessica Fortney in July 1993. The hosts highlight the police response and the community's fear as the investigation unfolded.

Ultimately, the police set a trap for the suspect, leading to the arrest of Harvey Robinson, who was linked to the murders and assaults through DNA evidence. The episode discusses the legal proceedings that followed and the impact of these crimes on the victims' families and the community.

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on the investigation's thoroughness and the importance of community safety in the wake of such violent crimes.

TLDR

The episode discusses the murders of Joan Berghard and Charlotte Schmoyer, and the investigation leading to Harvey Robinson's arrest in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Episode

50:26
00:00:00
you've probably heard that when you're traveling to a different country the locals truly appreciate it when you at
00:00:04
least try to speak their language with Rosetta Stone you can do even better by becoming proficient in any of 25
00:00:11
different languages for a limited time Rosetta Stone gives you access to all 25 At Once by offering a lifetime
00:00:17
membership for 50% off that's not annually that's a one-time payment so visit rosettastone.com now and save
00:00:28
50% [Music] [Music] n welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:10
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that has decided to devote the rest of his time to living
00:01:17
out every single Sublime song Here is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and good to see
00:01:24
you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend today ladies and gents we are still
00:01:35
sipping on what some consider to be the original craft beer Yingling traditional
00:01:41
logger a beer that at one time we could not purchase here in Ohio so if you were
00:01:46
traveling by means of car truck or ban the van one would stock up and bring some back home ABV
00:01:56
4.5% garage grade three out of five bottle caps and let's give some thanks and praise to our friends that helped us
00:02:04
out with this week's beer run first up shout out to Hillary and cordelane Idaho and last but certainly not least we have
00:02:12
a double fisted cheers that goes out to Charlotte and lahy listening over the pond they say in England everyone we
00:02:21
mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer fund and for that we thank you yeah big shout out to Aston Villa
00:02:28
fans all around the world I want to thank you for the BW n be run if you need more True Crime garage for your
00:02:35
earballs check us out on patreon or through the Apple podcast app also if you're listening to off the Record and
00:02:44
you want to hear us discuss a certain thing or you have a question for us email me the captain captain truecrime
00:02:52
garage.com and just put in the the subject off the Record subject or off the Record topic or off the Record
00:03:01
question and we'll make sure we put that on the show and that's enough of the business OTR if you're nasty all right
00:03:10
every gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Laughter] crime here we have these two solved
00:03:30
murders taking place not only close together on the calendar but the added terrifying aspect to these two
00:03:40
crimes is the close proximity from one another it's like .2 miles from one murder scene to the other
00:03:54
victim's front doorstep and the second victim is the delivering newspapers and found about2 mil from her home on her
00:04:04
newspaper route so about a 5-minute walk from where she took off that morning and
00:04:10
again these murders while the police are working under two different ideas here with their investigation are they
00:04:17
connected they're working under the idea that yes they are but also no they are not so running this investigation all
00:04:25
Hands-On deck operation here for the murder of Joan berghard who took place August 99th or 8th 1992 she's found on
00:04:35
the 9th and then Charlotte schmoyer who was found June 9th of 1993 her body was found in a wooded area near the easts
00:04:46
side allent Town Reservoir the way that the two individuals were attacked different we
00:04:53
have stab wounds in one case and then a bludgeon type murder in the other case one taking Place everything taking place
00:05:01
outside Outdoors we assume and then the other attack everything took place inside the victim's apartment this
00:05:08
neighborhood is not going to get really any relief at all because what we're going to have
00:05:16
happen here is June 20th so this is 11 days after the murder that we discussed at
00:05:25
length we have another situation where some one breaks into a home this home is located on North Maxwell Street this is
00:05:35
all in the same neighborhood every one of these locations that we've just mentioned all within walking distance
00:05:42
from one another you could walk there in minutes time someone entered through a window now this is going to be similar
00:05:52
to the Joon berghard case whoever broke into her apartment and killed her they entered through one
00:05:59
of the windows they they pulled out or pushed out the screen to one of the windows and climbed into the first floor
00:06:07
apartment at this home on North Maxwell Street someone broke into the home in the middle of the night so the
00:06:16
way that this is described Captain is that it's believed that there was this was probably in the early morning
00:06:23
hours there is two adults in the home but very sadly there is a 5-year-old girl in the home the 5-year-old is
00:06:31
snatched from her bed carried by her neck thrown into a like laundry basket type of thing carried to another
00:06:41
location where she is assaulted and choked and strangled it's believed that the attacker had every
00:06:51
reason to think that he had successfully killed the victim before fleeing the home now we don't have a lot of details
00:07:01
on this case because you can imagine the sensitivity of the case given the the young age of the victim right we're very
00:07:11
lucky that the victim survived because the victim survived they didn't want to release a
00:07:18
lot of details in this case so that makes a lot of sense now one thing we do know that there was a
00:07:25
burglary robbery type aspect to this assault because the the adult female who was in the house her purse was
00:07:37
found on the lawn of the property and some of the items from her purse had been taken and they didn't recover those
00:07:46
items so it it was hard to determine for police and investigators several different things
00:07:54
one was this a situation where somebody broke in with the intent of intent of stealing money and then for some sick
00:08:01
reason decided to assault a child or was assault all part of the Breakin to begin with right and then you
00:08:11
have to go a step further and go okay well is this connected to the two previous crimes this this is a very
00:08:17
different victimology Joan berghard lived alone this is a home of at least three PE
00:08:24
persons in the home that we know of and Charlotte schmoyer was out alone on her newspaper route June 29th N9 days after
00:08:34
the 5-year-old girl is attacked a home on East Highland Street again this is the same
00:08:43
neighborhood somebody broke into that home now the way that this story goes is pretty
00:08:52
unique because inside this home we have a woman she's in her late 830s she's there alone that night her husband she's
00:09:04
married and lives with her husband but her husband travels on occasion for work he happens to not be home that night so
00:09:11
she's at home sleeping alone in the middle of the night when she says that she she woke up for unknown reasons she
00:09:18
don't know what startled her from her sleep she wake wakes up and she gets like this really uneasy feeling you know
00:09:24
how you just sometimes you just get this this gut feeling right that something is
00:09:28
not right yeah something you feel it in your gut and in your but she says she woke up with this feeling that not only
00:09:37
something not right but she doesn't hear anything doesn't see see anything she just
00:09:43
says I had this mysterious anxiety quote I had a very eerie feeling I felt like somebody was in my
00:09:54
house so she decides this is how freaked out she is she do have a lot of clothing on she's
00:10:02
sleeping she's in her own home it's middle of night right she's not even worried about getting
00:10:09
dressed she thought I'll just wrap myself up in the in the blanket and I'm I'm running outside and I'm going to the
00:10:16
neighbor's house well before she could get out that door somebody grabbed her from
00:10:22
behind and she was attacked she was sexually assaulted she was beaten very badly so one could almost
00:10:32
say that attempted murder 100% attempted murder and let's just go back to this idea that her husband happened not to be
00:10:41
home you have all these crimes happening in this neighborhood somebody is stalking and
00:10:48
monitoring some everybody's actions within this neighborhood this attacker left her for dead and a lot a large
00:10:57
portion of the attack she's she's doing her best to fight back and to fight him off and to try to
00:11:05
escape the best she can do is she this attack it it starts inside when he grabs her while she's trying to flee but it
00:11:14
ends up on the on the lawn and so a large portion of the attack occurred outside in the Pitch Black in the middle
00:11:23
of the night she's left for dead there's again similar situation as we just talked
00:11:29
about from the June 20th attack police they're on the scene paramedics on the scene and everybody sitting there going
00:11:38
there's a very good chance that that whoever did this only left only stopped the attack because they thought they
00:11:46
were successful in killing the victim here again we get lucky no that's not the case our victim here
00:11:56
survives but think about what we've been talking about here forget about the 1992
00:12:02
murder for a second once 93 hits the summer of 93 Charlotte schmoyer is killed June 9th
00:12:10
the attack on North Maxwell Street is June 20th this is June 29th so 11 days between attack number
00:12:20
two and three and then just nine days between three in attack number four and I know
00:12:26
there's some differences in all these attacks but there's also some similarities and if you're law
00:12:34
enforcement you have to start thinking that maybe all of these are connected but it's not going to stop there we're
00:12:40
going to end up with July 14th we have a woman her husband and their four kids they are staying with
00:12:48
the woman's mother this is at 407 North Brian street again same neighborhood the mom and
00:12:59
grandmother is 47-year-old Jessica Fortney now in the early morning hours of July 14th
00:13:08
1993 Jessica's daughter and son-in-law who had been sleeping on the third floor with their four children
00:13:16
they wake up early that morning they find 47-year-old Jessica Fortney dead on the living room couch so they go down to
00:13:26
the first floor and they find her strangled and leg to death on the sofa here you you talked about
00:13:35
similarities we already mentioned the bludgeoning the it was clear that the attacker
00:13:41
entered this property through a window as well climbs in through a window it's almost exactly like the 1992 murder yeah
00:13:50
and is somehow able to attack this woman and but Alo at the same time keep the commotion level down enough to not
00:14:02
alert her daughter and son-in-law and their kids that are sleeping on the third floor right it's very likely that if
00:14:12
these attacks are happening at similar hours of the night or early morning hours that some of these persons that
00:14:20
are being attacked like the woman that says I just woke up in the middle of the night and had this feeling somebody was
00:14:25
in in my house the these persons may be attacked while they're still sleeping that they they never they didn't wake up
00:14:32
before the attack started so now police are dealing with their third homicide investigation in less than one year's
00:14:40
time all in the same neighborhood and while you don't have anything forensically telling you that
00:14:46
these are all connected I don't know how and it doesn't appear that that the detectives were confused it appears to
00:14:54
me that they weren't willing to openly state that that's there's no reason for you to state state that these are 100%
00:15:00
connected until you connect them well and once you make that statement to the public you're pulling the fire
00:15:07
alarm and you're going to have a it's a double-edged sword you want the community to take this seriously you
00:15:16
want the community to be locking their doors not staying alone uh making sure their windows are
00:15:23
locked but you don't want them to be in an allout Panic even though you know chances are these are all connected the
00:15:32
other thing too that and this is not like not so risky but you'll see that this should be a
00:15:39
consideration if you are quick to go to the public and say all of these attacks or all three of these murders are
00:15:47
connected we're looking for a serial killer the problem later becomes if science tells you no they're not all
00:15:55
connected and you make an arrest and you make it let's say you make an arrest in
00:15:59
all of the cases and you end up with two perpetrators or three perpetrators what
00:16:04
you're going to have is if one of those perpetrators has a a smart able defense attorney they're going to present at
00:16:13
court right out the gate uh keep in mind my guy the guy that's standing trial today wasn't always the guy that the
00:16:22
police were looking for the police were on record saying that all these crimes are connected so those other person or
00:16:28
persons that they arrested in those crimes those guys were at one time considered that guy was one time
00:16:34
considered a suspect so you what you're doing is you're already creating doubt you're creating some form of Doubt which
00:16:43
which we've talked about this a hundred times here in the garage what the best detectives
00:16:48
do is you work the case you collect the evidence you follow the evidence all the while being concerned
00:16:58
about about a conviction getting the conviction in trial how can I best drive this investigation to number one find
00:17:07
the guy get my guy but two make sure that I don't do anything or say anything that could later muck this up in the
00:17:16
court we're going to go 4 days later after the murder on July 14th this is going to lead us to July 18th when we
00:17:26
have remember the break-in at East Highland Street that took place June 29th well there's another Breakin at
00:17:36
that same house July 18th this time the woman her her husband is home this night and in fact after the first
00:17:48
attack they they didn't move but they did go to Great Lengths to upgrade the security of their home they changed the
00:17:56
locks they install stalled a security system the woman would say who survived the previous
00:18:05
attack says that she wakes up again she wakes up in the middle of the night again her husband's home this time right
00:18:11
she wakes up looks over at her husband her husband is lying in bed Eyes Wide Open staring at their bedroom door with
00:18:21
the gun that they purchase to keep them safe in his hands on his chest he goes he he looks right at her and he says be
00:18:30
quiet there's someone in the house so he's already aware he's already heard something that has alerted him that
00:18:38
there is someone in the house yeah he had that feeling in his gut and in his butt this would lead
00:18:48
to um something to tip off the Intruder and the the Intruder flees thankfully know no one is attacked that
00:19:00
night oh come on it would have been great if the guy would have opened up the door got a face full of lead well
00:19:08
this is going to be a pivotal point in the investigation and for for this case because what we're going to see
00:19:19
here is that police come up with this idea they go okay well we we are kind of quietly behind the scenes working this
00:19:28
as a lot of these if not all of these situations are 100% connected but here we have a situation where the guy may
00:19:37
have returned to the home now you're starting to think back to the Joan berghard murder aren't you where you go
00:19:43
wait a second she reported a burglary at her apartment 5 days prior to the Breakin that led to her murder right is
00:19:51
that that can't be a coincidence now that doesn't seem like a likely coincidence now now that we have a
00:19:58
situation where This Woman's nearly killed on her lawn and then we have less than a month's time 20 days later the
00:20:07
home is broken into again and this again this is a safe neighborhood this is not
00:20:11
a a neighborhood that was dealing with with a large amount of break-ins prior to what starts happening in June of 1993
00:20:20
it's almost like the attacker realized oh that you know when I broke into that house and I attacked that lady she
00:20:29
didn't die I got to go back could have came back to try to silence a witness to permanently silence
00:20:38
a witness or you know finish the job police with the permission of and I bet you they didn't have to ask too hard
00:20:48
they decide you know what we're going to put an officer in this home the home that was
00:20:53
broken into twice and we want to put an officer in the home of the the 5-year-old girl who survived the attack
00:21:00
on North Maxwell Street good thinking of course both families agree so now you're doing this not just
00:21:08
to keep these people protected but also you're doing it hoping to lead to a potential arrest should this person
00:21:16
enter one of these homes again so I think this is a good plan by law enforcement it's a good plan by the
00:21:23
community the Trap is set to catch this piece of [ __ ] so we have a officer Allentown Police Officer Lewis who was
00:21:33
assigned to stay in the house of the prior adult victim on East Highland Street so you have
00:21:45
the husband and wife that are in their bedroom you have the officer who was positioned thems in the
00:21:56
dark living room right you have the the lights turned off in the living room but
00:22:00
they they purposely left like some windows cracked some you know maybe a window or two open and a light or two on
00:22:08
in the house you want to kind of showcase to your potential per that the the here it is for the
00:22:18
taking come and get it now around this is July 31st okay so the the initial attack the first time that this home was
00:22:29
attacked and The woman Inside was attacked would have taken place June 29th the second attempt at whatever took
00:22:36
place July 18th we're now at July 31st so just about a month later at 1:30 in the morning the police officer
00:22:46
stationed inside of this home officer Lewis spotted a gloved hand coming in one of the
00:22:56
windows then he sees the screen being knocked out and the officer plays it cool he's going to he's going to wait
00:23:07
till he can see a body right he's not going to risk be you get one shot at this after he sees the
00:23:15
gloved hand and then the knocking out of the screen the officer's in the living room
00:23:22
he's he's watching and watching and watching waiting for the Intruder to enter the home
00:23:29
yes and he does he sees somebody crawl into that window and that's when the officer made his presence known he he
00:23:36
stands up gun drawn he's yelling police freeze police freeze instead of surrendering this
00:23:43
Intruder reaches for a gun and at the same time starts to dive to the floor we're going to have a
00:23:55
bit of a a a shootout here not a lot of bullets fired I i' I've heard this described a couple and read
00:24:04
this described a couple different ways it sounds like both the officer and the Intruder shot at each other a couple of
00:24:15
times this led to somehow the Intruder managed to smash out a window this was a window of the back
00:24:24
door and then escapes using that method now here's another thing that the police
00:24:30
got right they are now searching the area they're out in the middle of the night looking for whoever broke into
00:24:38
this home but they're also convinced that there's a high probability that during either the course of the shootout
00:24:46
or him breaking out the window and fleeing that maybe their Intruder was injured in the process so
00:24:55
they notify all the area hospitals to be on high alert for a man seeking treatment for cuts they believe that he
00:25:03
cut himself they're not saying that they found blood at the scene I'm guessing they must have found some blood at that
00:25:09
scene or or fleeing from that scene right and this is where they get their break because just a couple of hours
00:25:20
later they get the call that they are looking for they ended up arresting a man outside of the Lee High Valley
00:25:28
Hospital this man had gone in for treatment can you say dumbass so here's going to be the
00:25:37
icing on the cake so the the individual that they arrest mhm his name is Harvey Robinson and he's he's very he's
00:25:48
surprisingly young he's 19 20 years old at the time they arrest him this is going to
00:25:59
allow them to search his home they go to his home and in his bedroom they find a
00:26:05
gun that is hidden in one of his boots inside of his bedroom closet the interesting thing here is this gun is is
00:26:15
going to secure him as suspect number one right right because he he could claim he
00:26:22
got cut elsewhere he could come up with some kind of story but what he cannot explain way is the gun that he used to
00:26:32
fire back at the officer that he had with him that night was a gun that he stole from one of these homes that we've
00:26:39
discussed so he's in these homes Captain he's assaulting the women attempting to
00:26:45
kill them and he's stealing items and one of the items stolen in the process was this gun eventually it's going to
00:26:54
take some time but eventually they're going to get DNA back and secure evidence from Harvey Robinson that tells them
00:27:06
that he is absolutely the person who killed the first two victims we discussed he killed Joan burkard 29
00:27:15
years old nurse's aid in her one room apartment her two room apartment on August 9th
00:27:21
1992 he killed the newspaper carrier Charlotte schmoyer June 9th 1993 and they had every reason to
00:27:30
believe that he was responsible for the assault and attempted murder on the 5-year-old the murder of Jessica Jean
00:27:39
Fortney July 14th 1993 and that he was the individual that attacked this woman that lived in the small Brick House on
00:27:48
East Highland Street on June 29th 1993 attempted to break into the house on July 18th of
00:27:55
1993 and then was the Intruder that the officer shot at on July 31st 1993 say it with me got got of
00:28:07
course they find a vehicle belonging to Robinson that matches the description given provided to police in the murder
00:28:16
of the newspaper carrier so a lot of evidence to connect this guy there's a lot of things that I found very
00:28:24
interesting about this investigation captain something that we don't see in some of the investigations that we've
00:28:33
discussed while you C you cannot no one would go out of their way to call this a
00:28:41
successful investigation there's so there's so much tragedy that took place here we got three people that were
00:28:48
killed and two that were nearly killed but what you see right away is the police did everything right
00:28:59
the the the town allent town did everything right the mayor's saying look use anything by all
00:29:05
means cost is not an issue figure out how to catch this guy figure out how to protect this town this city this
00:29:14
neighborhood they collect DNA at multiple crime scenes they bring in the FBI to help them assist with the with
00:29:23
the science of that DNA and making comparisons and the testing they put undercover officers spread out
00:29:31
through the neighborhood especially right after the the Charlotte case took place and then later they're putting
00:29:39
officers inside the homes of these two individuals to protect them and hopefully to catch this
00:29:54
[Music] guy you've probably heard that when you're traveling to a different country the
00:30:02
locals truly appreciate it when you at least try to speak their language with Rosetta Stone you can do even better by
00:30:08
becoming proficient in any of 25 different languages for a limited time Rosetta Stone gives you access to all 25
00:30:15
At Once by offering a lifetime membership for 50% off that's not annually that's a one-time payment so
00:30:22
visit rosettastone.com now and save 50% [Laughter] all right we are back got him cheers every got him you
00:30:44
know we don't like to go through the court stuff too much here and and there was a lot of a lot of different things
00:30:51
as far as the legal process goes in this case sometimes it's really fascinating other times it's a boore well and what
00:31:00
you're going to have here Captain is that in 1994 Harvey Robinson was sentenced to
00:31:07
death for these crimes anytime somebody is sentenced to death there's going to be a lot of appeals that go back and
00:31:13
forth with that some of the the the problems that we will have with the courts here in this
00:31:21
case is he's 18 19 18 years old very young when he's committing this very violent Killing
00:31:32
Spree killing three people severely injuring two people and because of his young age you're going to naturally
00:31:39
you're going to have people on the juries and you're going to have people in the courts officers of the court that
00:31:44
are going to be concerned about his young age and should we sentence somebody to death uh should that be the
00:31:51
criminal penalty here for these cases he he is still incarcerated to this day the
00:31:58
convictions were for first-degree murder three counts attempted murder burglary he's 49 years of age now he's he was a
00:32:07
local boy Allentown Pennsylvania and what's crazy captain and I mean you don't have to be as Sherlock Holmes to
00:32:17
make this connection I'm guessing you had the same suspicion I did he he's not just born and raised in Allentown
00:32:25
Pennsylvania he's local to this neighborhood he lives very nearby this neighborhood and what there's some
00:32:33
things though that are surprising to me the police did a really good job about getting this vehicle description out to
00:32:39
the public so much so that they even provided pictures of course they don't have pictures of the actual vehicle but
00:32:45
they provided pictures to the public that says this is based off of the description and all of our efforts and
00:32:51
all of our talks with the eyewitness this is a vehicle that is extremely similar to the one that we are looking
00:32:57
for and put this in the papers and put it on the local news Harvey Robinson Harvey Miguel Robinson young man living
00:33:05
with his mother in the area the fact that she didn't come forward saying oh yeah yeah I recognize that car or oh
00:33:13
here's somebody you should probably talk to yeah maybe you want to talk to my [ __ ] princess of a son either she
00:33:19
doesn't watch the news or was living under a rock I I maybe she just didn't know maybe she was just oblivious to the
00:33:27
situation or not oblivious to the situation never saw the description or the picture of the car yeah or maybe she
00:33:34
heard people talking about this and she just couldn't fathom that her son would be responsible for this one thing too
00:33:41
here we talked about in the first episode that when you have these types of crimes and we're talking about the
00:33:50
sexual assault aspect of these crimes is that the driving Factor could be the murder seems to be a big part of it
00:33:59
too this individual for whatever reason seemed to have a need to kill or have something in him that made him
00:34:07
incredibly evil in a drive to destroy and a drive to kill the robbery the burglary the sexual
00:34:18
assaults are all a part of that of course but I I really think like you're looking at someone that just that wanted
00:34:27
to kill we talked about how fast how the the how the speed the repetition of this
00:34:35
would pick up and increase and that when we've seen other types of these crimes that they always escalate one thing that
00:34:44
probably saved some lives or prevented these attacks and murders from taking place
00:34:52
earlier is that after the murder of Jon bergart and before the murder of Charlotte
00:35:01
schmoyer Harvey Robinson was arrested for burglary because of those charges he served eight
00:35:10
months in prison that is that to me tells us why we had a 10-month gap between murder one and murder two but it
00:35:19
also like we've seen in other cases where you go well we can't just look at individual
00:35:27
that have sexual assaults on their records or attempted rapes if you would have had your search
00:35:36
go out a little further and say well let's look into somebody that has any criminal activity as far as burglaries
00:35:44
go this guy would have been on their radar from from Jump Street yeah you're you're knocking on the door of something
00:35:52
that I was just about to talk about one thing that we've brought up a few times on on the show over the years if you go
00:35:59
back one of my favorite interviews that we've done was with retired FBI agent Jeffrey rck he wrote a book that we've
00:36:08
recommended several times it's called in the name of the children an FBI agents Relentless pursuit of America's worst
00:36:16
predators in that interview he told us that when you are looking for a rapist or someone that breaks into home
00:36:26
and kills people he said that he found that he should always be looking at persons who had been arrested for
00:36:36
burglary charges as well because he found that a lot of times it it goes too intent right he's
00:36:46
saying they got arrested on a burglar recharge because the person woke up in the middle of the night and saw the man
00:36:51
standing there in their room or heard something in the house called the police and the police catch the guy fleeing
00:36:56
from the house they're arrested on burglary because what their intent was to break
00:37:03
into the home and rape and murder one or the other of both they didn't get to do because they
00:37:10
were detected before they could get to that so the only charge they can bring them up on is burglary and in fact these
00:37:17
crimes are rare enough that one would easily go okay well this was just a burglary great we caught the guy he's
00:37:25
probably burglar so some other homes but what's interesting to me here is we don't know the details of the
00:37:35
burglary that Harvey Robinson was arrested for but that is that exact same scenario
00:37:45
that Jeffrey ryck explained to us but what happens here Captain what do we see between murder one and murder
00:37:53
two the burglary arrest and the burglary charge the the first victim unfortunately was
00:37:59
killed inside her apartment he broke into the home and killed her there the second victim he saw her out on her
00:38:07
paper route and he attacked and abducted her there he adapted he learned from that
00:38:16
arrest and then you go well wait a second but the the next victim was attacked inside their home and then the
00:38:23
victim after that attacked inside their home and killed inside their home yeah he adapted
00:38:28
again because of how quickly the second victim was found and how there was a witness there was a witness that saw him
00:38:37
driving away gave a great description of his vehicle to police they put flyers up everywhere
00:38:43
they're looking for this vehicle they're looking for this person yeah but also that victim could be happen stance it
00:38:50
could be I'm looking for a house to break into or I was on the prow and monitoring different houses and now I'm
00:39:00
going home for the night oh here's this girl out doing her paper route yeah I'm going to attack her this
00:39:11
guy when you think of serial killers he has an Impulse that I don't think that was not
00:39:21
going to be controlled he was not going to stop he could not even stop his impulse to go
00:39:28
back to the scene of other crimes to then try to commit another crime at a place he already victimized somebody yep
00:39:41
time and time again me you want to talk about impulsive this guy's repulsive and
00:39:47
impulsive we talked about when we when we went through the Starved Rock murders case there was a scenario in that case
00:39:59
where a group of Searchers when they found the bodies of the three victims the Searchers some of the
00:40:08
Searchers that were used were youngsters these these young guys from a troubled youth camp
00:40:16
nearby and one of those youths went on to murder someone just months after having found the Starved Rock victim so
00:40:25
we brought up the idea of well is it the chicken or the egg and oddly enough here
00:40:31
Captain we have we have grounds for that same discussion here because Harvey Robinson's father who he did not have a
00:40:40
a great lengthy relationship with his father had murdered someone had had had beat a woman to
00:40:50
death this was back in I believe it was 1962 at the end of 1962 murdered a woman named marleene
00:41:02
Perez and it sounds like that his father was married he was a musician father of
00:41:11
three they find this poor Miss Perez killed in her apartment now he kind of gets caught
00:41:18
red-handed because one of the neighbors hears what's going on and calls the police and when the police show up it's
00:41:27
it's Mr Robinson and the neighbor and marleene Perez who has now sadly been fatally beaten so he gets caught
00:41:37
red-handed and this is not something that our per hary Miguel Robinson would not have been aware of and and so you
00:41:46
just you you analyze these things and you look at it and you go well does this have anything to do yes it has to have
00:41:54
something to do with how this guy turned out out now is it the is it the sole reason that he would go on to be a
00:42:00
serial killer no I can't believe that but yeah you're right he has something in him some something in him that drives
00:42:08
him to do these horrible things and part of that has to be something that was handed down to him
00:42:16
from his father either genetically or or through the uh his upbringing but yeah Captain you have
00:42:25
everything that was done right unfortunately it wasn't able to prevent Harvey Robinson from being very
00:42:33
dangerous from killing a lot of people from killing three people and almost two others and who knows how many lives he
00:42:42
destroyed along the way these this this tragedy it carries far and wide with this number of
00:42:52
victims well let's just take a minute to applaud law enforcement yes there was a
00:42:58
bunch of crimes happening in a very small location but they were all hands on deck
00:43:05
and on top of that we had officers that put their lives on the line MH to put themselves in
00:43:13
between this animal this piece of [ __ ] and the community and to could you imagine what
00:43:22
that would be like what are you doing to day at work well I'm going to go sit in a
00:43:29
house and wait for this vicious murderer to show up and then it's go time then it's less
00:43:40
roll it's either going to be him or me and because of this fight that the officer put
00:43:48
up there became damage to Harvey and Harvey had to then go seek help and when then he went to seek help
00:43:56
boom we got him but you have to you have to applaud law enforcement for putting themselves into
00:44:04
danger like that and how intelligent their investigation was and the efforts that they were
00:44:13
making as said you can see it was all handson deck and they were willing to do whatever it took to to apprehend this
00:44:21
individual because as you can clearly see on the flip of that is this guy was not going to stop and he was going to
00:44:27
continue to do this and he was going to work to get better at it more stealth likee that's the other thing too it's it
00:44:35
the the killer gets lucky police didn't get lucky here they they never saw him running around in the dark of the night
00:44:44
all of the and they are they're patrolling heavy Patrol in this area but that's where I would disagree
00:44:51
with you I think because of his impul iveness and because I think these urges to want to attack to rape to
00:45:03
kill were becoming more and more frequent and I think once it was almost like once he got put in jail even though
00:45:14
it wasn't for murder it was just like eff it here we go I'm going to keep doing this until I get
00:45:21
caught yeah and so I don't know if he was trying to become more sophisticated because I don't think a
00:45:29
sophisticated killer would go back and Tred to attack a victim they already tried to attack
00:45:37
before right but he's certainly not trying to get worse at it true he and he did manage to go undetected even though
00:45:45
the the the police are patrolling and watching this area the the thing too about the the the officers stationing
00:45:54
themselves inside those homes from my understanding it was the way that they would do this would be a their shift
00:46:02
would start around midnight and I think it would end at 5 or 6 in the morning and I'm guessing that they based those
00:46:09
times off of things that they were seeing in the previous break-ins and what they knew from what
00:46:17
time of night that those previous break-ins took place but to be clear here Captain they didn't set this traing
00:46:24
on night one he was caught no they they set this trap the night after he broke into this home on East Highland Street
00:46:35
the second time the night after he broke into that home the second time so for 13
00:46:40
nights in a row there was an officer in both of these homes waiting and waiting and waiting for the night that he would
00:46:48
finally come back and he did finally come back and that would ultimately lead to his arrest I do want to go back to
00:46:56
that house on Bryant Street where unfortunately we had the third murder the house on Bryant Street where
00:47:05
Jessica Fortney was murdered after the arrest of Harvey Robinson Jessica Fort fortney's son-in-law Ricky who was 35 at
00:47:14
the time and still living in that home with his wife and kids you're worried about this guy
00:47:20
coming back of course Ricky 35 wife and kids in the home mother-in-law had been murdered there he's worried about this
00:47:29
guy coming back he's terrified his kids are terrified when he learned that there was
00:47:34
finally an arrest in this case he said quote I jumped for Joy at the news adding we feel safe now he said now I
00:47:44
sleep in peace and to this day Captain Harvey Miguel Robinson he remains in custody
00:47:52
he's imprisoned at the SCI Phoenix location Correction Facility in Pennsylvania where he has been since
00:48:05
1994 when he was convicted I think that what we see here from this case is that there is a lot to
00:48:14
learn not only about the behavior of individuals as evil as Harvey Robinson but also a lot to learn and to be gained
00:48:26
by the way that the Allentown Police Department handled and conducted this investigation and their attempt to keep
00:48:34
the people of this neighborhood [Music] safe oh yes want to thank you for joining us here in the garage you could
00:48:54
be anywhere and you ch CH to be here cuz you're amazing Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful
00:49:00
listeners this week we are recommending a need to kill by Mark Pettit it's the True Crime Story of John jber a serial
00:49:09
killer who after the FBI was brought in he was apprehended and later executed in
00:49:16
Nebraska he was convicted of murdering three boys Mark petett is the only reporter to talk with Jill Bear and
00:49:24
Pettit spent hours talking with families of the victims and found that Jil bear most likely felt his need to kill long
00:49:31
before he came to Nebraska check out a need to kill by Mark petett you can find that great recommendation and many more
00:49:39
on our recommended page on our website truecrime garage.com and while you're there make sure you sign up on the
00:49:44
mailing list and until next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause]
00:50:12
[Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 70
    Most heartbreaking
  • 65
    Most intense
  • 60
    Most shocking
  • 60
    Best overall

Episode Highlights

  • The Arrest of Harvey Robinson
    Harvey Robinson, a young man from Allentown, was arrested for multiple murders and assaults. His arrest brought relief to the community.
    “I jumped for joy at the news!”
    @ 47m 37s
    February 28, 2024

Episode Quotes

  • I jumped for joy at the news!
    Sleep in Peace /// Part 2 /// 740
  • Now I sleep in peace.
    Sleep in Peace /// Part 2 /// 740

Key Moments

  • Arrest Announcement47:37
  • Community Relief47:44
  • Investigation Success48:26

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown