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

by David DeKok

  8 - “She never tried to recruit Betsy”: JSB, e-mail to author, December 1, 2012; Jan now had a steady boyfriend: JSB, November 27, 2012; does not recall ever meeting Andie: Ibid.

  9 - “death of a high school friend”: Leslie Nienhuis Herbig interview, September 29, 2008; while giving first aid: Photo caption, Holland Evening Sentinel, August 29, 1968. Another young man from Holland, Lieutenant David Buursma, was killed in Vietnam the previous week. He was a Holland Christian graduate, and his funeral would be a day after Freestone’s.

  10 - “called Betsy to break the news”: JSB, November 27, 2012; had her first drink with the bartender: Ibid.

  11 - “mccarthy for president buttons”: Andrea Yunker Marchand interview, September 6, 2011; various meetings of a political nature: Terrie Newman interview, August 28, 2011.

  12 - “Their apartment was on the second floor”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, interview with the author, September 21, 2011; lived on the same floor in Oxford Houses: Terrie Newman interview, September 28, 2011; who had answered an ad: Ibid.

  13 - “She did what she wanted to do”: Terrie Andrews Newman interview, September 28, 2011.

  14 - “assigned a human cadaver”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, e-mail to the author, November 19, 2012; Her opinion of Betsy dovetailed: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, e-mail to the author, September 21, 2011; could whip up dinner: Andrea Yunker Marchand interview, September 6, 2011; was the conciliator: Terrie Andrews Newman interview, August 28, 2011.

  15 - “expectations that he would become a physician”: James Schoolmaster, interview with the author, September 7, 2011.

  16 - “got rid of” their dates”: Schoolmaster interview, September 7, 2011.

  17 - “pushing him together with Betsy”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008; first date was for ice cream: Wich interview, September 24, 2008; They went to parties at his fraternity: Kevin Cirilli, “Betsy Aardsma: 40 Years Later,” November 20, 2009, Daily Collegian, Penn State; on the eve of his twenty-first birthday: Op. cit., Cirilli; an entire pitcher of beer: Andrea Yunker Marchand interview, September 6, 2011.

  18 - “She was Democratic, I’m sure”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008; “world’s best grade-grubber”: James Schoolmaster interview, September 7, 2011; “a hippie person”: Op. cit., Schoolmaster.

  19 - “seemed to be like oil and water”: Terrie Andrews Newman interview, August 28, 2011; “just using Betsy”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, e-mail to the author, September 21, 2011; “head over heels”: Andrea Yunker Marchand interview, September 6, 2011.

  20 - “remembers passing Vonnegut” Chris Van Allsburg, letter to the author, June 20, 2012.

  21 - “bedding any number of younger women”: Charles J. Shields, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, a Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 6, 241–42.

  22 - “but finally wrote his name”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, e-mail to the author, October 13, 2011; talked about Vonnegut: Linda Marsa, e-mail to author, May 17, 2012.

  23 - “don’t particularly like to talk to people”: Daniel Okrent, “The Short, Sad Stay of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,” Michigan Daily, January 25, 1969. Okrent, then a reporter for the student newspaper, later became the first public editor of the New York Times and author of Last Call, a history of Prohibition in the United States; spent the night together: Shields, 243.

  Chapter 17: In the Shadow of a Killer

  1 - “Her parents in Willis”: United Press International dispatch in Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Michigan, July 20, 1967; spotted her naked corpse: UPI dispatch in Holland Evening Sentinel, Holland, MI, August 8, 1967; had been chopped off: UPI dispatch in Traverse City Record-Eagle, August 10, 1967.

  2 - “She was another EMU coed”: “Coed’s Body Found in Wooded Area,” UPI in Holland Evening Sentinel, July 6, 1968; a blue miniskirt: Earl James, Catching Serial Killers: Learning from Past Serial Murder Investigations (Lansing, MI: International Forensic Services, 1991), 20.

  3 - “posted a note on the ride board”: James, 33; implicated Gary Leiterman: Laura Wilkerson, “The Strange Case of Jane Mixer; Michigan, 1969,” Open Salon, January 26, 2012 (http://open.salon.com/blog/laura_wilkerson/2012/01/26/the_strange_case_of_jane_mixer_michigan_1969), accessed December 4, 2012.

  4 - “parents had recently moved”: James, 41; stick jammed into her vagina: James, 42; one of the worst things he had seen: “Girl Found Murdered Near North Campus,” Michigan Daily, March 26, 1969; “somebody mentally deranged around here”: “Another Young Girl Murdered; Sex Killer on the Loose in Ann Arbor,” Associated Press story in Herald-Press, St. Joseph, MI, March 26, 1969; pale yellow dress: “Funeral Services Set for Maralynn Shelton,” UPI in Holland Evening Sentinel, March 28, 1969.

  5 - “She lifted weights”: James, 54; announced that she was bored: “Slayings Terrorize 2 University Towns,” News-Palladium, Benton Harbor, MI, April 17, 1969.

  6 - “strangled her with a piece of wire”: James, 53; must have had an accomplice: Ibid; Her body was found: James, 52; locked in rigor mortis: Ibid.

  7 - “fretted over a visit”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska, e-mail to author, September 21, 2011; pleasant surprise: Terrie Andrews Newman interview, August 28, 2011; Complications also had arisen: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008; “she told me that her father had a drinking problem”: Ibid; Betsy didn’t want to attend the ceremony: JSB interview, November 27, 2012.

  8 - “as early as her freshman year”: Linda DenBesten Jones interview, October 11, 2008; people in them who were struggling to survive: Terrie Andrews Newman interview, August 28, 2011.

  9 - “sharing an apartment”: Joann Manz Lekas, interview with the author, November 29, 2011.

  10 - “Her beloved uncle . . . urged her to get out of Ann Arbor”: Sascha Skucek, “Who Killed Betsy Aardsma?” State College magazine, December 1999.

  11 - “She hoped he would wait for her”: Op. cit., Kevin Cirilli; “I don’t know what will happen”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008.

  12 - “long walk on the beach”: Jeff Lubbers interview, October 6, 2012; to take her place in the bridal party: JSB, e-mail to the author, December 11, 2012.

  13 - “sex-and-bloodlust frenzy”: James, 59; needed to complete a photography project: James, 62; and were acquaintances: Schoolmaster interview, September 7, 2011; leaving a private dance party at the Depot House: “Victim Seen Leaving Party Early Sunday,” Michigan Daily, June 12, 1969.

  14 - “ ask her to follow him to Pennsylvania”: JSB, November 27, 2012; believes he finally did: JSB, e-mail to the author, December 11, 2012; didn’t want her to leave: Op. cit., Kevin Cirilli; She applied soon after: Nicholas Joukovsky, e-mail to the author, December 11, 2012; her family was relieved: Dennis Wegner, interview with the author, October 29, 2008; And then, of course, there was love: JSB, November 27, 2012.

  15 - “Zodiac reveled in the public terror he created”: Robert Graysmith, Zodiac Unmasked (New York: Berkley Books, 2007), 12.

  16 - “two foolish things”: UPI in Holland Evening Sentinel, August 15, 1969; her face beaten beyond recognition: Judy Sarasohn, “Police Press Search for Clues in Slaying,” Michigan Daily, July 29, 1969; appeared to have been rolled down: James, 85; large patches of her skin: UPI in Holland Evening Sentinel, August 14, 1969; marched in protest: “Diag Vigil, March Set for Noon to Protest Harvey Search Work,” Michigan Daily, July 29, 1969.

  17 - “English major”: James, 109; found the Cliff Notes: James, 128.

  18 - “urged him to consider joining the state police”: James, 105; often hung out with cops: James, 105–6.

  19 - “murdered Beineman in Leik’s basement”: James, 98.

  20 - “hosting some Japanese exchange students”: JSB, November 27, 2012; marrying David and having children: JSB, September 21, 2012.

  21 - They went out for drinks at Coral Gables: Wich interview, July 21, 2011; “And that was the last I saw her”: Wich interview, Se
ptember 24, 2008.

  Chapter 18: Making the Best of Things

  1 - “working as a volunteer”: Wich interview, September 24, 2008; “Let’s get ready and go”: Op. cit., Kevin Cirilli.

  2 - “one of 35”: Letter, December 12, 1969, President Eric A. Walker of Penn State University to Michael Baker Jr.,of Rochester, PA, answering a question from Baker regarding how many students in the new medical school at Hershey were from in and out of state. The letter was in the Eric A. Walker Papers in the Penn State Archives in State College.

  3 - “creepy murders”: David R. Johnson, interview by the author, August 30, 2012.

  4 - “a polite smoker”: Sharon Brandt, e-mail to the author, February 26, 2013.

  5 - “unintentionally comical speech”: David Nestor, “Walker’s Convocation Speech Scene for SDS, BSU Protest,” Daily Collegian, September 24, 1969.

  6 - “They tell us not to question”: “Frosh Hear Thompson,” Daily Collegian, September 24, 1969.

  7 - “You’re a goddamn racist”: Thomas D. Witt interview, March 20, 2011; confidential memo: Dispatch of October 28, 1969, from Pennsylvania State Police, Rockview, Governor Raymond Shafer Papers, PSA, Harrisburg, PA; went off without incident: Dispatch of November 1, 1969, Pennsylvania State Police, Rockview, Shafer Papers; Some students cheered: David Brent, “Ignorant Armies Clash,” Daily Collegian letter, November 5, 1969; allowing them to be harassed: News release of the Black Students Association, November 5, 1969, Student Activism Collection, Penn State Archives, University Park; decried the attempt: Lon Barash, “Close-minded Censors,” Daily Collegian, November 5, 1969.

  8 - the state official most responsible: David DeKok; Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire (Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2009), 39; refused to apologize: “Charmbury Says No Apology,” Daily Collegian, November 1, 1969; “we must not respect or even tolerate”: Jim Wiggins, “Trustee Notes Danger of Communist Pollution,” Daily Collegian, October 29, 1969.

  9 - “her mother had been a model”: Linda Marsa, e-mail to the author, January 11, 2013; Buffalo was a fairly radical campus: Ibid; “kind of an up-and-coming department”: Linda Marsa interview, October 10, 2008.

  10 - “a level of broad-minded sophistication”: Linda Marsa interview, October 10, 2008; “She always seemed like a young Katharine Hepburn: Op. cit.; grilled sticky buns, Linda Marsa, e-mail of January 10, 2013.

  11 - “required an awful lot of library work”: John Swinton, interview by the author, October 7, 2008.

  12 - “might be a useful Uncle Tom”: Letter, Representative Donald O. Bair (R-Pittsburgh) to Professor Charles T. Davis, February 3, 1969, Charles T. Davis Papers, Yale University. Bair wrote, “My congratulations to you for your stand on the student power situation. I am very pleased to see members of your race take this attitude. I am also pleased that others of your race are gaining the respect of the white community, as well as that of their own people, by organizing and operating their own businesses and industry. I realize that only a small percentage of the black people are stirring up trouble. It is a shame that a small minority can cause unrest and create disrespect for the whole black community.”

  13 - “favorite black writer was James Baldwin”: “Slain PSU Coed Was Pondering Career Choice,” Associated Press in Lancaster New Era, Lancaster, PA, December 1, 1969; “This slight, dark man”: Fern Marja Eckman, The Furious Passage of James Baldwin (New York: M. Evans & Co., 1966), 12.

  14 - “I don’t think she said very much”: Ian Osborn, e-mail to the author February 26, 2013; Hershey Medical Student Wives Club: David DeKok, “A Mystery for Almost 40 Years,” Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA, December 7, 2008.

  15 - “two and a half men were admitted for every woman”: Marianne Moughemer, “Women’s Lib Continues Equality Fight,” Daily Collegian, Penn State, April 11, 1970; Things had been worse in 1958: Stephanie Foti, “Sex Ratio Not Proportionate,” Daily Collegian, May 27, 1971; threat of litigation: Ibid.

  16 - “they met in a women’s restroom”: Pamella Farley, interview by the author, March 11, 2013.

  17 - “the kids and the keys to the Country Squire”: Linda Marsa interview, October 8, 2008. A Country Squire was a Ford station wagon that was a symbol of American family life in the 1960s.

  Chapter 19: Dangerous Attraction

  1 - “to become a draftman”: Caption under Maurer’s yearbook photo, The Bruin, Mahanoy Joint High School, 1964; his high school nickname was “Aardvark”: Ibid; how Maurer gazed at Betsy: Simmers interview, February 22, 2011; Marilee Erdely: Ibid.

  2 - “as highly intelligent”: CLH, August 23, 2010; his IQ was in the top 5 percent: Judge Anthony R. Appel, “Memorandum Opinion on Degree of Contempt,” February 27, 1976, Commonwealth v. Richard Charles Haefner, Common Pleas Court of Lancaster County (CPCLC), 7; appear to be looking down his nose: Daniel B. Stephens, interview with the author, June 21, 2012. Stephens, then a Penn State geology student, worked as a field assistant for Rick in Death Valley during the fall and winter of 1968; khaki work pants: Ibid.

  3 - “Rick’s home on campus”: The room numbers for Larry Paul Maurer and Richard C. Haefner were obtained from the Penn State University student and faculty directories for the years 1966–69. They are on an open shelf in the reading room of the Penn State Archives at the University Park campus in State College; conscientious, decent, and helpful: Roger Cuffey, interview by the author, July 23, 2012.

  4 - “Rick had wanted a weapon”: CLH, e-mail to the author, February 17, 2013, 8:16 p.m.; watched him sharpen the blade: CLH, e-mail to the author, February 17, 2013, 5:06 p.m.; to avoid nicking himself: CLH, e-mail to the author, February 18, 2013.

  5 - “no good ability to sniff out peril”: Luke Kliphuis interview, March 22, 2012.

  6 - “Betsy and I wrote frequently”: Olga Lozowchuk Kraska interview, September 21, 2011.

  7 - “they went for ice cream”: Sascha Skucek, “Case Closed?,” State College magazine, October 2010, 38; Trooper Leigh Barrows . . . talked to Charles Hosler: Hosler interview, November 8, 2011.

  8 - “considered Rick to be “a creep”: Confidential source, interview by the author, June 26, 2011; premonitions of her own early death: Dennis Wegner e-mail to author, March 30, 2011; “Time has already run out on me”: Bob Quarteroni, “Ten Years Later, Woman’s Death Is Still a Mystery,” Centre Daily Times, State College, PA, November 28, 1979; “weird feeling”: Dennis Wegner interview, October 29, 2008; dismissed the premonitions: Wegner e-mail, March 30, 2011.

  9 - “she told David that she wanted to move”: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008; how “ridiculous” it was: Op. cit., Kevin Cirilli.

  10 - “Nixon put out word”: “Nixon and the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium” (www.thenation .com/blog/nixon-and-1969-vietnam-moratorium), accessed February 11, 2013; Betsy led a one-hour discussion: “November 14 Moratorium Workshops,” Student Activism Collection, Penn State Archives.

  11 - “looking at engagement rings”: Op. cit., Cirilli; Everyone assumed: David L. Wright interview, November 10, 2008.

  12 - “just a real nice time”: Op. cit., Wright; no hint of any quarrel: Dr. Steven Margles interview, November 11, 2008; Betsy phoned her family: “Aardsma Funeral Tentatively Set for Wednesday,” Holland Evening Sentinel, December 1, 1969; it was her choice to go back: Op. cit., Cirilli; David drove Betsy to the bus station: Op. cit., Wright.

  Chapter 20: Murder

  1 - “wrote a letter to David”: Op. cit., Wright; put on a red, sleeveless dress: Betsy Aardsma autopsy report, November 28, 1969.

  2 - “Most students . . . had gone home”: Joukovsky interview, January 13, 2012; She needed to transcribe: Ibid; it made the English 501 students crazy: John Swinton, interview by the author, October 7, 2008.

  3 - “promising to meet for dinner at seven o’clock”: Ibid; sat down with a couple of other English 501 students: Nicholas Joukovsky, e-ma
il to author, February 13, 2013.

  4 - “one of the source books”: It was The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, written by George A. Aitken and published in 1892 by Oxford Clarendon Press; He did not know Betsy well: Joukovsky interview, January 13, 2012; “It was very important”: Ibid; offered to retrieve it and bring it to him: Ibid.

  5 - “quite a few students in the library”: Pattee Library attendance figures for November 28, 1969, are found in the Statistics subgroup of the University Libraries Administrative Documents record group in the Penn State Archives; left her coat and scarf: Op. cit., Quarteroni; Dean Brungart . . . saw her between two rows of books: Mike Lenio, “Murder Conjures Memories of Pattee Stabbing in 1969,” Daily Collegian, March 11, 1987; his shift ended at 4:30 p.m.: This is based on a list of Pattee Library Circulation Department employees compiled after the murder and available in the Penn State Archives. Those who left at 4:30 p.m., including Brungart, are noted.

  6 - “greeted Betsy as they passed”: David R. Johnson interview, August 30, 2012; complimented her on the red dress: Priscilla Letterman Meserole, interview by the author, November 10, 2008; No one was following her: GHK interview, October 10, 2011.

  7 - “Two young men”: Op. cit., Lenio, Daily Collegian, March 11, 1987; later identified by Brungart as Larry Paul Maurer: Trooper Mike Simmers, interview by the author, February 19, 2013. Brungart did not know Maurer on November 28, 1969, but remembered his face when the student returned to the Level 2 stacks at Pattee Library about two weeks later.

  8 - “fairly disgusting” porn: Deposition of Willis Dize, chief of police, Chincoteague, Virginia, December 9, 1995, Dr. Richard Haefner v. City of Chincoteague, et al., US District Court, Eastern District of Virginia.

  9 - “never have allowed anyone to upend his career”: CLH, August 23, 2010.