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$99.99 Ashley For the Love of [Music] [Music] home [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:51
as always is a man that I have told a 100 times don't speak I know just what you are saying here is the captain yeah
00:01:59
it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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a [Music] friend well Captain I think that we have waited long enough haven't we
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considering that this is America's oldest brewery this week we are very happy to be featuring Yingling the
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iconic American logger famous for its Rich amber color and medium bodied flavor this is a fantastic beer that
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delivers well-balanced taste and distinct character garage grade three out of five bottle caps and let's give
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some thanks and praise to our friends who have distinct character first up a shout out to Nick Hiller listening and
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walking the dog in Irwin Pennsylvania and last but certainly not least we have Lisa alen from Black Diamond Alberta
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Canada everyone we mention they went to our website True Crime garage.com clicked on the Pint glass and helped us
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us out with this week's beer fund the old beer fund for the beer run yeah PW R in beer run want to thank everybody for
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leaving their comments on our YouTube videos if you want to check out our old off the Record episodes I've been trying
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to release one sometimes two a week only on YouTube it's free make sure you like
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make sure you subscribe and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a share
00:03:30
grab a beer let's talk some true [Laughter] [Music] crime crime Trends statistics and data is
00:04:09
something we discuss often in the garage most often when discussing repeat and serial offenders the information
00:04:18
provides insights to much of the how and why some criminals operate sometimes that information may
00:04:26
help to figure out the most important part of an investig ation The Who part serial offenders of all types of
00:04:35
crimes tend to have an operate within their comfort zones these Comfort zones are areas that
00:04:43
they know and feel acquainted with they are often places that they have spent a good deal of time in before more often
00:04:53
than not it is the town or city where they live in or a place that they have visited vised multiple times when a
00:05:02
Serial offender is committing their crimes the criminal wants to eliminate as many variables as possible that may
00:05:09
lead to getting caught as a result they will often try and stick to a place that they are very
00:05:17
familiar with the benefits are obvious they know most of the streets and back alleys they
00:05:24
know the best routes to take they have a good idea of where other people are are
00:05:29
likely and unlikely to be depending on the type of crime one is looking to commit they may need to know where they
00:05:37
can likely find a victim all of this information helps the criminal to lower the risk of being caught it also means
00:05:46
that they would know how to escape if something doesn't go according to plan committing crime is stressful even if
00:05:55
you are a psychopathic serial killer this is because the possibility of being apprehended will weigh on your mind most
00:06:04
serial killers have very defined Geographic areas of operation they conduct their killings within Comfort
00:06:12
zones that are often defined by an anchor Point some examples are their place of residence employment or even
00:06:20
the residence of a relative serial murderers will at times spiral their activities outside of their comfort zone
00:06:29
when their confidence has grown through experience or to avoid detection very few serial murderers
00:06:36
travel great distances or even Interstate to kill while you will hear the phrase in the same neighborhood
00:06:44
throughout this week's shows please note that while the offenses described here are not technically in the same
00:06:51
neighborhood should you take the time to look them up on a map you will agree that the crimes took place terrifyingly
00:06:59
close to the others warning these episodes may take you out of your comfort zone sleep in
00:07:08
peace this is true cram [Laughter] garage mail carriers postal employees new paper carriers recently we have
00:07:32
covered the still unsolved murder of postal worker Steven Spina a young man who at the age of just 36 years old was
00:07:39
found stabbed to death in his apartment in New York this was September 17th 2007
00:07:46
we covered Steven's case in episode 642 and even more recently we covered the very mysterious but very solvable
00:07:55
missing persons case of Kiara Kohl's a US Postal employee who went missing in October of 2018 in Chicago Foul Play is
00:08:05
most certainly suspected in that case and those were episodes 7:15 and 716 on your true crime garage radio dial
00:08:15
now those cases will always be near and dear to our hearts like so many of the cases that we have discussed here in the
00:08:22
garage but with us knowing several of the fine hardworking folks that listen to our show and that are delivering the
00:08:30
mail to all of us those cases will always be near and dear to our hearts like so many of the cases we have
00:08:37
discussed in the garage but with us knowing several fine folks working hard getting the mail to each of us but more
00:08:44
importantly we have a lot of post office workers listening to the show a lot of male carriers listening to the show not
00:08:50
too shabby get some good exercise great benefits and you can listen to these two
00:08:55
guys I'm sure we have discussed this here before but Captain you and I when we were younger we both had paper routes
00:09:05
now I can think of at least two newspaper carrier cases that we have covered here in the garage the
00:09:12
kidnapping of paper boys Johnny gsh and Eugene Martin from De Moine Iowa in the early
00:09:19
1980s TCG episodes 57 and 58 but all of those cases immediately came to mind when starting to examine this case
00:09:29
because this is the stuff of nightmares a true story of the unthinkable this is going to take us
00:09:36
back to June 9th 1993 now June 9th was a Wednesday this day is going to start off with the
00:09:44
startling disappearance of a young girl 15-year-old Charlotte schmoyer she was up early that morning like many mornings
00:09:53
Charlotte was a freshman at high school she was in the ninth grade and she was a
00:09:59
member of the swim team and the track team and the band front she was in the color guard swinging Flags in the band
00:10:07
she's up early that morning because she had a neighborhood newspaper route she was going to be out delivering papers
00:10:15
but the alarm was raised when those papers did not arrive on the front doorsteps of the neighborhood
00:10:21
subscribers police arrived on the scene after being called to the area when they
00:10:26
get there this is north Oso Street on the east side of Allentown Pennsylvania this is a neighborhood that butts up
00:10:36
against the busy Handover Avenue which has both housing and businesses the leeh high river is nearby as well when police
00:10:46
get to the scene you know they are always hoping that this is just a misunderstanding or maybe we have a
00:10:54
teenager that decided to Sher responsibility and go off with some friends but here we get what you
00:11:01
absolutely do not want to find and that is clear and obvious signs of a likely abduction so with police at the scene it
00:11:11
looks like Captain that this poor girl may have been abducted so what are they seeing what what do they see when they
00:11:20
arrive it appears that Charlotte schmoyer was out on her route delivering these papers now typically the only good
00:11:29
thing about one of these newspaper route abductions is in most cases it's rather
00:11:34
obvious to police where the abduction took place right you typically have a short window of time that you're dealing
00:11:42
with in the investigation so much like with the Hansel and gredle fairy tale that we all know the newspapers are your
00:11:48
breadcrumb trail to the abduction site follow the papers and when they stop your neighborhood canvas investigation
00:11:57
starts there and like you said now we can narrow down the window of opportunity because we also could find
00:12:05
out when were those papers delivered to her to get the papers ready to go out for delivery it's my understanding that
00:12:12
in this neighborhood at this time Captain the police are told that typically the paper drop off would occur
00:12:21
right around 5:00 a.m. so that's going to be the start of Charlotte's day right she's going to collect that bundle of
00:12:28
papers she's going to prep them and then she's going to start out on her route I
00:12:33
believe she had about 50 houses I don't know how many subscribers were on her route but
00:12:41
typically from my day and this is strange to be reporting on this while we do not live anywhere near Allentown
00:12:50
Pennsylvania our routes the route that I had was in the early '90s or mid 90s and
00:12:58
typically during during the week the route was rather quick you could bang out the route in about anywhere from 20
00:13:06
to 30 minutes and so as said this would seem to be a very short window of time the
00:13:13
problem area here the newspaper Trail okay so you're going to start to Canvas the area after finding the
00:13:23
following the newspaper Trail is going to lead police to 1057 East Gordon Street
00:13:29
this is just2 miles from Charlotte's parents' home on North Oswego Road so I would estimate this is just like a five
00:13:39
or six minute walk considering the circumstances now Charlotte was unsuccessful in delivering a paper to
00:13:46
1057 East Gordon Street residents a bit of an interesting twist here from what we have seen in similar cases it
00:13:55
actually appears that the neighbors are the ones that called the police either this is the 1057 East Gordon Street
00:14:03
residence or someone close by so other cases that we covered like in the gosh case and and some others the parents are
00:14:12
notified or the newspaper is notified from persons not having received their paper and that's where the alarm is
00:14:20
raised but with this situation it's people going out looking for their paper they don't find the
00:14:26
paper and then they find this very scary situation after you hear this description you'll quickly understand
00:14:33
that there was certain signs of abduction exactly obvious signs so we got 1057 East Gordon Street that we've
00:14:40
already mentioned they did not get their paper that morning Charlotte had a cart
00:14:45
that she would push or pull down the street the cart held the newspapers somebody goes out looking for their
00:14:51
paper they don't find Charlotte they don't find their paper they find the cart abandoned with newspaper is still
00:14:59
in it and you look around for a while you wait and you go uhoh something is not right here so when police get on the
00:15:08
scene we have the description of what the police saw the police find that car in front of this
00:15:14
residence they then find newspapers on the ground and the little girl's Walkman radio headphones separated from the
00:15:26
radio so police find these items near the garage to this residence from my understanding Captain the garage is not
00:15:33
attached to the house so this is near more like the backyard of this property right police find smeared fingerprints
00:15:42
on the garage window pane this they're very quickly forming a picture in their minds
00:15:52
of what they believe happened she's out delivering the papers headphones on so maybe not fully aware of her
00:16:01
surroundings but that's very common on the paper routes you you slap on your headphones and you deliver your papers
00:16:07
and you you go on with your day it's pretty routine stuff but they find these headphones and it looks like there's a
00:16:15
sign of a struggle that somebody snatched her up and while she's trying to get away she ran toward this garage
00:16:25
and either tried to brace herself or she's trying to catch herself on this wall to the garage smearing her fingers
00:16:35
across going downward motion and what they're saying is it they're saying that based off of what they could see it
00:16:43
almost looked to them like somebody tackled her like took her down to the ground and then left with her and she
00:16:50
might not have been aware of it if she's wearing headphones she might not even heard the attack coming exactly she may
00:16:59
not have heard the person approach her may not have seen him we do know that there was some attempt to flee based on
00:17:05
what they're seeing at the scene so either he he makes a failed attempt at grabbing her and she she gets away and
00:17:12
tries to make a run for it or she does spot him out of the corner of her eye and starts to make a run for it but
00:17:20
regardless they're seeing that it looks like she was tackled and now we can't find this poor girl who was just out
00:17:27
delivering her papers that now unfortunately this is going to lead to a search search everything in the
00:17:35
neighborhood and a short time later police locate what they had hoped against they find the victim Charlotte
00:17:43
scher's body it was found close nearby under a pile of logs stumps leaves like this is
00:17:52
in a wooded area so this is behind Moser Elementary School this is over by the allent Town East
00:18:02
Side res Reservoir so she's found about 10 or so feet off of a trail there this is a it's not a park but you could
00:18:11
describe it as a park- like setting again it's behind the elementary school not being from the area it's
00:18:18
difficult for us to pinpoint the exact location however we can say confidently this is only about half of a
00:18:26
mile from the abduction cite so the killer made some kind of lame attempt to conceal the
00:18:34
body the victim suffered 22 stab wounds sexual assault was likely due to the state of her clothing this is a vicious
00:18:44
brutal murder stabbed that many times and no indication that the murder weapon was recovered at the body recovery sight
00:18:53
but like in so many of these cases we need investigators to catch a break we need in the investigation to have a
00:19:00
little bit of luck on their side and they do seem to catch a bit of a break here Captain this is because they get a
00:19:07
witness that may have seen Charlotte schmo's killer driving away from the East side Reservoir this would be at
00:19:16
about 6:30 a.m. so we remember we talked about the paper bundle drop off would be
00:19:23
about 5 a.m. and we do not know the exact time that police were called to the area but that time that that window
00:19:33
of time this is 90 minutes from the time that the papers would have been dropped off to the time
00:19:39
that we have this witness that is saying look I think I I saw somebody leaving that area in a car right and police are
00:19:47
going oh that's where the the body that's where we located the body so this this is not going to be an area where
00:19:54
you're you would expect a lot of traffic at that hour a lot of people people coming and going at that hour and the
00:20:01
witness is saying this is the only person that I saw driving from that area and they're going okay this very likely
00:20:09
is the Killer is the person that we are looking for so to be clear this is not an eyewitness to the abduction or to the
00:20:17
assault if only you know if we had that you wish for that because someone likely could have stepped in and
00:20:25
prevented this murder from taking place in the first place right so this is about the time the investigators say the
00:20:33
allent toown newspaper carrier was stabbed 22 times so sometime between just before
00:20:41
6:30 what they get is a vehicle description and a good one now a description of the driver not so much
00:20:49
not a great one in fact like we've always said it's easier to find a car than it is to find a person in fact the
00:20:55
driver was described as quote it looked like Mr average the witness described the driver
00:21:02
as white and middle-aged with no distinguishing characteristics authorities did tell the
00:21:09
papers that the witness was confident that they could identify the man and the car now we'll get into the vehicle
00:21:16
description here in a minute but to be clear on this here Captain what this witness is stating is while the driver
00:21:23
looked like Mr average to me and here's a description of the vehicle they're not saying that I I could tell
00:21:31
you the person's name or exactly what kind of car and year it was they're saying if you present me with cars or
00:21:38
images of cars and images of of suspects right I'm confident as the witness that
00:21:46
I could pick out the suspect and pick out the car so back to that vehicle Captain
00:21:52
because as we said we we get a much better description of the Killer's vehicle the eyewitness describ the car
00:21:58
as a late 1970s or early 1980s medium blue color four-door sub compact car with heavy damage to the
00:22:09
passenger side and I love to hear that there is damage to this vehicle this damage as described by the witness heavy
00:22:19
damage to the passenger side look you may find it's 1993 you may find in this neighborhood
00:22:27
or surrounding areas a lot of cars that could match the description of late 7s early 80s medium blue four-door subc
00:22:36
compact car but you likely should only find one with heavy damage to the passenger side
00:22:44
this is very specific this is an identifier this is this is something that is unique to this vehicle only
00:22:52
right vehicles are easier to find than people most of the time now the Allentown assistant police
00:22:59
chief he would go on to say that they believe that the car was likely a Chrysler
00:23:05
product and that the police they they know exactly what we're thinking as well here Captain because
00:23:12
they spent the entire night after finding Charlotte driving around and on foot looking for that
00:23:21
vehicle a vehicle that matched that description you find a vehicle that matches that description you're probably
00:23:27
going to find your guy well the day after this murder law enforcement is going to reach out and talk to the
00:23:33
public the assistant police chief is going to address the media the assistant police chief his name is Gerald
00:23:41
Monahan so the day after the murder he's upfront and Center on the local news he's saying that the police would like
00:23:48
to question the driver about why he was at the reservoir at that early hour and what he might have seen in the wooded
00:23:58
area behind Moser School in East allent Town so this is a tactic that we've seen
00:24:06
before while police are working under the idea that this guy whoever who was whoever was driving that vehicle at 6:30
00:24:16
a.m. on June 9th 1993 at the reservoir behind the school there that's our guy that's our suspect that's what
00:24:27
they're working on on right but the tactic here is you want to you don't want to be so aggressive when you're
00:24:33
delivering this information to the public because you want this person to come to you it's a lot easier if they
00:24:41
come to you and try to explain why they were there you know they're saying we want to see we want to know what you may
00:24:47
have seen or heard while you were out there you could be a witness to something important the other thing too
00:24:52
is if if you deliver the message in this way as well you may have some somebody that knows this person that might come
00:25:02
forward with with this kind of tactic rather than saying this is our suspect this is the guy that we're looking for
00:25:08
especially this early on in your investigation we're talking this is 24 hours later a reward was quickly offered
00:25:15
up this came by the way of the good folks over at the Morning Call newspaper a lot of the information that we have
00:25:23
from this particular portion of the case comes from the Morning Call newspaper sadly that was the newspaper that
00:25:29
Charlotte Schmo was delivering that day yeah she was a carrier for the morning call a reward of $10,000 was being
00:25:38
offered up for the individual or individuals who could provide specific information resulting in the detection
00:25:46
arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of Charlotte the information sought by this
00:25:54
offer must be communicated to the allent Town Police Police Department the reward
00:25:59
offer reads all calls will be kept confidential the reward will be given by the morning call after the conviction of
00:26:06
the person or persons responsible for for this crime and after consultation with Allentown Police Department and
00:26:13
other appropriate law enforcement authorities now I'll limit I want to limit the amount of autopsy information
00:26:21
here out of respect to our young victim some of what was revealed we've already talked about you have the
00:26:29
22 stab wounds most of them were located in the back to her back coroner Wayne Snyder said the cause
00:26:38
of death was these multiple stab wounds one incredibly sad part of the autopsy and a sad fact of the
00:26:48
attack is that Charlotte who was just 5'2 in tall she did not have any defense wounds
00:26:59
the assistant police chief later said he meaning her attacker had complete control over her she never had the
00:27:06
opportunity to fight back well look it's pretty simple to say I think he attacked
00:27:14
her from behind and like like we said if you are carrying and she might have been some of
00:27:22
these carrying cases you you put the majority of your papers in the front so when you go to be attacked then You'
00:27:32
fall forward anyways and to me the way they describe the scene it's almost like she probably attempted to abandon the
00:27:40
paper she was carrying right at some point to help her get away now the as far as the Walkman and the headphones go
00:27:48
I can't say if those came off during the course of her being tackled taken to the
00:27:52
ground or if she tried to abandon those as well but like the police are saying no defense wounds she didn't even have
00:28:01
the opportunity to fight back whoever tackled her and took her to the ground that may have been enough to subdue her
00:28:09
make it easier for them to leave that area with her we also don't know how far the attack went before the attacker in
00:28:18
and left the that area before going off to this Reservoir area right authorities
00:28:25
would not discuss whether the teen was set actually assaulted although the autopsy did give some indication that
00:28:31
that was probably likely the girl was found with the pants and sweatshirt the clothing that she was wearing when she
00:28:39
disappeared but investigators would not say publicly if she was clothed when she
00:28:44
was found some additional notes and statements from police they are telling the public we've interviewed Witnesses
00:28:52
and we're looking at particular individuals it may be somebody who is familiar with Charlotte they go on to
00:29:01
say the nature of the offense requires us to look at people who live in the neighborhood one of the first things to
00:29:09
be checked and ruled out was that someone had escaped from or did not return from leave from the
00:29:18
allent town State Hospital this is an interesting and unique aspect to this case the town
00:29:27
State Hospital is located adjacent to the schmoyers family's home this was a state hospital captain that moved into
00:29:38
the area I would say a couple years I don't have the exact date a couple years before this murder but this was a
00:29:47
hospital that there was a lot of push back from the neighborhood they did not want the the hospital there and this is
00:29:54
not an emergency room type hospital or a place where people were giving birth this was a hospital for persons that had
00:30:04
some mental issues so this person some persons of the neighborhood did not want this in their backyard we can see this
00:30:13
clearly because when this murder takes place the police are saying this is one of the first things that we have to
00:30:20
check did somebody get out of this hospital did they escape or or were they allowed to leave which many of the
00:30:26
patients were and did they not come back and if we can get we're going to look for we're
00:30:34
checking with the hospital and if we can find that person that didn't come back if we can find that person that may have
00:30:42
escaped from the the for a lack of better term mental hospital then we might have suspect number one
00:30:56
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effective learning program out there at the best [Laughter] price all right you filthy animals we
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are back back in the garage cheers to everybody cheers to you captain and cheers to all of our longtime listeners
00:36:02
there's so many of you and if you're listening for the first time you get a tiny little cheers as well mayor Joseph
00:36:11
Deana this is what you want to hear okay you're you are a member of the neighborhood concerned
00:36:19
citizen your heart is broken your heart is breaking for This Girl's family but this is what you want to hear
00:36:28
you want you want to hear that there's going to be decisive action taken and we have the mayor Joseph
00:36:36
danana up front and center the day after the murder he is announcing to everyone
00:36:42
that he has authorized the Allentown Police Department to take whatever actions are necessary regardless of cost
00:36:50
to track down the Killer and protect the city from further attack Neighbors along East Gordon
00:36:58
Street said that they saw undercover police keep watch overnight so remember the day that
00:37:07
Charlotte is abducted and found is a Wednesday the neighbors the people living on this East Gordon Street they
00:37:17
are saying that they saw undercover police keeping watch over night on that Wednesday night this makes total sense
00:37:24
because this would go along with the statement that we heard earlier police saying that they were out looking for
00:37:30
that car all night long right and there's a possibility cuz we know that Killers sometimes like to return to the
00:37:37
scene of the crime also this neighborhood is probably in tremendous fear that this is going to happen
00:37:47
again and also could you imagine all the young paper boys and paper girls that have to then continue their
00:37:54
routes after hearing this in the news the other thing we learned is that officers were up at the crack of dawn to
00:38:01
pound on doors of the neighbors th this is inconvenient for the people living in
00:38:08
the neighborhood but it's necessary to your investigation and very smart so remember newspaper bundle dropped off at
00:38:15
5:00 a.m. guess what our police are out doing at 500 a.m. the next day we are out knocking on
00:38:23
doors waking people up because they want to do is by the by the time they're canvasing the area Captain unfortunately
00:38:30
the poor girl's already been killed right body has already been attempted to be concealed after they find her and
00:38:38
they're canvasing the area a lot of the people that may have seen something or heard something maybe
00:38:45
somebody witnessed something that they don't know is important to this case those people were likely not talked
00:38:51
to on that Wednesday because they had already made their way off to work and they were gone
00:38:57
so you're up now you're knocking on doors you're asking the important questions this is very smart for their
00:39:03
investigation and really covering all their bases here now the park where Charlotte's body was found was closed
00:39:12
for somewhere between 48 hours and 72 hours so that police and authorities could search for and collect evidence
00:39:20
now these undercover officers back to that as you had mentioned right sometimes these killers will
00:39:29
return to the area maybe even return here with the news breaking very quickly that the bodies found you wouldn't
00:39:37
anticipate that the killer would go back to the trail area where he had left the
00:39:43
body he's not going to do that but he may drive by do a little driveby action a little snooping to see what's going on
00:39:51
well also the age of the victim we know you got to look at the family you got to
00:39:55
look at the Inner Circle but then I think this becomes more complicated because every person that she delivered
00:40:02
to is a possible suspect anybody that she doesn't deliver to anybody just on her route I think if I'm law enforcement
00:40:11
I'm leaning to towards the idea that this is local yeah there I think there's some indicators here that this could be
00:40:18
a very local based crime so I'm I would bet right we talked about undercover officers earlier right I'm guessing that
00:40:29
they're not only out there looking for the car but they're probably posting up under
00:40:35
covers staking out for drivers or person's driving by especially the morning after and the morning after that
00:40:43
I I bet they did do that having seen the efforts that they went to in this investigation Charlotte schmoyer was a
00:40:52
HomeTown girl she was born in Allentown she's the daughter of Jean and Karen schmoyer she was living at home with Mom
00:41:00
Dad and her brother and sister she was a member of the Emanuel United Church of Christ and a member of the youth group
00:41:09
there as well for her funeral service the family requested that supporters and mourners send a contribution to a
00:41:16
scholarship fund at Charlotte school instead of flowers contributions were sent to the school in care of Charlotte
00:41:24
of course when word spread hundreds of students in the Allentown School District struggled to cope with losing
00:41:31
Charlotte one school official termed the death the hardest hitting tragedy in at
00:41:36
least the last Dozen Years so I mean at schools and in this particular case the school
00:41:44
district over the years of course they have to cope with student deaths from things like
00:41:49
illnesses even suicides and car accidents but a murder of a beloved student class me this is going to prove
00:41:58
to be most disturbing well on top of that it's a vicious murder and I'm sure there's rumors getting out to the public
00:42:07
I'm sure there's a lot of speculation and and it's almost like she was attacked by this animal this vicious
00:42:19
animal some mystery monster that's lurking in the neighborhood yeah the boogeyman so this will give you a little
00:42:26
kind of hint into what's going on here so one school official said quote there's a different level of concern
00:42:33
there's a threat here that wasn't there in other tragic deaths and the nature of
00:42:39
the tragedy is unusual in that it affected a whole neighborhood end quote so what they did C Captain as one might
00:42:48
expect they brought in extra counselors and school psychologists brought in and sent out to
00:42:54
four area schools to assist and to help the students and staff now keep in mind the area the
00:43:02
neighborhood Charlotte was well past the age of attending elementary school but her
00:43:09
body was found in a on a wooded Hillside behind the elementary school in the four
00:43:15
Schools staff members were briefed on the death based on the newspaper accounts teams of professionals went
00:43:23
from classroom to classroom at the elementary schools dispelling rumors and taking children's questions some of the
00:43:30
children required oneon-one counseling the school district really did a great job with this I think
00:43:36
Captain they even they even set up a phone number for people to call who needed any kind of help with this or
00:43:42
where can I find help this is the number you can call and we'll we'll tell you what to what to do right the district
00:43:49
arranged for meetings for parents to discuss special safety precautions for their children teachers and staff try to
00:43:57
combat children's fears by telling them how to keep themselves safe some of the points made were don't walk alone don't
00:44:07
take shortcuts through the woods or other isolated areas and Report any suspicious
00:44:13
individual to a responsible adult the schools requested that if possible parents please drop children off and
00:44:22
pick them up they they really didn't want anybody walking to and from school and as you pointed out Captain the kids
00:44:29
were understandably sad angry but also afraid yeah one of the kids told a newspaper this is a this is a a person
00:44:38
Charlotte was a ninth grader all of those elementary school kids that probably didn't know her her her brother
00:44:44
and sister were considerably younger than her so maybe they knew her younger siblings right so they have that to deal
00:44:51
with but we were all young once we were all elementary school age thank God nobody ever found they never
00:44:58
found a victim in behind the school an element these are young kids these kids have got to be terrified well then
00:45:05
that's how urban legends start so then once this body is found all the rumors all the stories you got kids spending
00:45:13
the night at other kids' houses making up horror stories about what they actually found or or or claiming oh my
00:45:22
brother saw the body before they discovered the body just nonsense Stu like that and one of the kids this is a
00:45:28
junior at her High School said quote if it happened to her it could happen to anybody so the kids Everybody's scared
00:45:36
at this point now back to the investigation cabinet I want to jump back to something the assistant chief
00:45:42
said I know we touched on this a bit but they said the nature of the offense requires us to look at people who live
00:45:49
in the neighborhood of course you would anytime you have something like this but
00:45:54
each case is unique and the thing that stands out here is all aspects of the crimes took place in the neighborhood
00:46:04
the attack the Abduction the body disposal here and now more importantly than ever the nature of the offense
00:46:12
requires police to look at people who live in that neighborhood and not only do you look at the people who live in
00:46:19
the neighborhood to find a potential suspect right but of course you're looking at
00:46:24
everyone who is a potential eye or ear witness here so if this attack this murder this sexual assault this
00:46:37
abduction this disposal of the body if that's not horrifying enough for this community well this isn't the first time
00:46:49
and there's one pretty recently as recent as 10 months before this murder yeah so one thing we always try to look
00:46:58
at and and something that police are always going to look at are crime Trends which is certainly a thing that you hone
00:47:05
in on but when you talk about crime Trends you're really looking and talking about property crimes and this is also
00:47:14
true for robberies and and assaults but here Captain as you pointed out one does
00:47:19
not have to look very hard and examine the recent history of this very safe neighborhood to make a
00:47:27
discovery and for police to quickly remember and draw parallels between this assault and murder to one that took
00:47:34
place just 10 months prior that is 29-year-old Joan Mary berghard who was found murdered on her
00:47:44
living room floor 10 months earlier to the day Charlotte schmoyer W who we just talked about at length assaulted and
00:47:55
killed June 9th 1993 Joan Berard was found assaulted and killed August 9th 1992 so this is from The Morning Call
00:48:06
newspaper from the northwest corner of Allentown State Hospital grounds out at South
00:48:15
ego and East Gordon streets it's about a 100 steps to the home of murder victim Charlotte schmoyer wow in that same 100
00:48:27
steps you can walk west to the front door of the apartment rented by Joan Mary bergart whose brutal bludgeoning
00:48:36
murder August 1992 remained unsolved so if you're law enforcement a couple things their mind went to this murder
00:48:46
that happened 10 months earlier probably before anybody else and then you start thinking are these connected and then
00:48:55
you have a problem on your hand because you already have you already have a a community
00:49:02
that's scared to death of this Boogeyman but if you lead on to the idea that these could be con
00:49:11
connected then I think Threat Level goes up to Threat Level Midnight well and while I I like that description that was
00:49:18
from The Morning Call newspaper I don't think that it because really all they're
00:49:23
referencing there is here's the it's 100 steps from this this state hospital to one murder victim's
00:49:34
home and then it's 100 steps the other direction from the state hospital to the other murder victim's home well one of
00:49:41
the victims was not killed in their home you only have one that was killed in their home right we have Charlotte who
00:49:49
was walking away from her house you know she lived she actually lived much closer
00:49:54
to the state hospital than where she was abducted from right but the thing here is everything is in this neighborhood
00:50:06
everything is in this neighborhood that both of the murders the the place that they're honing in on is this
00:50:12
hospital it's in the neighborhood as well and of course her newspaper route all in the neighborhood so the abduction
00:50:18
site where she lived and then eventually where her body is found the alarming thing here once you hone in on this idea
00:50:26
that oh we have two murders two very violent murders one that has been unsolved for 10 months all taking place
00:50:35
in the same neighborhood the terrifying thing here and of it's obvious for the person's living in the neighborhood of
00:50:42
course but having reviewed a lot of these cases what we've seen is when crimes take place like this these
00:50:50
murders take place in such a close proximity that usually these types of crimes are going to speed up in
00:51:00
succession so the last murder took place 10 months ago you can almost if your law
00:51:06
enforcement expect another attack or another victim sooner than 10 months that would be a scary opposition to be
00:51:17
facing waking up every day that's your job your job is now you have two murders that you have to solve and you have to
00:51:27
try to solve them to prevent another murder that possibly most likely statistically statistically we know will
00:51:35
happen sooner than a 10-month period well and then we get the district attorney his name is Robert Steinberg
00:51:42
he's talking to the media he says look I'm I'm being a little careful here about connecting the two
00:51:49
murders he doesn't want to set off Panic among Eastside Allentown residents because he says we don't have at this
00:51:57
time we don't have concrete evidence that the two murders are in fact linked but he does say on the other hand
00:52:07
police are pursuing leads along those lines investigators remained mum on whether or not either victim was
00:52:17
sexually assaulted even though what we do learn from the local media was that for
00:52:24
forensic evidence was collected to determine if that was the case in the murder prior in the berghard
00:52:34
murder testing was had been actually completed prior to the second murder but police were not going to
00:52:45
reveal the results of course now several people that were interviewed in connection with the first murder they're
00:52:52
talking to the media and they say look during the questioning it came up that the victim was raped in the
00:53:02
first case so basing it off of the questions that persons are being asked right you can make that leap very
00:53:12
quickly they did go on to say this was interesting that DNA testing was performed on samples taken from Joan the
00:53:20
first victim and there was a man suspected in her murder but that suspect was then
00:53:26
cleared as the comparison results returned negative but at this time this early in the second investigation
00:53:34
Captain basically what we're getting is police saying we are conducting test to try to we're performing tests to try to
00:53:44
determine whether there is one killer in the two murders or two killers and we get a quote here from the district
00:53:52
attorney says quote I need the DNA comparison to see if I'm looking at one murderer or two of course that's going
00:54:00
to completely change your investigation if you know that it's one or two different persons he goes on to say that
00:54:07
the FBI who was brought in on this agreed to expedite the test and the results were expected in four to six
00:54:16
weeks and I don't want to stay on this for too much longer Captain but right I can't really hit it home enough only the
00:54:24
people that live in this area would completely understand or even remember but again it it it's repeated
00:54:34
time and time again in this investigation that the local scuttlebutt was that a lot of people thought that the killings
00:54:43
were not only connected but related to the controversial housing remember that that hospital had
00:54:52
moved in and a lot of people in the neighborhood did not want that hospital there right and so you get all of these
00:55:01
people that are being interviewed in the neighborhood and they they keep bringing
00:55:05
up this Hospital well they need to check the hospital the police need to check the hospital and police did say this is
00:55:11
something that we are in fact doing without going through it too much what we do need to say here is that
00:55:18
eventually what we would learn is that the state hospital lead that was immediately considered in the
00:55:25
investigation and both investigations separately and then together we end up having the district attorney who would
00:55:31
come out at some point and say look everybody in the area you need to understand we've looked into that lead
00:55:38
and we can say with confidence that no hospital patients were involved in either of the killings so we have a lot
00:55:46
of details on the second case do we have more details on the first murder we do have some here Captain so again this
00:55:55
goes back to August 9th 1992 oddly enough 10 months to the day before the second murder the way
00:56:04
that this story starts off we have gladus bergart she's unable to reach her daughter Joan by way of
00:56:14
telephone and she says this is actually more than one day for two days she can't
00:56:19
get a hold of her then her and her husband learned that their daughter Joan did not show up
00:56:27
for her work did not show up at her job Joan berghard the victim is 29 years old
00:56:34
and she's a nurse's aid so Mom and Dad decide to drive out to their adult daughter's apartment when they arrive
00:56:42
the burgarts see police cars and onlookers that are gathering around they're gathering around their
00:56:49
daughter's first floor apartment so immediately they say we knew something was terribly wrong then they quickly
00:56:55
figure out and are told that their daughter was found dead lying on her living room floor she had been hit on
00:57:03
the head more than 30 times with an unknown object this is according to police her body was found partially
00:57:11
clothed she was killed here we have the opposite with the Charlotte schmoyer case we have a
00:57:19
very short small window of time that we're looking at in our investigation unfortunately in the berghard case it's
00:57:28
not the same police they're really not if they were able to narrow it down they'd never said so publicly
00:57:36
because they're simply saying we she had to have been killed sometime between Friday and Sunday when
00:57:44
she was discovered one case you have a window of maybe a couple hours this one you got a few days and they're stating
00:57:52
this based off of everybody that they talk to so they they know that Joan was alive and well on Friday because she
00:58:00
spoke to several people and interacted with several persons in fact she even made plans with one of her friends for
00:58:07
the following week on that Friday and then we do know that her mom and dad are not able to get a hold of her on
00:58:14
Saturday uh she doesn't show up for her work which was very unlike her and it's Sunday around noon when she's found now
00:58:24
there's some other unique things about the first case this this Joan case because only five days before her body's
00:58:32
found so this is just the week prior Joan reported a burglary at her home and her parents would say that what
00:58:42
was reported was that about $50 in cash was missing from her apartment police did say look we we're aware of the
00:58:51
burglary and we cannot say with any level of certainty that the break-in was connected to the slanging at all but
00:58:59
what's weird here is what we do know is within the course of five or six days somebody broke into
00:59:06
the home stealing cash and then later somebody breaks into the home and kills this young woman makes you wonder if
00:59:15
it's the same individual and if it was just an escalation of crime and this Joan I mean the the the paper carrier
00:59:22
the newspaper carrier Charlotte her Young Age and and having the experience of being a newspaper carrier myself of
00:59:30
course I mean that that one really got to me but Janes case really got to me as well I mean this was a
00:59:41
very incredible young woman she was 29 years old she was generous with her time she was loving and she was a a fighter a
00:59:52
true fighter so Joan sadly struggled for years with severe depression and this likely I think I'm
01:00:02
no doctor here but she suffered a violent trauma as a youngster and I gotta believe that a lot
01:00:10
of that depression and some of her I hate to use the phrase mental issues but for lack of a better term I
01:00:19
think probably stem from that violent trauma that she experienced when she was young but she was very accomplished in
01:00:28
her life she excelled in school she won a Statewide spelling be she won an essay
01:00:34
contest she graduated with honors from Palmerton High School in 1980 where she ran track and was a
01:00:41
member of several clubs there including the school's newspaper again she battled
01:00:46
this depression for a large portion of her life and and her parents point out a large portion of her adult life and she
01:00:53
would regularly see seek help and assistance for this the trauma came from a situation when she was walking
01:01:02
to the local pool when she was 10 years old someone sexually assaulted her at knife point a stranger and I don't
01:01:10
believe that this person was ever apprehended for this incident well to think that one this would
01:01:19
be a huge ordeal just to try to get through but to then have the knowledge that the person
01:01:26
wasn't caught you'd always have that fear that they're going to come back for you well and she unfortunately
01:01:34
had the mindset that and and some victims experience this where they they can tend to blame themselves sometimes
01:01:43
right and even at that young age of 10 she's assaulted by a stranger at knife point and she's worried that she had
01:01:51
committed some kind of sin and her parents did the best they could to try to help and assist her with this but as
01:01:58
said she she did go on to excel in school but the the problem was she was withdrawn
01:02:07
and shy and then of course the depression sets in her mom does say look we this was kind of always a family
01:02:14
secret and we didn't not something that we wanted to be a secret but Joan didn't
01:02:19
talk about this she didn't openly talk about this and she didn't like to talk about the incident
01:02:24
yeah it seems like this horrific attack happened to her and then she closed people off and then she dove
01:02:34
into something that she felt safe in education and her education and schoolwork and you have a lot of time on
01:02:43
your hands cuz I'm sure she didn't want to go out especially by herself I'm sure
01:02:48
she had what a what a horrible thing well and her mom says you know look so if anybody out there thought that she
01:02:56
was withdrawn or shy now you know why you know that this this is now coming to light and Joan goes on to earn an
01:03:03
associates degree from the community college they say the troubles were really over the course of about a
01:03:11
seven-year period of her adult life while in her 20s she Joan was in and out of hospitals at times her parents said
01:03:20
after her death that they question whether the medication and some of the psych atric counseling Joan received
01:03:26
early on may have done more harm than good but in the year before the murder Joan became a cert she
01:03:35
became certified as a nurse's aid and at the time of her death she was employed at the Moser nursing home friends and
01:03:43
family remembered how Joan would stop at the nursing home on her days off to play
01:03:47
piano for the residents the apartments where she lived this is the Gordon Street Apartments this this is where the
01:03:55
attack took place very few she was one of the few tenants there that that had a car so she would go out of her way and
01:04:04
often would drive other tenants to places like the bank or the grocery store so this is a caring giving person
01:04:12
and I'm sorry I I just had a hard time thinking about how sad it was here you have this individual that experiened
01:04:18
this horrible trauma at the hands of a stranger at at the Young age of 10 she had every excuse
01:04:27
to be miserable or every excuse to be in the bottle and instead she was a fighter a
01:04:34
giver someone who helped others and then one night someone crawls into her apartment and kills her and it's this
01:04:41
this brutal murder while your heartbreaks for Joan and her family and Charlotte and her family and friends in
01:04:48
the neighborhood in the schools your heart breaking in the whole time you're racking your brain going are these
01:04:56
connected could these cases be connected and if so who could do such a [Music] thing want to thank everybody for
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