by David DeKok
FBI suspicion soon fell on George Haefner. Rick’s brother had managed the Lost Dutchman Gemboree for the past several years, but he had stayed in California in 1996. Agents learned that Rick owed George about $30,000 but didn’t know for what (most likely it was legal fees paid to Sprague). They finally reached George on the phone on November 18, 1996. He became agitated when questioned about why he had not run the show this year and made reference to an arrest in which the Lancaster police had supposedly used excessive force. George danced around the truth and never quite sat down. What no one in the FBI apparently picked up on was that George was a bail jumper; that was why he was back in California. UFAP, or unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution, is what the feds would have called it. He had forfeited his cash bail of $25,000 and would never get it back.9
Rick brushed off the FBI after initially telling agents that Colombian gem gangs stalked shows like his. He told them they should go after the criminals, not waste time talking to him. The FBI deemed him “uncooperative.” Rick said he felt sorry for the victims of the theft, but it was not his fault. His behavior had been strange from the beginning, notably when he tried to stop jewelers from calling the police, and remarkably insensitive, demanding that the show open on Sunday after the thefts were discovered, even though many of the dispirited vendors wanted to go home. He tried to shift the FBI’s attention to a gypsy fortune-teller and a couple of supposedly swarthy Hispanics seen at the show on Saturday. The thefts were never solved, and the FBI closed the case on September 25, 1997, saying there were no more leads and no suspects.10
George Haefner’s son Keith, speaking nine months after his father died in late 2009, believed—from family conversations he had heard—that Rick had been implicated in the Lebanon gem theft, although he had no personal knowledge of that involvement. Keith said Rick was always borrowing money from George. No matter how it may have appeared, he said, relations between his dad and Rick were not warm. “They just never got along,” Keith insisted. “I know there was no real love for Richard. At least in my family.”11
Rick began planning the 1997 Lost Dutchman Gemboree almost before the police had left the building, seemingly oblivious to the ramifications of what had just occurred. He blithely advertised the show and took deposits from exhibitors while ignoring the demands of the Expo Center board and North Cornwall Township for better security. In the end, they refused to grant permission for the 1997 show to be held.
Many exhibitors who had been willing to come back to the show even after the large heist in 1996 lost their deposits, generating an enormous amount of ill will toward Haefner. One of them phoned a few weeks later and accused him of fraud and stealing exhibitors’ money. In February 1998, another disgruntled exhibitor publicly confronted Rick at the big Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, and accused him of cheating many people and personally defrauding him of over $900. A fight broke out and Haefner was arrested by show security, but nothing came of it.12
Rick was experiencing increasingly volatile mood swings, in part because of the antidepressant Paxil, which he was supposed to be taking for depression but sometimes didn’t. He had always had a volatile temper—the author believes Betsy Aardsma was a victim of one of his rages—but now things seemed to be getting worse. And women, as always, were the ones who set him off.
He was mainly living in California now, in Tecopa Hot Springs, a tiny community near Shoshone. But he periodically came back east and was outside of Wilmington, Delaware, on January 6, 1998, when an incident occurred that made it seem quite likely that he could have attacked Betsy Aardsma in a volcanic rage. Dudley, his by-now nearly blind, fifteen-year-old cocker spaniel, was with him as he pulled into the parking lot of Liquor World at 1325 McKennans Church Road in the Milltown Shopping Center, about fifty miles from his home in Lancaster. He was there to buy a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey.
The problem was that Haefner was off his meds. Paxil, an SSRI drug (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) that had come on the market in 1992, was in the same class of antidepressants as Prozac and Zoloft. But Rick’s prescription had run out several days before he called in a refill on January 5, 1998. Aggression and violence are two well-known symptoms of Paxil withdrawal (or from any SSRI drug), and they don’t take long to appear after the last pill is taken. Rick had stayed “on the couch” for two days and then gotten himself to the drugstore, only to be told by the pharmacist that his doctor thought his dosage was too high and that it was being cut down. Everything was in place for a tragedy.13
Catherine Rachford Schuyler, who was about six miles from her home in Hockessin, Delaware, had also gone to Liquor World that day. It was where she typically bought wine and spirits for herself and her husband, Peter A. Schuyler. Catherine was forty-nine years old. She had been born a year after Betsy Aardsma and, like her, was slender and on the tall side for a woman, five-foot-ten and 150 pounds. A Cincinnati native, she was of Irish descent, had red hair, and had been a competitive swimmer in college. She loved to cook and entertain. Peter was an executive in the plastics industry, and they had lived in many places. His father, Roy L. Schuyler, had been a three-time football letterman for Penn State in the 1930s.14
Haefner had left Dudley in a shopping cart outside the store. When Catherine walked up to the door of Liquor World, the cocker spaniel was barking and whining. She saw the cart start to roll toward the parking lot, so she grabbed and steadied it. By the time she came out with her purchases, Dudley was still there, evidently quite unhappy. She cared deeply about dogs and noticed that Dudley was shaking and had severe cataracts in his eyes. Two other women soon joined her, and they discussed among themselves whether Dudley had been abandoned. One said she would take the dog to her own veterinarian and attempt to locate the owner from the tag on its collar. She went to her car to get a leash.15
They lifted Dudley from the cart and began walking him away. At that moment, Haefner emerged from Liquor World with his purchase, saw what was happening, and freaked out. He began screaming at Schuyler and the leash woman. Catherine told Haefner, “Maybe some people shouldn’t have a dog,” which infuriated him all the more. Schuyler got in her Isuzu Trooper to leave. Haefner began banging on the left rear quarter panel of the SUV with the glass bottle of Jameson, leaving noticeable dents. She rolled down her window and demanded he stop. Rick turned and walked across the parking lot to his van. Then Schuyler made a big mistake. She drove her SUV close to Haefner’s van and parked, intending to write down his license plate number. Her doors were unlocked.16
Rooting through her purse for a pen and a piece of paper, she didn’t see Haefner approach. Suddenly, her door was yanked open and she felt his hands encircle her neck and drag her out of the vehicle. She screamed. Rick was only a couple of inches taller than her but outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. Pushing her against the SUV, Rick struck her several times in the face and again wrapped his hands around her neck. A witness, who wondered if this was a domestic dispute, saw him try to slam her head against the SUV roof. Schuyler managed to break free long enough to kick Haefner in the groin, but it only made him angrier. Another witness saw him grab her by the hair and punch her in the face. Rick was out of control, and Schuyler feared for her life. There is no telling how far things might have gone if the driver of a Tastykake delivery van had not rushed to intervene. Haefner saw him approaching, let her go, and ran to his van and drove away.17
Schuyler had significant facial injuries but could still speak, and she called 911 to report the incident. She was treated by her family doctor and received three stitches in her upper right lip, where Haefner’s punch had landed. But there was much more damage inside her mouth. Haefner’s punches and banging her head on the SUV during his violent rage had loosened teeth and caused other dental damage. Her jaw had been badly dislocated to the point where she could not chew solid food; she would lose thirty-two pounds after the assault. She needed five dental implants and faced two years of restorative den
tal work that would cost nearly $45,000, fortunately covered by the couple’s insurance.18
On January 16, 1998, Sergeant Joseph P. Aviola Jr. of the Delaware State Police telephoned Haefner and told him he was going to be arrested for assault and criminal mischief. Rick had an explanation ready: He had hit Schuyler to protect himself, because she was assaulting him. He told the sergeant that he had a disability, asthma, and that if he was hit in the head he could possibly die. It was a fantasy story only Rick Haefner could write. No one believed him. Aviola persuaded Rick to come to Wilmington to give himself up, and, amazingly, Haefner did.
Judge Jay Paul James was unsympathetic to Rick’s claim that Paxil withdrawal had led him to assault Schuyler, especially after Rick said he knew there would be problems when he let the prescription run out. But he was livid about Rick’s fantasy tale of Schuyler assaulting him, of how she was supposedly “arrogant” toward him. He testified that he only “tapped” on her SUV with the Jameson bottle to get her attention so he could explain why Dudley was not a mistreated dog.
Judge James: “The court frankly finds the defendant’s testimony absolutely incredible.”
Haefner: “But it was true, Your Honor.”
Judge James: “You may say that, sir, but I’m finding that you were not telling the truth throughout your entire testimony. I watched your actions. I watched your conversation. I watched your inflection. And I am absolutely amazed at how absolutely dishonest you were.”19
Rick told Judge James that he hated being dependent on Paxil and wanted to stop taking it. His psychiatrist—never identified—had told him that a change of lifestyle would be beneficial. Rick said he had moved to California, back to the area where he had researched his thesis. “And it turns out that my former thesis advisor [Lauren Wright] and his field partner [Bennie Troxel] are still there. They are about eighty years old now, but they spend every winter out there,” he said. Haefner said he was hoping to get a teaching job at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas. “And I’ve started to do research out there. I’ve tutored a graduate student. I’ve [guided] classes on trips in the area. And I’m getting back into my profession. And if I can do that, then hopefully the general level of my mood will be high enough that I can have the doctor slowly take me off that medication.”20
Judge James stared at him in incredulity. “You stand up here, sir, and tell me that you’re working toward getting off medication that keeps you from becoming a loose cannon,” he said. “That scares me to death.”
After the jury found Rick guilty, Judge James sentenced him to one year in prison, of which eleven months would be suspended after he served thirty days. That would be followed by one year of probation and payment of restitution to Schuyler. And he ordered Rick to get anger management counseling and continue seeing a psychiatrist.
The story was not over. Haefner served his month in jail and completed twelve months of probation. He then requested a hearing to determine the amount of restitution he would be required to pay to Schuyler for her injuries. Rick testified that his only income was a Social Security disability check of $548.30 per month, a check he received because of his asthma and depression. It was a convenient fiction, since he had always been able to wring much more income out of his other activities, unless his gem appraisal services were no longer in demand by the Medellin Cartel. He said he lived rent-free in the house at 217 Nevin Street, which was owned by his brother. The court ordered Rick to pay $100 per month in restitution, which meant it would take him more than thirty years to pay the full amount. It was his latest joke on the public in a lifetime of financial comedy for Haefner. Schuyler subsequently received $1,920 from the Delaware Violent Crimes Compensation Board. Rick had told the court he accepted responsibility for his actions, but in truth, he had nothing but hatred and contempt for Catherine R. Schuyler. He paid no more than a few hundred dollars in restitution, her husband said.
His feelings toward Schuyler became evident on April 11, 2000, when Haefner filed a pro se lawsuit in federal court against her, charging her with assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, damage to property, and fraud and abuse of legal process. It was a voyage into the bizarro world of Haefner’s brain, in which everything that he had done to Schuyler, things that had been observed by witnesses, were transformed into things she supposedly had done to him. Peter Schuyler said their umbrella liability policy covered the cost of defending the lawsuit. The lawyer provided by the insurance company proposed a quick $10,000 settlement to make Haefner go away. Catherine Schuyler refused. She wanted to fight. The couple even came to believe that Haefner was stalking their house. Catherine was sure she saw Haefner’s beat-up brown van, he said. She had done a lot of research on Rick and knew about his child molestation arrests in 1975. She also found out that he had apparently beaten up another woman in Las Vegas, Nevada. Catherine was affected permanently by the beating she received from Haefner. “She was a very strong woman,” her husband said. “He took her pride and strength. She suddenly realized she was vulnerable.”21
Judge Roderick R. McElvie made quick work of Haefner’s claims, dismissing them because they were the same claims he had tried to make in his trial, which the court had rejected. Schuyler’s lawyers asked the court to sanction Haefner for filing a meritless lawsuit “for an improper and harassing purpose.” Judge McElvie wrote in his opinion that “Dr. Haefner should be aware that his filing in this case borders on frivolous, and that his intent to harass Ms. Schuyler is clear.” And if he ever did that again, McElvie said, there might be trouble. But as for now? He was unwilling to sanction Haefner, although Schuyler could submit testimony as to the costs and attorney fees she had paid. It was the same old story of judges bending over backward to give an abusive plaintiff like Haefner his day in court. Except in the most extreme cases, it was up to the jury to determine whether there was a case; that was how the system worked. Any other judge might have done the same.22
And given Rick’s record, it seems unlikely that the threat of future sanctions would stop him from doing anything. Even after completing his month in a Delaware prison and the anger management program, he had gone right back to his old ways. On October 29, 1998, he gave a deposition for his lawsuit against the Lebanon Valley Exposition Corporation over their refusal to allow the 1997 Lost Dutchman Gemboree to use the Expo Center. A lawyer for North Cornwall Township said something that disturbed Rick, and he began to argue with him “in a loud and angry manner.” But he took out his anger on the nearest woman, court reporter Lisa A. Snyder. He slammed a court order on the table in front of her, “and in a loud, angry, and physically intimidating manner ordered me to mark the order as an exhibit.” Snyder refused, and was “so scared and intimidated by Mr. Haefner” that she started crying and could not continue. Defense lawyers terminated the deposition and Rick left the building, but he remained in his car in the parking lot. Snyder was afraid to leave the building until Haefner finally drove away.23
Chapter 37
Hole in the Desert
Rick had always wanted to go back to the desert, to the dusty crossroads of Shoshone, California, where he had stayed with Professor Lauren Wright while doing research on volcanic rocks in Death Valley in 1967 and 1968. Here he hoped to find his own Hole in the Desert, to borrow an obsession of Charles Manson, a refuge from the helter-skelter outside world. He had spoken about California to the boys who surrounded him in Lancaster. Rick told them about George’s home near the sea and about the mines he owned in the desert between Shoshone and Tecopa Hot Springs. One mine was called George and one was called Ere, after his parents.
The desert culture around Shoshone was tolerant, and no one asked too many questions. As one resident put it, “You can blend in here as long as you stay low-key.” Here Rick could pretend to be an eminent geologist who was just doing his own thing. Here he could pretend that he would soon be teaching geology at the Un
iversity of Nevada–Las Vegas. Here he could tramp the desert with Lauren Wright.1
Wright still had his trailer in Shoshone and was frequently joined during the winter months by his longtime friend Bennie Troxel. In 1976, Wright had gone to Charles Hosler, the dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and told the strange story of Rick coming to his house on the night of Betsy’s murder and how he thought Rick might have had something to do with that murder. Although he had not changed his opinion over the years, he had done nothing more. Even Ted Anthony’s story about the twentieth anniversary of the Aardsma murder in the Penn State Daily Collegian in 1989 had not prompted him to reach for the telephone and call the state police.
In the early 1990s, possibly during the first fall or winter after his wife, Myrtle, had died on January 2, 1990, Wright ran into Dan Stephens during a tour of the Nevada Test Site, where atomic weapons are exploded underground. Stephens had been the field assistant when Wright and Rick Haefner did research in Death Valley in the late fall of 1968. When they recognized each other, they immediately began to talk about old times. Stephens eventually asked how Haefner was doing. Wright hesitated, his face took on a strange expression, and then he began describing how Haefner had come to his house the night of Betsy Aardsma’s murder, out of breath and out of sorts. Stephens was agog. He had heard nothing about the murder. “And he was relaying this murder to me and how he thought Rick did it,” Stephens said. “All the circumstances upon which this occurred, and how he just knew right away that it was Rick.” Wright also talked about Rick’s problems with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and his continuing difficulties in finding a job in his field.2
