Sleep in Peace /// Part 1 /// 739 | Forensic Files

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$99.99 Ashley For the Love of [Music] [Music] home [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
you are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
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
it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
a [Music] friend well Captain I think that we have waited long enough haven't we
considering that this is America's oldest brewery this week we are very happy to be featuring Yingling the
iconic American logger famous for its Rich amber color and medium bodied flavor this is a fantastic beer that
delivers well-balanced taste and distinct character garage grade three out of five bottle caps and let's give
some thanks and praise to our friends who have distinct character first up a shout out to Nick Hiller listening and
walking the dog in Irwin Pennsylvania and last but certainly not least we have Lisa alen from Black Diamond Alberta
Canada everyone we mention they went to our website True Crime garage.com clicked on the Pint glass and helped us
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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make sure you subscribe and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a share
grab a beer let's talk some true [Laughter] [Music] crime crime Trends statistics and data is
something we discuss often in the garage most often when discussing repeat and serial offenders the information
provides insights to much of the how and why some criminals operate sometimes that information may
help to figure out the most important part of an investig ation The Who part serial offenders of all types of
crimes tend to have an operate within their comfort zones these Comfort zones are areas that
they know and feel acquainted with they are often places that they have spent a good deal of time in before more often
than not it is the town or city where they live in or a place that they have visited vised multiple times when a
Serial offender is committing their crimes the criminal wants to eliminate as many variables as possible that may
lead to getting caught as a result they will often try and stick to a place that they are very
familiar with the benefits are obvious they know most of the streets and back alleys they
know the best routes to take they have a good idea of where other people are are
likely and unlikely to be depending on the type of crime one is looking to commit they may need to know where they
can likely find a victim all of this information helps the criminal to lower the risk of being caught it also means
that they would know how to escape if something doesn't go according to plan committing crime is stressful even if
you are a psychopathic serial killer this is because the possibility of being apprehended will weigh on your mind most
serial killers have very defined Geographic areas of operation they conduct their killings within Comfort
zones that are often defined by an anchor Point some examples are their place of residence employment or even
the residence of a relative serial murderers will at times spiral their activities outside of their comfort zone
when their confidence has grown through experience or to avoid detection very few serial murderers
travel great distances or even Interstate to kill while you will hear the phrase in the same neighborhood
throughout this week's shows please note that while the offenses described here are not technically in the same
neighborhood should you take the time to look them up on a map you will agree that the crimes took place terrifyingly
close to the others warning these episodes may take you out of your comfort zone sleep in
peace this is true cram [Laughter] garage mail carriers postal employees new paper carriers recently we have
covered the still unsolved murder of postal worker Steven Spina a young man who at the age of just 36 years old was
found stabbed to death in his apartment in New York this was September 17th 2007
we covered Steven's case in episode 642 and even more recently we covered the very mysterious but very solvable
missing persons case of Kiara Kohl's a US Postal employee who went missing in October of 2018 in Chicago Foul Play is
most certainly suspected in that case and those were episodes 7:15 and 716 on your true crime garage radio dial
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
garage but with us knowing several of the fine hardworking folks that listen to our show and that are delivering the
mail to all of us those cases will always be near and dear to our hearts like so many of the cases we have
discussed in the garage but with us knowing several fine folks working hard getting the mail to each of us but more
importantly we have a lot of post office workers listening to the show a lot of male carriers listening to the show not
too shabby get some good exercise great benefits and you can listen to these two
guys I'm sure we have discussed this here before but Captain you and I when we were younger we both had paper routes
now I can think of at least two newspaper carrier cases that we have covered here in the garage the
kidnapping of paper boys Johnny gsh and Eugene Martin from De Moine Iowa in the early
1980s TCG episodes 57 and 58 but all of those cases immediately came to mind when starting to examine this case
because this is the stuff of nightmares a true story of the unthinkable this is going to take us
back to June 9th 1993 now June 9th was a Wednesday this day is going to start off with the
startling disappearance of a young girl 15-year-old Charlotte schmoyer she was up early that morning like many mornings
Charlotte was a freshman at high school she was in the ninth grade and she was a
member of the swim team and the track team and the band front she was in the color guard swinging Flags in the band
she's up early that morning because she had a neighborhood newspaper route she was going to be out delivering papers
but the alarm was raised when those papers did not arrive on the front doorsteps of the neighborhood
subscribers police arrived on the scene after being called to the area when they
get there this is north Oso Street on the east side of Allentown Pennsylvania this is a neighborhood that butts up
against the busy Handover Avenue which has both housing and businesses the leeh high river is nearby as well when police
get to the scene you know they are always hoping that this is just a misunderstanding or maybe we have a
teenager that decided to Sher responsibility and go off with some friends but here we get what you
absolutely do not want to find and that is clear and obvious signs of a likely abduction so with police at the scene it
looks like Captain that this poor girl may have been abducted so what are they seeing what what do they see when they
arrive it appears that Charlotte schmoyer was out on her route delivering these papers now typically the only good
thing about one of these newspaper route abductions is in most cases it's rather
obvious to police where the abduction took place right you typically have a short window of time that you're dealing
with in the investigation so much like with the Hansel and gredle fairy tale that we all know the newspapers are your
breadcrumb trail to the abduction site follow the papers and when they stop your neighborhood canvas investigation
starts there and like you said now we can narrow down the window of opportunity because we also could find
out when were those papers delivered to her to get the papers ready to go out for delivery it's my understanding that
in this neighborhood at this time Captain the police are told that typically the paper drop off would occur
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
papers she's going to prep them and then she's going to start out on her route I
believe she had about 50 houses I don't know how many subscribers were on her route but
typically from my day and this is strange to be reporting on this while we do not live anywhere near Allentown
Pennsylvania our routes the route that I had was in the early '90s or mid 90s and
typically during during the week the route was rather quick you could bang out the route in about anywhere from 20
to 30 minutes and so as said this would seem to be a very short window of time the
problem area here the newspaper Trail okay so you're going to start to Canvas the area after finding the
following the newspaper Trail is going to lead police to 1057 East Gordon Street
this is just2 miles from Charlotte's parents' home on North Oswego Road so I would estimate this is just like a five
or six minute walk considering the circumstances now Charlotte was unsuccessful in delivering a paper to
1057 East Gordon Street residents a bit of an interesting twist here from what we have seen in similar cases it
actually appears that the neighbors are the ones that called the police either this is the 1057 East Gordon Street
residence or someone close by so other cases that we covered like in the gosh case and and some others the parents are
notified or the newspaper is notified from persons not having received their paper and that's where the alarm is
raised but with this situation it's people going out looking for their paper they don't find the
paper and then they find this very scary situation after you hear this description you'll quickly understand
that there was certain signs of abduction exactly obvious signs so we got 1057 East Gordon Street that we've
already mentioned they did not get their paper that morning Charlotte had a cart
that she would push or pull down the street the cart held the newspapers somebody goes out looking for their
paper they don't find Charlotte they don't find their paper they find the cart abandoned with newspaper is still
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
scene we have the description of what the police saw the police find that car in front of this
residence they then find newspapers on the ground and the little girl's Walkman radio headphones separated from the
radio so police find these items near the garage to this residence from my understanding Captain the garage is not
attached to the house so this is near more like the backyard of this property right police find smeared fingerprints
on the garage window pane this they're very quickly forming a picture in their minds
of what they believe happened she's out delivering the papers headphones on so maybe not fully aware of her
surroundings but that's very common on the paper routes you you slap on your headphones and you deliver your papers
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
sign of a struggle that somebody snatched her up and while she's trying to get away she ran toward this garage
and either tried to brace herself or she's trying to catch herself on this wall to the garage smearing her fingers
across going downward motion and what they're saying is it they're saying that based off of what they could see it
almost looked to them like somebody tackled her like took her down to the ground and then left with her and she
might not have been aware of it if she's wearing headphones she might not even heard the attack coming exactly she may
not have heard the person approach her may not have seen him we do know that there was some attempt to flee based on
what they're seeing at the scene so either he he makes a failed attempt at grabbing her and she she gets away and
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
regardless they're seeing that it looks like she was tackled and now we can't find this poor girl who was just out
delivering her papers that now unfortunately this is going to lead to a search search everything in the
neighborhood and a short time later police locate what they had hoped against they find the victim Charlotte
scher's body it was found close nearby under a pile of logs stumps leaves like this is
in a wooded area so this is behind Moser Elementary School this is over by the allent Town East
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
describe it as a park- like setting again it's behind the elementary school not being from the area it's
difficult for us to pinpoint the exact location however we can say confidently this is only about half of a
mile from the abduction cite so the killer made some kind of lame attempt to conceal the
body the victim suffered 22 stab wounds sexual assault was likely due to the state of her clothing this is a vicious
brutal murder stabbed that many times and no indication that the murder weapon was recovered at the body recovery sight
but like in so many of these cases we need investigators to catch a break we need in the investigation to have a
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
witness that may have seen Charlotte schmo's killer driving away from the East side Reservoir this would be at
about 6:30 a.m. so we remember we talked about the paper bundle drop off would be
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
of time this is 90 minutes from the time that the papers would have been dropped off to the time
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
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
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
witness is saying this is the only person that I saw driving from that area and they're going okay this very likely
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
assault if only you know if we had that you wish for that because someone likely could have stepped in and
prevented this murder from taking place in the first place right so this is about the time the investigators say the
allent toown newspaper carrier was stabbed 22 times so sometime between just before
6:30 what they get is a vehicle description and a good one now a description of the driver not so much
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
driver was described as quote it looked like Mr average the witness described the driver
as white and middle-aged with no distinguishing characteristics authorities did tell the
papers that the witness was confident that they could identify the man and the car now we'll get into the vehicle
description here in a minute but to be clear on this here Captain what this witness is stating is while the driver
looked like Mr average to me and here's a description of the vehicle they're not saying that I I could tell
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
images of cars and images of of suspects right I'm confident as the witness that
I could pick out the suspect and pick out the car so back to that vehicle Captain
because as we said we we get a much better description of the Killer's vehicle the eyewitness describ the car
as a late 1970s or early 1980s medium blue color four-door sub compact car with heavy damage to the
passenger side and I love to hear that there is damage to this vehicle this damage as described by the witness heavy
damage to the passenger side look you may find it's 1993 you may find in this neighborhood
or surrounding areas a lot of cars that could match the description of late 7s early 80s medium blue four-door subc
compact car but you likely should only find one with heavy damage to the passenger side
this is very specific this is an identifier this is this is something that is unique to this vehicle only
right vehicles are easier to find than people most of the time now the Allentown assistant police
chief he would go on to say that they believe that the car was likely a Chrysler
product and that the police they they know exactly what we're thinking as well here Captain because
they spent the entire night after finding Charlotte driving around and on foot looking for that
vehicle a vehicle that matched that description you find a vehicle that matches that description you're probably
going to find your guy well the day after this murder law enforcement is going to reach out and talk to the
public the assistant police chief is going to address the media the assistant police chief his name is Gerald
Monahan so the day after the murder he's upfront and Center on the local news he's saying that the police would like
to question the driver about why he was at the reservoir at that early hour and what he might have seen in the wooded
area behind Moser School in East allent Town so this is a tactic that we've seen
before while police are working under the idea that this guy whoever who was whoever was driving that vehicle at 6:30
a.m. on June 9th 1993 at the reservoir behind the school there that's our guy that's our suspect that's what
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
delivering this information to the public because you want this person to come to you it's a lot easier if they
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
have seen or heard while you were out there you could be a witness to something important the other thing too
is if if you deliver the message in this way as well you may have some somebody that knows this person that might come
forward with with this kind of tactic rather than saying this is our suspect this is the guy that we're looking for
especially this early on in your investigation we're talking this is 24 hours later a reward was quickly offered
up this came by the way of the good folks over at the Morning Call newspaper a lot of the information that we have
from this particular portion of the case comes from the Morning Call newspaper sadly that was the newspaper that
Charlotte Schmo was delivering that day yeah she was a carrier for the morning call a reward of $10,000 was being
offered up for the individual or individuals who could provide specific information resulting in the detection
arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of Charlotte the information sought by this
offer must be communicated to the allent Town Police Police Department the reward
offer reads all calls will be kept confidential the reward will be given by the morning call after the conviction of
the person or persons responsible for for this crime and after consultation with Allentown Police Department and
other appropriate law enforcement authorities now I'll limit I want to limit the amount of autopsy information
here out of respect to our young victim some of what was revealed we've already talked about you have the
22 stab wounds most of them were located in the back to her back coroner Wayne Snyder said the cause
of death was these multiple stab wounds one incredibly sad part of the autopsy and a sad fact of the
attack is that Charlotte who was just 5'2 in tall she did not have any defense wounds
the assistant police chief later said he meaning her attacker had complete control over her she never had the
opportunity to fight back well look it's pretty simple to say I think he attacked
her from behind and like like we said if you are carrying and she might have been some of
these carrying cases you you put the majority of your papers in the front so when you go to be attacked then You'
fall forward anyways and to me the way they describe the scene it's almost like she probably attempted to abandon the
paper she was carrying right at some point to help her get away now the as far as the Walkman and the headphones go
I can't say if those came off during the course of her being tackled taken to the
ground or if she tried to abandon those as well but like the police are saying no defense wounds she didn't even have
the opportunity to fight back whoever tackled her and took her to the ground that may have been enough to subdue her
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
and left the that area before going off to this Reservoir area right authorities
would not discuss whether the teen was set actually assaulted although the autopsy did give some indication that
that was probably likely the girl was found with the pants and sweatshirt the clothing that she was wearing when she
disappeared but investigators would not say publicly if she was clothed when she
was found some additional notes and statements from police they are telling the public we've interviewed Witnesses
and we're looking at particular individuals it may be somebody who is familiar with Charlotte they go on to
say the nature of the offense requires us to look at people who live in the neighborhood one of the first things to
be checked and ruled out was that someone had escaped from or did not return from leave from the
allent town State Hospital this is an interesting and unique aspect to this case the town
State Hospital is located adjacent to the schmoyers family's home this was a state hospital captain that moved into
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
hospital that there was a lot of push back from the neighborhood they did not want the the hospital there and this is
not an emergency room type hospital or a place where people were giving birth this was a hospital for persons that had
some mental issues so this person some persons of the neighborhood did not want this in their backyard we can see this
clearly because when this murder takes place the police are saying this is one of the first things that we have to
check did somebody get out of this hospital did they escape or or were they allowed to leave which many of the
patients were and did they not come back and if we can get we're going to look for we're
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
escaped from the the for a lack of better term mental hospital then we might have suspect number one
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effective learning program out there at the best [Laughter] price all right you filthy animals we
are back back in the garage cheers to everybody cheers to you captain and cheers to all of our longtime listeners
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
Deana this is what you want to hear okay you're you are a member of the neighborhood concerned
citizen your heart is broken your heart is breaking for This Girl's family but this is what you want to hear
you want you want to hear that there's going to be decisive action taken and we have the mayor Joseph
danana up front and center the day after the murder he is announcing to everyone
that he has authorized the Allentown Police Department to take whatever actions are necessary regardless of cost
to track down the Killer and protect the city from further attack Neighbors along East Gordon
Street said that they saw undercover police keep watch overnight so remember the day that
Charlotte is abducted and found is a Wednesday the neighbors the people living on this East Gordon Street they
are saying that they saw undercover police keeping watch over night on that Wednesday night this makes total sense
because this would go along with the statement that we heard earlier police saying that they were out looking for
that car all night long right and there's a possibility cuz we know that Killers sometimes like to return to the
scene of the crime also this neighborhood is probably in tremendous fear that this is going to happen
again and also could you imagine all the young paper boys and paper girls that have to then continue their
routes after hearing this in the news the other thing we learned is that officers were up at the crack of dawn to
pound on doors of the neighbors th this is inconvenient for the people living in
the neighborhood but it's necessary to your investigation and very smart so remember newspaper bundle dropped off at
5:00 a.m. guess what our police are out doing at 500 a.m. the next day we are out knocking on
doors waking people up because they want to do is by the by the time they're canvasing the area Captain unfortunately
the poor girl's already been killed right body has already been attempted to be concealed after they find her and
they're canvasing the area a lot of the people that may have seen something or heard something maybe
somebody witnessed something that they don't know is important to this case those people were likely not talked
to on that Wednesday because they had already made their way off to work and they were gone
so you're up now you're knocking on doors you're asking the important questions this is very smart for their
investigation and really covering all their bases here now the park where Charlotte's body was found was closed
for somewhere between 48 hours and 72 hours so that police and authorities could search for and collect evidence
now these undercover officers back to that as you had mentioned right sometimes these killers will
return to the area maybe even return here with the news breaking very quickly that the bodies found you wouldn't
anticipate that the killer would go back to the trail area where he had left the
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
well also the age of the victim we know you got to look at the family you got to
look at the Inner Circle but then I think this becomes more complicated because every person that she delivered
to is a possible suspect anybody that she doesn't deliver to anybody just on her route I think if I'm law enforcement
I'm leaning to towards the idea that this is local yeah there I think there's some indicators here that this could be
a very local based crime so I'm I would bet right we talked about undercover officers earlier right I'm guessing that
they're not only out there looking for the car but they're probably posting up under
covers staking out for drivers or person's driving by especially the morning after and the morning after that
I I bet they did do that having seen the efforts that they went to in this investigation Charlotte schmoyer was a
HomeTown girl she was born in Allentown she's the daughter of Jean and Karen schmoyer she was living at home with Mom
Dad and her brother and sister she was a member of the Emanuel United Church of Christ and a member of the youth group
there as well for her funeral service the family requested that supporters and mourners send a contribution to a
scholarship fund at Charlotte school instead of flowers contributions were sent to the school in care of Charlotte
of course when word spread hundreds of students in the Allentown School District struggled to cope with losing
Charlotte one school official termed the death the hardest hitting tragedy in at
least the last Dozen Years so I mean at schools and in this particular case the school
district over the years of course they have to cope with student deaths from things like
illnesses even suicides and car accidents but a murder of a beloved student class me this is going to prove
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
I'm sure there's a lot of speculation and and it's almost like she was attacked by this animal this vicious
animal some mystery monster that's lurking in the neighborhood yeah the boogeyman so this will give you a little
kind of hint into what's going on here so one school official said quote there's a different level of concern
there's a threat here that wasn't there in other tragic deaths and the nature of
the tragedy is unusual in that it affected a whole neighborhood end quote so what they did C Captain as one might
expect they brought in extra counselors and school psychologists brought in and sent out to
four area schools to assist and to help the students and staff now keep in mind the area the
neighborhood Charlotte was well past the age of attending elementary school but her
body was found in a on a wooded Hillside behind the elementary school in the four
Schools staff members were briefed on the death based on the newspaper accounts teams of professionals went
from classroom to classroom at the elementary schools dispelling rumors and taking children's questions some of the
children required oneon-one counseling the school district really did a great job with this I think
Captain they even they even set up a phone number for people to call who needed any kind of help with this or
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
arranged for meetings for parents to discuss special safety precautions for their children teachers and staff try to
combat children's fears by telling them how to keep themselves safe some of the points made were don't walk alone don't
take shortcuts through the woods or other isolated areas and Report any suspicious
individual to a responsible adult the schools requested that if possible parents please drop children off and
pick them up they they really didn't want anybody walking to and from school and as you pointed out Captain the kids
were understandably sad angry but also afraid yeah one of the kids told a newspaper this is a this is a a person
Charlotte was a ninth grader all of those elementary school kids that probably didn't know her her her brother
and sister were considerably younger than her so maybe they knew her younger siblings right so they have that to deal
with but we were all young once we were all elementary school age thank God nobody ever found they never
found a victim in behind the school an element these are young kids these kids have got to be terrified well then
that's how urban legends start so then once this body is found all the rumors all the stories you got kids spending
the night at other kids' houses making up horror stories about what they actually found or or or claiming oh my
brother saw the body before they discovered the body just nonsense Stu like that and one of the kids this is a
junior at her High School said quote if it happened to her it could happen to anybody so the kids Everybody's scared
at this point now back to the investigation cabinet I want to jump back to something the assistant chief
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
in the neighborhood of course you would anytime you have something like this but
each case is unique and the thing that stands out here is all aspects of the crimes took place in the neighborhood
the attack the Abduction the body disposal here and now more importantly than ever the nature of the offense
requires police to look at people who live in that neighborhood and not only do you look at the people who live in
the neighborhood to find a potential suspect right but of course you're looking at
everyone who is a potential eye or ear witness here so if this attack this murder this sexual assault this
abduction this disposal of the body if that's not horrifying enough for this community well this isn't the first time
and there's one pretty recently as recent as 10 months before this murder yeah so one thing we always try to look
at and and something that police are always going to look at are crime Trends which is certainly a thing that you hone
in on but when you talk about crime Trends you're really looking and talking about property crimes and this is also
true for robberies and and assaults but here Captain as you pointed out one does
not have to look very hard and examine the recent history of this very safe neighborhood to make a
discovery and for police to quickly remember and draw parallels between this assault and murder to one that took
place just 10 months prior that is 29-year-old Joan Mary berghard who was found murdered on her
living room floor 10 months earlier to the day Charlotte schmoyer W who we just talked about at length assaulted and
killed June 9th 1993 Joan Berard was found assaulted and killed August 9th 1992 so this is from The Morning Call
newspaper from the northwest corner of Allentown State Hospital grounds out at South
ego and East Gordon streets it's about a 100 steps to the home of murder victim Charlotte schmoyer wow in that same 100
steps you can walk west to the front door of the apartment rented by Joan Mary bergart whose brutal bludgeoning
murder August 1992 remained unsolved so if you're law enforcement a couple things their mind went to this murder
that happened 10 months earlier probably before anybody else and then you start thinking are these connected and then
you have a problem on your hand because you already have you already have a a community
that's scared to death of this Boogeyman but if you lead on to the idea that these could be con
connected then I think Threat Level goes up to Threat Level Midnight well and while I I like that description that was
from The Morning Call newspaper I don't think that it because really all they're
referencing there is here's the it's 100 steps from this this state hospital to one murder victim's
home and then it's 100 steps the other direction from the state hospital to the other murder victim's home well one of
the victims was not killed in their home you only have one that was killed in their home right we have Charlotte who
was walking away from her house you know she lived she actually lived much closer
to the state hospital than where she was abducted from right but the thing here is everything is in this neighborhood
everything is in this neighborhood that both of the murders the the place that they're honing in on is this
hospital it's in the neighborhood as well and of course her newspaper route all in the neighborhood so the abduction
site where she lived and then eventually where her body is found the alarming thing here once you hone in on this idea
that oh we have two murders two very violent murders one that has been unsolved for 10 months all taking place
in the same neighborhood the terrifying thing here and of it's obvious for the person's living in the neighborhood of
course but having reviewed a lot of these cases what we've seen is when crimes take place like this these
murders take place in such a close proximity that usually these types of crimes are going to speed up in
succession so the last murder took place 10 months ago you can almost if your law
enforcement expect another attack or another victim sooner than 10 months that would be a scary opposition to be
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
try to solve them to prevent another murder that possibly most likely statistically statistically we know will
happen sooner than a 10-month period well and then we get the district attorney his name is Robert Steinberg
he's talking to the media he says look I'm I'm being a little careful here about connecting the two
murders he doesn't want to set off Panic among Eastside Allentown residents because he says we don't have at this
time we don't have concrete evidence that the two murders are in fact linked but he does say on the other hand
police are pursuing leads along those lines investigators remained mum on whether or not either victim was
sexually assaulted even though what we do learn from the local media was that for
forensic evidence was collected to determine if that was the case in the murder prior in the berghard
murder testing was had been actually completed prior to the second murder but police were not going to
reveal the results of course now several people that were interviewed in connection with the first murder they're
talking to the media and they say look during the questioning it came up that the victim was raped in the
first case so basing it off of the questions that persons are being asked right you can make that leap very
quickly they did go on to say this was interesting that DNA testing was performed on samples taken from Joan the
first victim and there was a man suspected in her murder but that suspect was then
cleared as the comparison results returned negative but at this time this early in the second investigation
Captain basically what we're getting is police saying we are conducting test to try to we're performing tests to try to
determine whether there is one killer in the two murders or two killers and we get a quote here from the district
attorney says quote I need the DNA comparison to see if I'm looking at one murderer or two of course that's going
to completely change your investigation if you know that it's one or two different persons he goes on to say that
the FBI who was brought in on this agreed to expedite the test and the results were expected in four to six
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
people that live in this area would completely understand or even remember but again it it it's repeated
time and time again in this investigation that the local scuttlebutt was that a lot of people thought that the killings
were not only connected but related to the controversial housing remember that that hospital had
moved in and a lot of people in the neighborhood did not want that hospital there right and so you get all of these
people that are being interviewed in the neighborhood and they they keep bringing
up this Hospital well they need to check the hospital the police need to check the hospital and police did say this is
something that we are in fact doing without going through it too much what we do need to say here is that
eventually what we would learn is that the state hospital lead that was immediately considered in the
investigation and both investigations separately and then together we end up having the district attorney who would
come out at some point and say look everybody in the area you need to understand we've looked into that lead
and we can say with confidence that no hospital patients were involved in either of the killings so we have a lot
of details on the second case do we have more details on the first murder we do have some here Captain so again this
goes back to August 9th 1992 oddly enough 10 months to the day before the second murder the way
that this story starts off we have gladus bergart she's unable to reach her daughter Joan by way of
telephone and she says this is actually more than one day for two days she can't
get a hold of her then her and her husband learned that their daughter Joan did not show up
for her work did not show up at her job Joan berghard the victim is 29 years old
and she's a nurse's aid so Mom and Dad decide to drive out to their adult daughter's apartment when they arrive
the burgarts see police cars and onlookers that are gathering around they're gathering around their
daughter's first floor apartment so immediately they say we knew something was terribly wrong then they quickly
figure out and are told that their daughter was found dead lying on her living room floor she had been hit on
the head more than 30 times with an unknown object this is according to police her body was found partially
clothed she was killed here we have the opposite with the Charlotte schmoyer case we have a
very short small window of time that we're looking at in our investigation unfortunately in the berghard case it's
not the same police they're really not if they were able to narrow it down they'd never said so publicly
because they're simply saying we she had to have been killed sometime between Friday and Sunday when
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
this based off of everybody that they talk to so they they know that Joan was alive and well on Friday because she
spoke to several people and interacted with several persons in fact she even made plans with one of her friends for
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
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
there's some other unique things about the first case this this Joan case because only five days before her body's
found so this is just the week prior Joan reported a burglary at her home and her parents would say that what
was reported was that about $50 in cash was missing from her apartment police did say look we we're aware of the
burglary and we cannot say with any level of certainty that the break-in was connected to the slanging at all but
what's weird here is what we do know is within the course of five or six days somebody broke into
the home stealing cash and then later somebody breaks into the home and kills this young woman makes you wonder if
it's the same individual and if it was just an escalation of crime and this Joan I mean the the the paper carrier
the newspaper carrier Charlotte her Young Age and and having the experience of being a newspaper carrier myself of
course I mean that that one really got to me but Janes case really got to me as well I mean this was a
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
true fighter so Joan sadly struggled for years with severe depression and this likely I think I'm
no doctor here but she suffered a violent trauma as a youngster and I gotta believe that a lot
of that depression and some of her I hate to use the phrase mental issues but for lack of a better term I
think probably stem from that violent trauma that she experienced when she was young but she was very accomplished in
her life she excelled in school she won a Statewide spelling be she won an essay
contest she graduated with honors from Palmerton High School in 1980 where she ran track and was a
member of several clubs there including the school's newspaper again she battled
this depression for a large portion of her life and and her parents point out a large portion of her adult life and she
would regularly see seek help and assistance for this the trauma came from a situation when she was walking
to the local pool when she was 10 years old someone sexually assaulted her at knife point a stranger and I don't
believe that this person was ever apprehended for this incident well to think that one this would
be a huge ordeal just to try to get through but to then have the knowledge that the person
wasn't caught you'd always have that fear that they're going to come back for you well and she unfortunately
had the mindset that and and some victims experience this where they they can tend to blame themselves sometimes
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
committed some kind of sin and her parents did the best they could to try to help and assist her with this but as
said she she did go on to excel in school but the the problem was she was withdrawn
and shy and then of course the depression sets in her mom does say look we this was kind of always a family
secret and we didn't not something that we wanted to be a secret but Joan didn't
talk about this she didn't openly talk about this and she didn't like to talk about the incident
yeah it seems like this horrific attack happened to her and then she closed people off and then she dove
into something that she felt safe in education and her education and schoolwork and you have a lot of time on
your hands cuz I'm sure she didn't want to go out especially by herself I'm sure
she had what a what a horrible thing well and her mom says you know look so if anybody out there thought that she
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
associates degree from the community college they say the troubles were really over the course of about a
seven-year period of her adult life while in her 20s she Joan was in and out of hospitals at times her parents said
after her death that they question whether the medication and some of the psych atric counseling Joan received
early on may have done more harm than good but in the year before the murder Joan became a cert she
became certified as a nurse's aid and at the time of her death she was employed at the Moser nursing home friends and
family remembered how Joan would stop at the nursing home on her days off to play
piano for the residents the apartments where she lived this is the Gordon Street Apartments this this is where the
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
often would drive other tenants to places like the bank or the grocery store so this is a caring giving person
and I'm sorry I I just had a hard time thinking about how sad it was here you have this individual that experiened
this horrible trauma at the hands of a stranger at at the Young age of 10 she had every excuse
to be miserable or every excuse to be in the bottle and instead she was a fighter a
giver someone who helped others and then one night someone crawls into her apartment and kills her and it's this
this brutal murder while your heartbreaks for Joan and her family and Charlotte and her family and friends in
the neighborhood in the schools your heart breaking in the whole time you're racking your brain going are these
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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Part 1 of 2

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In 1993 a string of rapes and murders surprised a rather safe neighborhood in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The citizens of Allentown were quick to question if this violent spree was connected to an unsolved homicide from the year before. The violent murder of 15 year old newspaper carrier Charlotte Schmoyer spread fear and terror far and wide. The Allentown Police Department worked the case using every resource along the way but the murders continued. Jump into the Garage and listen in to an examination of this still very haunting True Crime story.

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Brief Summary

Charlotte Schmoyer, 15, was abducted and murdered while delivering newspapers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raising community fears of a serial killer.

Key points

Charlotte Schmoyer's Disappearance. 15-year-old Charlotte goes missing while delivering newspapers, raising alarm in her neighborhood.
Discovery of Charlotte's Body. Charlotte's body is found under a pile of logs, revealing a brutal murder.
Witness to the Crime. A witness claims to have seen a suspicious vehicle near the crime scene.
Community Shock After Murder. The murder of Charlotte Schmoyer sends shockwaves through her community, prompting urgent police action.
Fear Grips Local Students. Students grapple with the reality of violence in their neighborhood after Charlotte's tragic death.
The Unsolved Murders. Two brutal murders in a small neighborhood raise fears of a serial killer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the stuff of nightmares.

9:31WatchFeb 28, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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