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Monday, dec 23
Tag:
Cold case
Police & Fire
Arrests Made In Three Philadelphia Homicides Spanning Years, Police Say
Philadelphia police announced arrests in three separate homicide cases across the 22nd, 24th, and 25th districts on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. Incident 1: Shooting At Chinese Restaurant On Monday, June 10, 2024, 25th District officers responded to a report of a person with a gun at the 700 block of E. Ontario Street at 11:03 p.m., according to police. Inside the Kitchen Express Chinese Restaurant, officers found 27-year-old Joel Colon-Cruz suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso. He was pronounced dead at 11:09 p.m. by Medic 57, police said. Detectives determined that…
News
Cold
CASE: FBI In PA Investigating 'Baby Jane Doe' Found In NJ Dumpster
The remains of an infant girl were found in a dumpster behind a New Jersey shopping center in a 1986 cold case authorities in Pennsylvania announced they are investigating in a release on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Philadelphia and police in Gloucester County, New Jersey are investigating a case involving a "Baby Jane Doe" found on the morning of Thursday, Dec. 4, 1986, according to the release. She was found inside a silver, plastic trash bag in a dumpster behind the shopping center at Ganttown Road and Route 42 in Washington Township, New Jersey, the F…
News
50 Years After Being Found Frozen In Pennsylvania Cave 'Pinnacle Man' Is Identified
The body of a man found frozen in a Pennsylvania cave nearly 50 years ago has been identified, authorities said. The remains of Nicholas Paul Grubb, 27, of Fort Washington, Montgomery County, were discovered in January 1977 by two Appalachian Trail hikers who had ducked inside the cave to escape foul weather, according to the Berks County Coroner which announced the news last week. Grubb has long been known as the “Pinnacle Man,” named after the mountain peak near where his body was found. An autopsy at the time found no signs of foul play and determined that he died from a drug overdose b…
Police & Fire
9-Year-Old Found Strangled In Bristol Church, Tips Sought 62 Years Later
Pennsylvania State Police investigators are seeking tips in a 9-year-old girl's cold case murder. Carol Ann Dougherty was found dead inside St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church in Bristol Borough on Oct. 22, 1962. She was strangled and had been sexually assaulted, according to troopers. Police said Dougherty had stopped at the church while riding her bike to the library. She had stopped there to say a prayer, according to a report in the Bristol Courier-Times the day after her murder. Then-Bristol Police Chief Vincent Faragalli called her killing "one of the most br…
Police & Fire
Cold Case Murder Of Atlantic City Celebrity 'Cooks Books' Re-Examined 40 Years Later
Investigators in Atlantic County are asking for help in solving the murder of a local celebrity in Atlantic City nearly 40 years ago, authorities said. In a news release on Wednesday, March 27, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office asked for public assistance in the investigation into the 1985 killing of Raul Sanchez. He was known to many as "Cooks Books." Suarez earned the nickname while he was an emcee at the 500 Club in Atlantic City. He was also a radio show host and a taxicab driver. The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office is looking for new information about the 1985…
Police & Fire
Vallis Slaughter Charged In 2012 Julio Torres Murder: DA
The alleged gunman in a deadly 2012 Reading shooting is in police custody in New Jersey, according to Berks County prosecutors. Vallis L. Slaughter, of Jersey City, is being held in Hudson County pending his extradition to Pennsylvania, said the District Attorney's Office on Monday, March 25. Investigators believe he killed 34-year-old Julio A. Torres on March 24, 2012. Torres was shot while sitting in his car in the parking lot of the West Reading Diner after a confrontation with suspects, the DA's Office said. Jomaine Case was eventually convicted in connectio…
News
Teen's Accused Killer Charged On 22nd Birthday, Philadelphia DA Says
A Philadelphia man is charged with the 2021 murder of a 17-year-old boy. James Adams is also accused of robbery and evidence tampering, said the District Attorney's Office on Jan. 8, Adams' 22nd birthday. Authorities believe Adams shot Tyron Rozier in the back on West Sedgley Avenue near Reyburn Park late on July 4, 2021. City police found Rozier at the scene about an hour later and he died from his wounds, prosecutors said. A tip to police, "digital and forensic techniques," and assistance from federal agencies helped identify Adams as a suspect, the DA's Office sai…
Police & Fire
DNA Evidence Leads To Arrest In 2001 Eastern PA Cold Case: Prosecutors
Berks County investigators are closing the books on a decades-old cold case after DNA technology helped them identify the killer, according to the District Attorney's Office. Cynthia Baver was found dead from multiple stab wounds in her North 10th Street home on April 8, 2001, officials said at a press conference Friday morning. The 46-year-old also had a cord tied around her neck, authorities said. Inside and outside the home, investigators collected forensic evidence. Blood stains were found on the floors, walls, and even in a breezeway separating Baver's home from her …
Police & Fire
Roxborough Shooting Suspect Jumped From 4th Floor Window Before Arrest: Marshals
More than a year after the shooting that killed a 14-year-old boy outside Roxborough High School, the fifth known suspect has been captured. Dayron Burney-Thorn, 17, was arrested by US Marshals in Germantown after leaping from a fourth-story window on Monday afternoon, Oct. 23, authorities said in a release. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Investigators believe Burney-Thorn was part of the group that ambushed Nicholas Elizalde and four others outside a Roxborough High football scrimmage on Sept. 27, 2022. Elizalde, of Havertown, died from his wounds, while the other s…
Police & Fire
Nearly 50 Years Later Cold Case Killing Of Central PA Newly Wed Solved: DA
In 1975 a 19-year-old newlywed was brutally murdered, but thanks to DNA evidence her alleged killer has been revealed, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams announced. Lancaster County's oldest cold case homicide was that of Lindy Sue Biechler whose "life was brutally taken away from her 46 years ago in the sanctity of her own home," DA Adams said. David Vincent Sinopoli, now 69 of the 300 block of Faulkner Drive, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and burglary in connection with Biechler's death on Thursday, Oct. 19. His plea comes …
Police & Fire
Cold
CASE: Questions Linger About 21-Year-Old Man's Brutal Murder In PA
Decades after David Allen Gross was found beaten and strangled to death in the trunk of his own car, state police investigators are still seeking answers. The Mount Pocono resident had celebrated his 21st birthday just days before Upper Mount Bethel police found his locked Chevrolet Monza at the Delaware Water Gap's Arrow Island Overlook off Route 611, according to troopers. In an archival report from the Allentown Morning Call, authorities said Gross was found in the back, under a tarp in a pool of blood just after 1 a.m. on Aug. 11, 1977. He had been strangled and …
News
Cold
CASE: Gruesome Home Invasion Homicide Under Investigation In PA
Investigators are taking another look at a gruesome home invasion turned execution of a wealthy Pennsylvania man. Jeffrey Charles Horwith, 37, was the heir apparent to his father's Northampton-based business, Horwith Trucking Incorporated, state police say. He was headed to his North Whitehall home after a dinner at a local restaurant with his wife on July 29, 1988, according to Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers. When he arrived back home, Horwith was greeted by a masked gunman, according to an Allentown Morning Call article published a week after the fact. Horwith an…
Police & Fire
Cold
CASE: 20-Year-Old Woman Found In Nothing But Her Socks Along The Susquehanna River
Exactly 27 years to the day Kimberly "Kimmie" Ann Yohe went missing, the Pennsylvania State Police, Troop H, Harrisburg, continue their investigation into the cold case of her homicide— and so is the FBI. Kimmie was "found naked, beaten, strangled, hands bound behind her back floating in the Susquehanna River," podcasters at Keystone Cold Cases put it on Oct. 25, 2021, asking, "Who could commit such a heinous crime?" If you know you could be eligible for a big reward, according to PSP. She had last been seen at her home in Etters at 9 p.m. on May 8, 1996, PSP said. Her 1987 Mazda 626 was…
Police & Fire
Late Caribbean Yacht Pirate Implicated In 1980 Bucks Murder: DA
After more than four decades, authorities in Bucks County say they have solved a cold case murder in Nockamixon Township. The 1980 killing of 34-year-old Richard Wheeler was carried out by German national Peter Marschner on the order of Bucks County methamphetamine dealer Leslie Schmidt, claimed District Attorney Matthew Weintraub in a release on Friday, March 31. Both suspects have since died — Marschner in 2006 and Schmidt in 2022, according to Weintraub's office — but prosecutors and state police investigators say they have uncovered evidence that officially closes the case. Accordin…
Police & Fire
Mom Found Burned Dead In Vacant Lot Had Been Staying In Poconos Weeks Before Her Killing
Known for 30 years as the "Girl with the Scorpion Tattoo," the unidentified victim found brutally murdered on Staten Island now has a name, and it turns out she'd been staying in the Poconos during the weeks leading up to her death, authorities said. Christine Belusko of Clifton was handcuffed, strangled, beaten and burned in a Staten Island lot, the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office said. In the weeks leading up to her killing, she had been staying at a Mount Airy Lodge near Mount Pocono, PA, authorities said. Now, investigators hope to find Belusko's daughter, Christa N…
News
Woman ID'd 35 Years After PA Turnpike Crash: State Police
A 26-year-old western Pennsylvania woman has been identified 35 years after she died at the scene of a tractor-trailer collision on the state turnpike, authorities say. Linda Jean McClure, of Indiana, PA was a passenger in a tractor-trailer truck that slammed into the fuel tank of another tractor-trailer at mile marker 119.4 in the eastbound lanes of the PA Turnpike in Somerset County on Oct. 22, 1987, the state police announced on Jan. 24, 2023. McClure, and the driver of the tractor-trailer she was riding in, died after the cab of the tractor caught fire, according to the rele…
Police & Fire
Human Remains Found In Luzerne County Identified As Wilkes-Barre Teen Girl Who Vanished In 1969
Pennsylvania State Police have identified the human remains found in Luzerne County nearly 10 years ago as a teenage girl who went missing in 1969, they announced Tuesday, Oct. 4. The remains were discovered on Nov. 17, 2012, by individuals digging for relics on the grounds of a former coal-mining operation in Newport Township, state police said. Authorities now know they belong to Joan Marie Dymond, who was 14 years old when she disappeared from Andover Street Park on June 25, 1969. An examination determined the remains were those of a female, estimated to be in her mid-te…
Police & Fire
DNA Evidence Leads To Killer In 34-Year-Old Cold Case In Berks County
A now-deceased man has been identified as the suspect who killed a 26-year-old woman 34 years ago in Berks County, authorities said. With new advances in genetic genealogy, investigators were able to identify Scott Grim, who died of natural causes at the age of 58 in 2018, as the man who beat and strangled Anna Jean Kane to death and dumped her body alongside Ontelaunee Trail Road in Perry Township, Pennsylvania State Police said. She was last seen on Franklin Street and South 6th Street in Reading at around 1 a.m. Oct. 23, 1988, police said. The DNA evidence found on the Birdsboro wo…
Police & Fire
Solved
: Details To Be Released In 1988 Cold Case Murder Of Woman In Berks County
UPDATE: A now-deceased man has been identified as the suspect who killed a 26-year-old woman 34 years ago in Berks County, authorities said. ***Original story below*** Authorities have solved a decades-old cold case murder in Berks County. PA State Police and the Berks County District Attorney's Office are expected to release details about the killing of 26-year-old Anna Jean Kane during a joint press conference scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 18 at 11 a.m. Kane was found beaten and strangled to death on October 23, 1988, authorities said. Her body was dumped alongside Ontelaunee Trail …
Police & Fire
32-Year-Old Cold Case Rape Cracked: Arrest Made In Sex Assault Of Susan Negersmith
A South Jersey man is accused of sexually assaulting a woman who was found dead on Memorial Day Weekend in Wildwood three decades ago. The case dates back to 1990, when a 20-year-old Susan Negersmith, of Carmel (Putnam County) NY, was spending the weekend with friends in Wildwood, authorities said. Using a DNA match, police arrested Jerry Rosado, now 62, of Millville, according to Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey H. Sutherland and Wildwood Police Chief Robert Regalbuto. Rosado is charged with the sexual assault of Negersmith. He has not been charged in connection wi…
News
Philly Couple Who Disappeared In 2005 Latest Case For Famous Rescue Group
A Philadelphia couple who disappeared in 2005 has become the center of a renewed search effort launched by a famous and successful rescue group. Adventures with Purpose Underwater Dive and Recovery, who last week discovered the body of a Delaware County dad missing since 2003, is now looking for Danielle Imbo, 34, and Richard Petrone, 35. The pair vanished after leaving a bar on Philadelphia's South Street and heading for Petrone's black 2001 Dodge Dakota pickup truck in the late-night hours of Feb. 19, 2005. The two met in high school and began dating when Imbo split from her estranged h…
Police & Fire
Discovery Of Human Remains Submerged In PA Waters Cracks 18-Year Cold Case
The recent discovery of a missing vehicle submerged underwater containing human remains in a suburban Philadelphia town could help police crack a cold case dating back to 2003. Divers who found the vehicle and recovered the remains believe both belong to James Amiable, a Ridley Township man who left to pick his daughters up from a babysitter and never showed up on Dec. 4, 2003. The discovery was made Saturday, March 19, by Adventures with Purpose Underwater Dive and Recovery, a volunteer search and rescue organization that works directly with families. Amabile's vehicle and remai…
Police & Fire
Charges Filed In 1981 Cold Case Killing Of Pennsylvania's Denise Pierson
After 40 years, Pennsylvania authorities have charged a 58-year-old man in the cold case murder of a young Delaware County woman. Denise M. Pierson disappeared on April 14, 1981, after visiting a friend's house, Pennsylvania State Police and the Delaware County District Attorney's Office said in a joint release on Friday, Feb. 11. Her remains were discovered in July 1984 near the railroad tracks located at 7th and Market Streets in Marcus Hook. An autopsy determined that she died as a result of blunt impact injuries to the head and that her manner of death was a homicide. Wayne A. Walke…
Police & Fire
Bensalem Police ID Human Remains In 1995 Cold Case
The human remains found behind a diner in Bensalem over 26 years ago have been identified, authorities announced. The adult skeletal remains, which were found on Sept. 18, 1995, in the woods behind the Club House Diner on Street Road, belong to Merrybeth Hodgkinson, according to the Bensalem Police Department. She was unclothed and wrapped in a plastic tarp, police said. The death was classified as a homicide by unspecified means and investigators said that the body had been there for two to three years. At the time, police only knew the victim was an adult white female between the a…
Police & Fire
NJ Cold Case Victim Known As 'Tiger Lady' Identified As Missing Pennsylvania Teen
Authorities in New Jersey have identified the homicide victim of a 30-year-old cold case as a missing teen from Pennsylvania, authorities said. The victim, who was found slain in Knowlton Township, NJ in October 1991, was identified as a missing 17-year-old girl from Coatesville (Chester County), according to the Warren County prosecutor's office. The unnamed teen was given the nickname "Tiger Lady" because of a large tattoo of a Bengal tiger on her left calf, which investigators hoped would help them identify her quickly, according to New Jersey State Police. She was found dumped near a r…
Police & Fire
18 Years Later NJ Man Charged In 2nd Home Invasion Sex Assault Of Child
An Egg Harbor City man who last week was charged with the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl during a 1996 home invasion has been accused of doing the same to a 5-year-old girl, authorities announced Wednesday. Brian Lee Avis, 59, of Egg Harbor City, broke into a Willow Avenue home in Galloway on July 18, 2003 around 11:45 p.m., and quickly left, Acting Atlantic County Prosecutor Cary Shill said. A mother in the home told police she noticed her daughter's pajama pants were pulled down, Shill said. The case was unsolved until earlier this week, when Galloway Township Police Det…
Police & Fire
PA Man To Stand Trial 50 Years After California Go-Go Dancer's Murder
A trial has been ordered for a Pennsylvania man accused of killing a 24-year-old California woman more than a half-century ago, reports say. John Sipos, 76, is charged in the Nov. 20, 1969, slaying of 24-year-old Mary Scott, who was found dead inside her San Diego apartment, LehighValleyLive reports. The North Whitehall man was linked to the killing last October after investigators found DNA evidence from his garbage consistent with matching evidence found on the woman's body, The Morning Call reports. Sipos reportedly broke into the go-go dancer's home, raped her, and then …
News
Cold
CASE: Killer Of Rockland Teen In Notorious Bergen Motel Got Away, Is He Around Today?
The morning was relatively warm for December when the body of a slain 18-year-old Rockland County girl was found at an infamous Route 17 motel in Bergen County. Someone killed Rosetta Jean-Baptiste by “mechanical asphyxiation” -- similar to what happened to George Floyd. Only this was 28 years ago. Her parents didn’t know it, but Jean-Baptiste was also pregnant with a boy who was close to full term. He died, as well. The killer was never found. Members of a special cold case unit made up of investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and New Jersey State Police are still h…
News
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…
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