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Edna Laughman

Man Who Raped, Murdered 85-Year-Old Relative Not Sex Offender Man Who Raped, Murdered 85-Year-Old Relative Not Sex Offender
Man Who Raped, Murdered 85-Year-Old Relative Not Sex Offender Nearly 35 years after then-24-year-old Christopher Joseph Larry Speelman raped and murdered his 85-year-old relative, he has finally been sentenced— but he's not a sex offender, according to the court.  Now, 59, Speelman has been sentenced to spend the next 25 to 50 years in prison by Judge Thomas Campbell after pleading guilty to murder in the third degree, burglary, and a no contest to rape, according to Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett. Speelman confessed raping and then smothering Edna Laughman with a pillow at her home in the 1500 block of Carlisle Pike, Oxford Townsh…
33 Year-Old Cold Case Homicide Solved; One Relative Innocent, Another Guilty, Authorities Say 33 Year-Old Cold Case Homicide Solved; One Relative Innocent, Another Guilty, Authorities Say
33 Year-Old Cold Case Homicide Solved; One Relative Innocent, Another Guilty, Authorities Say DNA evidence and a confession have led to an arrest in a brutal homicide cold case committed 33 years ago. Christopher Joseph Larry Speelman, 58, New Oxford, confessed at the Gettysburg State Police barracks on July 27 to the murder of Edna Laughman, 85, of Oxford Township over three decades earlier. Laughman was raped and murdered in her home located on 1500 block of Carlisle Pike on Aug. 13, 1987. Her nephew Barry Laughman falsely confessed to killing her-- spending 16 years behind bars, but DNA evidence in 2003 exonerated them. A new test was conducted on the attackers DNA in 2018, po…