Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away

by David DeKok

  17 - “wired for sound”: Triebold interview, November 3, 2011; put the Mozambique student into a trance: Ibid; far more than he had told Keibler: GHK, April 15, 2011.

  18 - “Erdely’s first hypnosis session”: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011.

  19 - “She was able to recall”: GHK, March 14, 2012; The second rape victim: GHK, January 4, 2011.

  Chapter 9: Frustration on the Road

  1 - “a dedicated doctor’s wife”: “Slain PSU Coed Was Pondering Career Choice,” Associated Press in Lancaster New Era, Lancaster, PA, December 1, 1969; love of sketching: Tom Boughter, “Selection of PSU Made by Dead Girl,” Pennsylvania Mirror, State College, December 1, 1969.

  2 - “overly dramatic behavior”: Linda DenBesten Jones interview, October 11, 2008; “a certain intrigue . . .”: Letter, Betsy Aardsma to Peggy Wich, September 1967. Courtesy of Peggy Wich Vandenberg.

  3 - “ex-boyfriend’s whereabouts”: Memo of telephone call, Detective Sergeant George Smith, December 1, 1969, FOIA CR 150-09. This document and others were released by the Michigan State Police under the state’s FOIA. Names of people that were of interest to the Pennsylvania State Police were redacted from the copies provided to me.

  4 - “now officially attributed”: Laura Wilkerson, “The Strange Case of Jane Mixer,” Salon.com, January 26, 2012 (http://open.salon.com/blog/laura_wilkerson/2012/01/26/the_strange_case_of_jane_mixer_michigan_1969), accessed June 7, 2012.

  5 - “they also interviewed David L. Wright’s friends”: Joanne Lekas, interview by the author, November 29, 2011.

  6 - “got us up in the morning”: Tyger interview, September 23, 2008.

  7 - “clean as a whistle”: Tyger interview, September 23, 2008.

  8 - “one thing they did not do was attend Betsy’s funeral”: Ronald C. Tyger, e-mail to author, June 7, 2012.

  9 - “Now as far as Betsy”: Tyger interview, September 23, 2008.

  10 - “Shovlin was not through with him”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008; a “hippie” involved in drugs: Ian Osborn, e-mail to the author, February 26, 2013. Osborn lived in the cottage in Hershey with Wright and the others.

  11 - “asked to see Sergeant Keibler”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008.

  12 - “not connected with the slaying”: Charly Lee, “Rumors Dispelled in Library Death,” The Nittany Cub, Penn State Behrend Campus, Erie, PA, January 23, 1970.

  13 - “an ice pick or a surgical instrument”: Charly Lee, January 23, 1970; Smith interviewed Yunker: Report by Detective Sergeant George Smith, December 10, 1969, released by Michigan State Police in FOIA request CR 150-09. Most names, except for Betsy Aardsma and David L. Wright, were redacted from the report, but some of them could be discerned because of other information in the author’s possession.

  14 - “at the University of Michigan”: “Academic Record of Robert Grant Durgy,” released by the University of Michigan following a Michigan FOIA request from the author. The transcript also lists his place of birth and notes the serious academic problems he had during his freshman year.

  15 - “Bob was a lot of fun”: Martha Durgy, interview by the author, November 12, 2008; a rising star: Durgy’s academic prizes are noted in his University of Michigan transcript; finish his dissertation: Ibid.

  16 - “it was clinical depression”: Ibid; even buying a new car: “2 Persons Are Killed in Traffic,” Ann Arbor News, December 21, 1969.

  17 - “never heard her name”: Martha Durgy interview, November 12, 2008.

  18 - “Martha Durgy is said to remember”: Sascha Skucek, “The Durgy Myth,” State College magazine, April 2004.

  19 - “He saw a psychiatrist”: Martha Durgy interview, November 12, 2008; veered off the highway: “2 Persons Are Killed in Traffic,” Ann Arbor News, December 21, 1969; believes her husband committed suicide: Martha Durgy interview, November 8, 2008.

  20 - “talked to a trooper over the phone”: JSB e-mail, November 30, 2012.

  21 - “Look for the guy in the work pants in the library”: Wich interview, July 21, 2011.

  22 - “She would not have gotten involved”: Wich interview, September 24, 2008.

  Chapter 10: Dragnet

  1 - “just a little bit of background”: Cseko interview, March 7, 2011.

  2 - “interviewed at least two thousand students”: GHK, January 4, 2011. Other troopers, such as Lee Fisher and Carl Cseko, placed the total at a more generic “thousands.”

  3 - “They did not like the state police”: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011; “Some of us were probably looked at as pigs”: GLK, January 4, 2011; art students: Ibid.

  4 - “viewed the police as puppets for the government”: Earl James, Catching Serial Killers: Learning from Past Serial Murder Investigations (Lansing: International Forensic Services, Inc., 1991), 31.

  5 - “gave information if they had it”: Trooper Lee Fisher, Pennsylvania State Police, retired. Interview by the author, October 15, 2008.

  6 - “opened the class with consoling words”: Nicholas Joukovsky, interview by the author, January 13, 2012; if he was having an affair with Betsy: David R. Johnson, interview by the author.

  7 - “loud, arrogant behavior”: Op. cit., Joukovsky interview.

  8 - “seemed “incurious”: Op. cit., Joukovsky interview.

  9 - “pressed their student informants on campus”: GHK, January 4, 2011.

  10 - All of the information about the drug dealer Landis comes from my interview with Sergeant Keibler of April 15, 2011.

  11 - “across the quad in front of Old Main”: Simmers interview, October 3, 2008; he was in Philadelphia at the time: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011.

  12 - “had been drug agents”: John Swinton, interview by the author, October 7, 2008. Swinton was a graduate student in English at Penn State at the time of the murder; carried out by a professional hit man: Charly Lee, “Rumors Dispelled in Library Death,” The Nittany Cub, Penn State University Behrend Campus, Erie, PA, January 23, 1970; “wasn’t into drugs”: Margles interview, November 11, 2008.

  13 - “you can’t tell who’s crazy and who isn’t”: GHK interview, June 8, 2012; in any major case: GHK interview, March 14, 2012.

  14 - “vicious lesbian”: GHK interviews, January 4, 2011, April 15, 2011, October 10, 2011, and June 8, 2012. He brought it up frequently.

  15 - “when it was still illegal under state law”: GHK, January 4, 2011. Pennsylvania was still under the 1939 criminal code in 1969, which retained the anti-sodomy laws first drawn up by the Quakers. In 1970, the state adopted a new criminal code that, among other things, legalized sodomy; One of the biggest theories: Simmers interview, October 3, 2008; “a hellhole”: Tyger interview, September 23, 2008; odd positioning of five chairs: Mutch interview, September 23, 2008, and telephone call, September 20, 2008.

  16 - “It’s covered in the report”: Trooper Kent Bernier, interview by the author, September 30, 2008; wrong time of day: Roger Smith, Pennsylvania State Police, retired, interview by the author, October 9, 2008.

  17 - “wanting to commit a human sacrifice”: GHK, March 14, 2012.

  18 - “Don’t you dare tell him!”: GHK, January 4, 2011, and March 14, 2012.

  19 - “had to report impending crimes”: GHK, March 14, 2012.

  20 - “sudden interest in religion”: GHK, March 14, 2012.

  21 - baseball bat: GHK, March 14, 2012.

  22 - “a direct, public appeal to Penn State faculty”: GHK, March 14, 2012; “criminal chromosome factor”: Fisher interview, October 15, 2008.

  23 - “a nude model”: GHK, January 4, 2011; psychological problems with art students: GHK, April 15, 2011.

  24 - “lived . . . in the former Waddle School”: GHK, October 10, 2011; cofounded the Caffe Lena: “Lena Spencer; Gave Stage to Folk Singers,” Los Angeles Times obituary, October 25, 1989; “Listen to
him, dammit,”: Anthony Scaduto, Dylan: An Intimate Biography (New York: Signet, 1973), 103; split from Lena: Field Horne, “Founded on a Dream,” Saratoga Living, Spring 2010; junk cars: GHK, October 10, 2011.

  25 - “solved the Aardsma murder”: GHK, October 10, 2011; naked couple having sex: Ibid.

  26 - “ ‘Just disregard him’ ”: GHK, Op. cit.

  27 - “There was no overtime”: Cseko interview, March 7, 2011; “No one was sharing information”: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011

  28 - “Dan Brode had an ego”: Simmers interview, October 3, 2008; “He didn’t have anything to hide”: GHK, April 15, 2011; He was an eternal optimist: Triebold interview, November 3, 2011; this sounded like Brode: GHK, March 14, 2012.

  Chapter 11: Trouble in Old Main

  1 - “wondering if it was safe”: “A Dangerous Place,” editorial, Daily Collegian, December 2, 1969; drafted their boyfriends: Ness interview, February 11, 2012.

  2 - “horrifying but surreal”: Barbara Stine Herrington, interview by the author, November 1, 2011.

  3 - “most students felt safe before the murder”: Rebecca Craven Greenhow, e-mail to the author, October 24, 2011.

  4 - “go in together in groups”: Joukovsky interview, January 13, 2012.

  5 - “first in the campus directory”: Marchand interview, September 6, 2011; target all women: Stoltz interview, June 18, 2012. While someone with the Aardsma name would have led the telephone directory in many cities in the United States, it was not the first name in the directory in Betsy’s hometown of Holland, Michigan. That distinction went to the various Aalderink families.

  6 - “we didn’t know about grief”: Linda Marsa quoted in Op. cit, Cirilli; relive their own emotions: Noelene Martin, interview by the author, January 26, 2012.

  7 - “calculate the cost”: Memo, Re: Security Guards for Winter and Spring Terms, Charles H. Ness, assistant director for public services, to W. Carl Jackson, director of libraries, December 1, 1969, ULAD.

  8 - “the coed’s murder”: Memo, J. W. Wilson to Ralph E. Zilly, December 2, 1969, PSU Archives. Wilson was an assistant to Zilly, the vice president for business.

  9 - “Penn State approved funds”: Letter, Charles H. Ness, assistant director for public services, The University Library, Penn State University, to Ben C. Bowman, Director of Libraries, University of Rochester Library, Rochester, New York, October 6, 1970, ULAD; actually objected: Op. cit, Ness letter.

  10 - “There was no question about cooperation”: Lieutenant William Kimmel, Pennsylvania State Police, retired, interview by the author, October 8, 2008.

  11 - “no official pressure”: GHK, April 15, 2011; sexual overtones: Ibid; praised Pelton’s help: GHK, January 4, 2011; that Pelton knew about but he, Kiebler, did not: GHK, October 10, 2011; good working relationship with President Walker: Ibid.

  12 - “cost the state police $250,000”: GHK interview, April 15, 2011; The university provided: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011; “huge, nice-sized office”: Shelar interview, March 7, 2011; further up the food chain: Schleiden interview, March 31, 2011.

  13 - “George had his hands tied”: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011.

  14 - “damage the image of the university”: Mike Simmers talked extensively about Penn State’s attitude toward the Aardsma case in our interview of February 22, 2011, but raised some of the same points during an earlier conversation on October 3, 2008.

  15 - “called the situation “political”: Tyger interview, September 23, 2008; mishandling of the first ninty minutes: Trooper Kent Bernier, interview by the author, September 30, 2008.

  16 - In an e-mail to the author on February 21, 2012, Jackie R. Esposito, university archivist and head of records management programs at Penn State, said this: “The Aardsma murder records do not exist at Penn State. What, if anything, happened to them in 1969 is not documented within the Archives. . . . As University Archivist, I preserve the records I have in my custody. I cannot, however, produce what I do not have.”

  17 - “She was never involved”: Simmers interview, October 3, 2008.

  18 - “completely ignored”: Phil Galewitz, “At PSU, 3 Coed Killings within 47 Years Remain Unsolved,” The Patriot, Harrisburg, PA, March 5, 1988; “victim is sort of pushed aside”: Ted Anthony, “A Vexing Mystery: 20 Years Later, Pattee Stabbing Still Perplexes the State Police,” Daily Collegian, Penn State University, November 28, 1989.

  19 - “claim the body”: Charles L. Lewis, interview by the author, September 11, 2008; “So nobody would know her particularly”: Raymond O. Murphy, interview by the author, September 12, 2008.

  Chapter 12: Here Sits Death

  1 - “A-1 suspect”: “A-1 Suspects Still Elude Police Probe,” Centre Daily Times, December 11, 1969; an occupying army: Kimmel interview, January 6, 1970; Kimmel was frustrated: Interview with Lieutenant William Kimmel by the Penn State University Department of Public Information, January 6, 1970; sent to all twenty-six thousand students: “Important Notice,” December 19, 1969, ULAD, Betsy Aardsma folder, PSU Archives.

  2 - “Aardsma’s yours”: GHK, October 10, 2011; “to justify releases”: News release, Penn State Department of Public Information, December 23, 1969; “We’re stalemated right now”: Kimmel interview, January 6, 1970.

  3 - “had first talked to Larry Paul Maurer”: GHK, July 23, 2012.

  4 - “tall and blond”: The Bruin, Yearbook of Mahanoy Joint High School, 1964 edition; carried a small hunting knife: GHK, July 23, 2012; a very quiet young man: Joukovsky, interview, January 13, 2012.

  5 - “tar baby”: Larry Paul Maurer, phone call to the author, August 6, 2012.

  6 - “To cut cheese”: GHK interview, July 23, 2012.

  7 - “so damn excited”: GHK interview, April 15, 2011; ordered that Maurer be polygraphed: GHK interview, April 15, 2011; drove to the Maurer farm: Shelar interview, March 7, 2011; not accompanied by anyone: Shelar interview, March 7, 2011.

  8 - “We actually accused him of the murder”: E-mail from Thomas Shelar, July 28, 2012.

  9 - “We always figured he beat the operator”: E-mail from Thomas Shelar, August 8, 2012; chin was down to the ground: Simmers interview, January 2, 2013.

  10 - “Well, they know who did it”: Robert W. Sams, interview by the author, January 23, 2013.

  Chapter 13: Sleep Mode

  1 - “decisively lost”: “Boyle Scores Easy UMW Victory,” UPI dispatch in The Evening News, Harrisburg, PA, December 10, 1969. The official returns showed Boyle with 80,577 votes to 46,073 for Yablonski, who was on the UMWA executive board. The election was overturned by the federal government on grounds of fraud about a year later; “a pretty, blond sociopath”: Arthur H. Lewis, Murder by Contract: The People vs. “Tough Tony” Boyle (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 3–5.

  2 - “ ‘Well, there goes the pressure’ ”: Shelar interview, March 7, 2011.

  3 - “They killed Aardsma, they killed Yablonski”: Trooper John Holland, supplemental report, Major Case File, Yablonski Murders, January 13, 1970. Colonel Frank McKetta Papers, PSA, Harrisburg, PA. McKetta was the state police commissioner at the time.

  4 - “Take all those books out of the library”: GHK, October 10, 2011, and June 8, 2012.

  5 - “picking the phone up and contacting me”: GHK, June 8, 2012.

  6 - “daily briefings on the case trailed off”: Albert Dunning interview, October 30, 2011; “fewer and fewer updates”: Brown interview, January 30, 2012; out to Michigan: Denise Bowman, “Police Visit Ann Arbor,” Daily Collegian, Penn State University, University Park, PA, February 25, 1970.

  7 - “Lieutenant Kimmel’s idea”: GHK interview, January 4, 2011; a reward of $25,000: “University Offers Large Reward in Murder Case,” Centre Daily Times, March 9, 1970.

  8 - “occupied the Shields Building”: “50 Occupy Lobby of Building,” Centre Daily Times, April 15, 1970; Penn State Ogo
ntz: Kurilla, September 22, 1970; latest list of demands: “29 Held Following Campus Disorders,” Centre Daily Times, April 16, 1970; vandalism of wall murals: “29 Held,” Centre Daily Times, April 16, 1970.

  9 - “put the Aardsma investigation on hold”: GHK, August 13, 2012; remove their helmets: Ibid; it was Major Robert A. Rice: Mike Simmers, interview by the author, September 28, 2012.

  10 - “An unidentified physician”: “29 Held,” Centre Daily Times, April 16, 1970; taken to Beaver Stadium: GHK interview, August 13, 2012.

  11 - “they had to be careful”: Jeffrey Berger interview, February 28, 2013.

  12 - “bathed in blood”: Joan A. Kurilla, “In Speech at University, ‘Leading Yippie’ Predicts New Age of Resistance,” Centre Daily Times, April 20, 1970.

  13 - “Walker was unyielding”: “Students Break Windows, Start Fires on Campus,” Centre Daily Times, April 21, 1970; “We’re going over to the president’s house”: Jeffrey Berger interview, February 28, 2013; used an uprooted stop sign: GHK, August 9, 2012.

  14 - “He could have been killed”: GHK, August 9, 2012.

  15 - “small fires were touched off”: “Students Break Windows, Start Fires on Campus,” Centre Daily Times, April 21, 1970; Molotov cocktail: John A. Brutzman and Joan A. Kurilla, “Walker Indicates Strong Disciplinary Action Likely,” Centre Daily Times, April 22, 1970; He was shattered by the loss: GHK, August 13, 2012; The last fire was reported: Op. cit., “Students Break Windows.”

  16 - “contingent of 280 more state police”: Brutzman and Kurilla, Centre Daily Times, April 22, 1970; suspension of classes; “Status Report on Cambodia Aftermath,” May 7, 1970, R.G. 22, PennsylvaniaDepartment of Education, PSA, Harrisburg, PA; He sued on First Amendment grounds: Keddie v. Pennsylvania State University, et al., 412 F. Supp. 1264 (M.D. Pa., 1976) (http://pa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19760228_0000005.MPA.htm/qx), accessed 9/4/2012.