Lucky Land Casino, asking people what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? Lucky in line at the Delhi I.
Guess ah, in my dentist's office more than once.
Actually do I have to say?
Yes?
You do?
In the car before my kid's PTA meeting? Really?
Yes?
Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I never win?
And tell well, there you have it.
You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot com. Play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky? No, We're just necessary foid. We're gonna be my long eighteen plus terms conditions of place he wants every day.
Else step into the world of power, loyalty and luck.
I'm gonna make him an offer you can't refuse. With family, canoli's and spins mean everything? Now you want to get mixed up in the family business, Introducing The Godfather at champacasino dot com. Test your luck in the shadowy world at the Godfather slot. Someday I will call upon you to do a service for me.
Play the Godfather now at champacasino dot com.
Welcome to the Family vdW Group.
No purchase necessary. I believe we're privited by lossy terms and conditions eighteen plus.
Okay, round two, name something that's not boring.
Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire.
Huh oh, sorry, we were looking for Chumbuck Casino. Chum. That's right, Chumbuckcasino dot com.
As over one hundred casino style games joined today and play for free for your chance to redeem.
Some serious prizes.
Chum, chumbucasino dot com.
We're beleeved by eighty plus starts conditions of plus website details. With the Lucky land Slots, you can get lucky just about anywhere.
This is your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a while and get lucky. Oh no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick, So I suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and start getting lucky. Play for free at Lucky Landslots dot com.
Are you feeling lucky? No purchasness sary voidwerb prohibited my law eighteen plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. Radio.
You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history. And the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good Evening. On November twenty eighth, nineteen sixty nine, Betsy Ardsma, a twenty two year old graduate student English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Patti Library at the university's main campus in State Ute College. For more than forty years, their murder went unsolved, Though detectives with the Pennsylvanian State Police and local citizens worked titlers tirelessly to find the killer. The mystery was eventually solved
after the death of the murderer. This book will reveal the story behind what has been a scary mystery for generations of Penn State students and explained why the Pennsylvania State Police failed to bring her killer to justice. More than a simple true crime story, the book weaves together the events, culture, and attitudes of the late nineteen sixties, memorializing Betsy Ardsma and her time and place in history.
The book De Riiver featuring this Evening is Murder in the Stacks, Penn State, Betsy Ardsma and the Killer That Got Away, with my special guest journalist and author David de Couch. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview, David D. Kook.
D Cook. Yeah, it's glad. I'm really glad to be here. Thank you for having me on.
Thank you very much. As you write in the book, you have a special connection to this story and Betsy Ardsma, and you're a former investigative reporter noted for your beverage of this Petralia mind fires. So just tell us what your connection is here and how you came to be the author of this book Murder in the Stacks.
Well, Bethy Arsma was from my hometown of Holland, Michigan, and I remember distinctly when the local newspaper, the Holland Evening Sentinel, arrived on November twenty ninth of by nineteen sixty nine, and her picture was on the front page and her the story of her murder was at the top of the page. And so that's that kind of got me into this, you know, But really, I mean, looking at her picture, I mean, she did not look like a murder victim. She looked like the girl next door,
a very pretty girl next door. And so I never really forgot it, even though the coverage of the story dropped away. It wasn't until I moved out to Pennsylvania and had been working as a reporter for some time that I realized that, at least at Penn State, this was still something that people talked about a lot, and that kind of got me back into this.
Now, tell us a little bit about Holland where you were born, to kind of describe the city and its population and tell us a little bit about it before we talk about Penn State at that time in nineteen sixty nine.
Sure, Holland, Michigan was settled by Dutch religious dissidents in eighteen forty seven. They were looking for a place in the American wilderness where they could live apart from the world. Didn't really work out well for them in terms of avoiding their neighbors, but they did establish a very ethnically solid community where probably you know, seventy to eighty percent of the people that live there have Dutch last names. You know, de cook is the last is a Dutch name.
Ardsman is a Dutch name. And it was always a very very pretty tidy town, very religious right along Lake Michigan, and it was just it was a good place to grow up, but it was very It was kind of culturally stifling in the nineteen sixties too, because you know, you knew all this great stuff was going on in other places and it wasn't going on in Holland, and so students like Betsrs kind of daring to get away.
Now, we mentioned in the introduction, and I just like, very much like myself. I don't think a lot of people know what exactly you're talking. But when you talk about stacks, so tell us a little bit about the and again if I mispronounced it, correct me. Please the pet Library at Penn State and tell us explain the.
Stacks what they call the library in many respects for lack of a better definition, that's where the books are kept. That's where they're stored. And in big academic libraries like this, they're not really like your your local public library.
You know.
These stacks can go on for floor after floor, you know, and they're just they can be very very large and dark and a little bit scary sometimes and certainly the ones in Petite Library were like that. They were poorly lit, they were cramped, they were confined, they were claustrophobic, you know, And even before this happened, students were often a little bit nervous about going in there, just because it was so easy to get lost.
Now, you talk about the state of Penn State itself and the state of the nation in November nineteen sixty nine, so as you do in the book, give us a little bit of the background, especially in the context of the university itself, and you say that it was in the midst of racial unrest, but really vast, vast majority of white students. So tell us what the state was at that time.
I lost you. Are you still there?
Yes?
I am okay.
I asked basically, what.
Nineteen sixty nine? What was going on there? Sure, in nineteen sixty nine, obviously the Vietnam War was raging. You know, Penn State had a very small but very active chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, you know, the left wing student protest group, And it also had a very small but active group of black students who were trying to get more black students to Penn State, which had a scandalously small black enrollment for the size of the school and the number of blacks in the state.
Uh.
And and so there were at the same time the anti war things were going on. UH, there were also you know, efforts by the black students to gain more recognition. You know, there were protests during football games, you know that sort of thing. It seemed like something is always going on. There were you know, takeovers and buildings by by students.
Uh.
It was just it was not that unusual in terms of what was happening at other colleges and the universities around the United States, but it was for Penn State. It was definitely something new.
Now you talk about the library itself, the pat Library, and you know, the times being much much different. There were reports before this incident and before we talk about that of the goings on at this library, and we just scratched at the surface to describe the scenario in this library where people would be doing research and at
this time it was just just Thanksgiving. But let's talk about some of the incidents and some of the things that just seemed to be as the police dismissed at the time as sort of routine and nothing to really be so concerned about.
Sure. During the year nineteen sixty nine, there were increasing numbers of obsessionally related incidents. You know. This could be you know, anything from somebody a man exposing himself to female students, you know, or you know, masturbating or you know, you know, touching them, you know, groping them. These sort of things were going on, and they had a real problem in dealing with them because they had no at that time, for at least for part of that year,
they had no security guards devoted to the library. The campus patrol at Penn State this you know, the beyond campus security force. The leader that refused to dedicate any of his patrolmen just to the library. He said, look, I've got you know, fifty some more buildings to the patrol. I can't give you just your your own h campus patrol guy. Even though all these things were happening and
they weren't stopping. I mean, in the in the weeks leading up to to Betsy's murder, you know, there were several incidents like this, you know, and the director of the library you know, would find himself you know, comforting, you know, weeping, hysterical, you know, female students who had been you know, groped or you know, in other ways sexually assaulted by these people, and and they would just uh he would he would call the campus patrol, and
they wouldn't arrived in time. You know, by the time or by the time they got there, the person who did it was long gone, you know. And it was also another thing that the t Library was was known for at the time was gay cruising.
Uh.
It was seen by gays from around the region as a fairly safe place to look for sexual partners. And so this was going on. You know, some of it was non controversial and semi legitimate, but in other instances, you know, it was pretty weird stuff that was happening. And so there was this this was all a backdrop what happened Number twenty eight nine library, and there were the local the campus patrol was not really doing anything about it.
Now you talk about it being the Thanksgiving weekend, that there was a one third less people that would have been in attendance, But this does not mean that this library was deserted in any way. Tell us how busy this library was before we talk about the individual you've described, where a person could be just inches away from somebody else and not be able to hear or see that other person. So tell us about the library. It's a little bit more about the library set up itself.
Sure, the stacks. Unlike in some big libraries, anybody could go down to the stacks and look for the books. There are libraries, probably more of them today where you have to ask the librarian to go get the book for you. But Penn State was not like that, and students can just wander the stacks. But as I had
said before, they were very dimly lit. And because you know, the roads, the stacks of bookshelves were so close together, it was entirely possible that you could be on one side of a stack and somebody else could be on the other side and you wouldn't even know it. Uh, you know, was assuming they weren't making any noise. It was just that claustrophobic.
Now let's talk about Betsy ruth Ardsma, her parents, and a little bit about her background. We always talk about how good the person is after they passed away, and how innocent this person is. But tell us, as you do in the book, what was Betsy ruth Ardsma really like?
Well, she was as one of her neighbors, and one of my high school classmates described her, you know, she was smart to be kind, and she was. She was six years older than me. I didn't know her personally, but you know, we went to the same high school, and and so she was. She was a very good student, you know, near the top of her class. You know, always look in the you know, the top, you know, five or six at the at the very very lowest,
you know. And so she was. She was intelligent, she was driven, you know, she wanted to go to college, you know, to you know, do something to save the world, you know. And and she was just I mean, you can't find anyone to say anything bad about her. She was just, you know, one of those young women who you know, did everything right. And that's why it was so unusual that she became a murder victim. Her parents were also college educated, which they have both of your
parents college educated in Holland at that time. Was not out of the not out of the question. I mean, my parents were both college educated, and but it was fairly unusual. And they had both parents had gone to Hope College, which is in Holland, Michigan, and that's where Betty started out and she even when she was in high school, she had dreams of becoming a physician, not a nurse, but a physician, which was very unusual in
the late nineteen sixties. I mean that the percentage of women in American medical schools at that time was in the single digits, you know, and it was so she
was unusual in that way. She was an early feminist, her friends told me when I was doing the research for this book, you know, and so, but she was also very trusting h and kind of have that small town outlook, you know, where you don't really think of that person you med as being a potential threat, even though they might be a little bit you know, different than you're used to.
H And but.
You know, she was just all, like to say, she was really a good person, you know. And it's funny that state who investigated her, the one who went out to Michigan, uh to find out what she was like fresh frustration that they couldn't find any you know, moral failings in her life, because that's what police do a lot of times, you know, moral failings in the victim's life often leads them to the killer. But there was nothing in her life that led them to the man that killed her.
The very ironic thing was that she could have went to another school, but she was afraid of because it was a serial killer. Loosen an Arbor in Michigan tell us about this.
Yeah, she in the period from about nineteen sixty eight, you know, through the summer of nineteen sixty nine, but mostly in nineteen sixty nine, there was a serial killer who we now know by the name of John Norman Collins, who was killing young women in and around the University of Michigan and in and around Eastern Michigan University, which
is maybe ten miles from UVM in Ipsilanti, Michigan. And he always went for brunettes, for pretty brunettes, and that was always stressed in the stories about, you know, the latest victim being found, you know, and and these were And I looked through the newspapers in Michigan from that time, and nearly all of them ran all the stories about, you know, about the killings in ann Arbor, certainly the
Holland Sentinel. Did you know the Arsma family read that read those stories and were totally freaked out because Betsy was a pretty brunette. Wow, if you if you look at the nitty gritty of this. She was actually quite several inches taller than most of Collins's victims. But if you're a parent, you're not going to make, you know, a distinction like that. You know, all you can think of is that your daughters are and some madman is gonna kill her. Uh So, she she could have gone
the University of Michigan for graduate school in English. She had wanted to actually to go into the Peace Corps, but she had the study boyfriend, David Wright, who was in the going off to medical school in Pennsylvania, and he basically had said that he would really rather she didn't go into the Peace Corps. And and and Kane followed him to Pennsylvania. And at the same time her parents were were putting a lot of pressure on her to get out of ann Arbor, you know, because of
the serial killer. Now, Collins was actually arrested in I think it was August of nineteen sixty nine, before she actually started at penn State. But at the time, no one was really sure if he had acted alone, you know, they didn't because he had been seen in the company of other men, you know, on the Knights that he killed somebody and so there was still a lot of doubt as to whether, you know, maybe there was out
there still. But in any case, Betsy decided, you know, for you know, personal romantic reasons and given under the pressure you know, from her parents and from her uncle and aunt, that she would go to Penn State in Pennsylvania and essentially follow her boyfriend you know there, And and that's how she ended up at Penn State, and ironically that's where she was killed.
Let's get to November twenty eighth, nineteen sixty nine, as you write about a woman, another graduate student, Merrily Early and she's in the Level two core area in the basement stacks of the Pati Library that evening, and she knew Betty from a couple of classes. So tell us what she's she experiences with Betsy that evening.
So Merrily uh open the English five of one class, which was kind of a boot camp for new graduate students in English. You know, it taught you how to to research and write you know, papers like a like a true scholar. And and all of the students in that class had paper zoo shortly after the Thanksgiving break, and so many of them had not gone home because they needed to finish the paper. You know, Merrilee was one.
You know, Bessie was another, and there were there any number of other ones, other members of that class who were in the library that day. Merrily saw that's in the library before all this happened. But at around five or five pm, in in the stacks of the library, the level two stacks, Merri Lee and another student by the name of Juahua Finda who was a foreign student from Mozambique. He they they heard what basically what sounded
like a fist hitting a chest. Uh And and there there was no no other noise, There was no no screams, no argument, just that's sign of a fist hitting a chest, which we now believe was the knife in his hand going into a chest. And so Merrily is standing there and all of a sudden, out of the sacks comes this man racing who I call him the book, the running man and the stacks. He was dressed better than a typical student. He was wearing khaki kaki pants and
a sports jacket. And he looked up at at at Merrily Early and Johafinda and said, somebody better helped that girl. But it wasn't going to be him. He kept on going, and so juah Offinda whose English was so so his native language was h was Portuguese. He knew a little bit of French and he but he hadn't learned English until he came to this country, and so he was
he could get along, but it wasn't perfect English. And but anyway, so he thinks that he heard the killer say somebody better, we need to go help that girl. So he starts following him, you know, and and they he kind of runs after him as that the killer runs around you know, the core area and then heads out probably the other door of the library and will finda lost him and then just you know, kind of gave up and walked home and didn't know for several
days that he had been in the aftermath of a murder. Meanwhile, Mary Lee is by herself there in the stacks, and she kind of goes to investigate where she heard that sound of the fist. And then I as I should have mentioned before, there was also the sound of falling books and so and there was no more than about, you know, fifteen twenty feet that she had to go. And she goes around the corner of one of these you know, Florida ceiling stacks of books and sees Betsy
Arisma laying on the floor. And she knew Betsy, she knew who it was, and she and she freaks out and she goes over. She you know, she touches Betsy. She you know, you know, tries to, I guess, move her a little bit, you know, and and then it's kind of sits down screens, you know. And and meanwhile, librarians on the floor above had heard the sound of the falling books through a floor resister and two event came down to him. They saw the body there and
see you know, on her about the mat resuscitation. They thought she was still alive, in fact, by the floor. But they call an ambulance and they take her off to written our student medical center.
Now the thing is is that they think she thinks that and the librarians think that she's just passed out, she had some kind of seizure. Nobody really knows. There's no blood. There's a puddle of urine as you write, but still it and again you write that the police for years believe, I think something's amiss. When this woman that finds Betsy is so hysterical, when she thinks he's just fainted. So let's tell us more about what happens at this crime scene after her friend finds her.
Well, the crime scene was a disaster. I mean, it was nothing like you see how TV today. I mean it was I mean, you know, Merrily moved the books around and had fallen from you know, the shelves, you know, when Betsy collapsed to the floor. Uh, you know, people walk through the crime scene, you know, there were the campus patrol came over finally when they heard that a student had passed out, you know, and by the time they got there that you know, Betty had been removed
to the student heal center. But they didn't. They just kind of stood around waiting for directions. I mean, they were they were not trained police officers. They were just security guards and and people crime scene students did university officials did, you know? And by the time the state police got there, you know, maybe a little over an hour after the murder, and it was just totally bolloxed up. I mean, there was really very little they could do anymore,
although they certainly made an effort. They they ended up calling a woman a local member of the Penn State faculty by the name of Mary Willard, who was kind of I refer to her in the book as a miss Marvel of State College, because you know, that was her of thing she she did, you know, crime scene investigation work for various police agencies before there was even really a name for what she did. And she'd been
doing it since the time of prohibition. She was fairly old, in your seventies, I think that time, and and she she looked things over, she came back, you know, and the black light, and that's where they discovered all the Stemens games, you know, on the floor in the books, you know, throughout that area around where the murder took place. And then the state police found all sorts of of porn paperbacks, you know, tucked in the stacks they found.
And this was considered to be a something that Sergeant Keebler, the lead investigator, still thinks about a lot today. They've done an expensive Dutch porn magazine, a magazine that sold for ten dollars or so in the in nineteen sixty nine, which was a lot of money at that time, and it had been abandoned on the one of the carols, one of the desks that the students used in the library. And and so Sergeant Keebler thought that and still thinks today that it was either you know, left by the
killer or left by somebody who saw the killing. And but in any case, uh, it was just a hellish place. It was this This is a library. You know, you don't expect to find this kind of stuff in a library. You don't expect Stemen stays on books, you know. And so it was just a kind of a place of horror that she had wandered into, you know, looking for a book that her professor wanted her to bring back so he could take a look at it. And uh, yeah, so that's that's what happened with the crime scene.
The other fascinating part of this is that Mary Lee uh follows basically gets into the ambulance and goes to the hospital. But at the hospital, the doctor Reid comes out after pronouncing Betsy dead and finds.
What he finds merrily going through her purse, through Betsy's purse, and and he kind of snaps at her, you know, to stop that, you know, and and and and takes the purse from her. But it was just another weird thing. I mean, uh, apparently has passed on some years ago, but her her husband, you know, told me that. But she considered herself at least briefly to be, if not a suspect, then a person of interest in all of this.
You know. The state police were just so perplexed by her behavior that they had a wonder, you know, whether she knew more than she was letting on and so, and she kind of phased from the scene after that. I mean, they interviewed her under hypnosis, you know, to try to get more out of her. The interview Johala finda under hypnosis especially, you know, and they had a Portuguese speaker do the you know, the the interview under hypnosis.
But yeah, she kind of phased from the scene, you know, after that as they did a finda because there was never any arrest.
As police would do and they do in this case, they look at people close to Betsy in her life. Of course you alluded to and talked about that they would look into her background to see if any part of her lifestyle would have contributed to her murder. But in that they have to speak with her boyfriend, David L.
Wright.
So tell us what people think of the relationship and what the Phillies find if anything about that relationship and its connection to this potential to this murder.
Well, David Wright and Bessie had been dating for at least a year, you know, before they both graduated from the University of Michigan. And he was pre mad, you know, very very dedicated to his studies. And he was actually at the Penn State Medicals School, fairly new medical school at the time. It was in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the same place where the Hershey Park and the chocolate factory are so and that's about one hundred miles from the Penn
State campus. So he and Bessie didn't see each other except really high weekends when she take us down he might get up. But her friends, their friends considered the relationship to be good. Uh, some of her girlfriends really thought that he wasn't right for her, that he was just too too conservative, kind of a you know, a Nixon, a Republican type, and she was a you know, a
Eugene McCarthy senator, Eugene McCarthy Democratic type, you know. So, but you know, love matches have happened under stranger circumstances. But in any case, the that that night, uh, a couple of Pennsylvania State Police detectives went to David Wright's uh living quarters uh in at the ath Medical School and they uh, this was a cottage kind of building that was occupied by you know, maybe a half dozen
you know, other male medical students. And they woke him up, and this was like in the early morning hours, and and they questioned him for a good long time and finally told him, according to him, uh, you know, your girlfriend's been murdered. We're sorry, you know, and and and so it was I mean, nothing they did was out
of the ordinary for what police do. But I think none of us really know what it would really be like to be questioned in a murder case, you know, and the things that might go on, you know, in that questioning.
Uh.
But so he he basically had to provide an alibi, and he actually did have a good one. He was in his gross anatomy class, you know, where they operate on the cad where they you know, dissect the cadavers.
Uh.
And there were several people that saw him in there around the time, you know, of of the murder, you know, uh, And and from Hershey, it would have taken a good two hours to drive up to the Penn State and two hours to drive back, you know. Uh so the alibi was was pretty solid, you know. But they kept on questioning him for several weeks really until finally the the dean of the medical school told the state police not to come back to the campus, but they David Wright,
continued to talk to him. They just moved to a restaurant across the highway, you know, from from the medical school. But eventually they stopped. They cleared him. Their republic statements at the time from Lieutenant Kimmel, who was the head of the Rocky Barracks of the State Police where investigation was centered, stating that he was not a suspect and so he kind of went on and lived the rest of his life.
Now, we didn't talk about the parents being notified of their daughter's death and their reaction, but also what exactly did between Willard a little bit later through this contaminated crime scene, what she found, what she believed she found, and also talk about the internal bleeding, the real injuries that she incurred in this fatal stabbing.
Sure they did. They took her first to written our Health center, which is it is a hospital. Is certainly not an emergency room, you know. In fact, there wasn't really a good emergency room even close to pemp State, you know. They they would have had to take her to Altuna, which is across a mountain forty two miles away, or to again to Hershey, or to guys in your medical center, which you are about eighty or one hundred
miles away, depending on which one. But it didn't matter because she was dead already and the knife had penetrated her breast and then and then went through her breastbone into her heart. The general consensus was that she was probably dead by the time she hit the floor. Her The bleeding was all into her her chest cavity, you know. There was my I think I forget what the figure was, maybe three liters of blood you know, in her chest cavity.
And because that that entry wound was so narrow and tiny, there was really no exit for the blood to come out onto the floor, you know. So there was a little bit of blood stain on her her blouse, you know, but nothing nothing that anybody really noticed, you know. And uh, I mean there was certainly not a pool of blood you know, around her like you saw on some of the press coverage, the more sensationalistic press coverage you afterwards. But in any case, they did the autopsy and they
found out exactly, you know, what had happened. It had been a small knife wound, but very deadly, very effective and just in the right place to kill her almost instantly. Now at the time that that she was declared dad
at the at the student health center. Uh, the doctor there made a phone call to university officials, uh, you know, one of whom had the duty then of calling uh the Yardsma family or in this case, actually they called uh doctor Gordon van Ostenberg, the family minister, and he told ven Ostenberg what had happened, and Ben Osenberg agreed to go to the Arisma home and inform the family and so and they were all, I mean, this was like,
you know, the day after Thanksgiving. You know, they were, you know, Carol Arsman and her husband Dennis Wagner, were getting ready to go out to a movie. It was just kind of a casual, happy time. When the doorbell rings, and you know, the they opened the door and there's their minister with probably the worst news that any parent can ever receive, and and so everything fell apart for them.
From there, and they they made preparations early the next morning to to fly to State College from Holland to uh to bring her body home. And you know that's kind of where that went.
Now, how do police proceed You talk about the number of leads or lack of leads. Tell us about the status of the investigation in terms of physical evidence and leads and probable suspects.
Well, they had no physical evidence because of the destruction of the crime scene early on. As far as you know, tips and leads, well they had. They had a bunch of those, from the you know, the crazy to the you know, the semi saying uh, you know, I mean there were there were people who thought that it was a cult of Satan worshippers that had done it. There were, you know, just all sorts of you know, crazy stuff
like that. And the sergeant Keebler, Sergeant George Keebler told me, you know, they had to chase down everyone, you know, at least for a while. One of the problems early on was that Corporal Brody, one of the criminal investigators, was was certain that that Bessie's killer had been the same guy who had a duck and then raped a couple of teenage girls from the Nitney mall over the
past couple of years. And uh and he thought, I mean, and this this was I mean, even looking at it today, you think, really they they thought this because you know, this was the was believed to somebody from the country, you know, a man who seemed to be like a like a farm laborer or something like that. And you have to if for him to have killed Betsy would mean that he would have to have found the tee library, wandered his uh, wandered down into the stacks, and then
and then killed her there. You know, I'm it was just a crazy, crazy thing. But again, Keebler gave Brody some latitude and and and let him pursue it for a while before he kind of rained him back in. Uh. And today Keeler says, I shouldn't let him go on go on as long as he did. But I mean, they tried. They looked at everything. I mean, they sent troopers to Michigan to check her out to see if there were any connections, you know, with between her death
and the markets and ann Arbor. You know, they interviewed
her friends around the country. You know, they they had weird things like a postcard you know, that arrived from Washington, d C. Saying look for the man in the khaki pants or the work pants I think it was, and h and that it had turned out to be have been sent from the same post to substation as one used by one of Betsy's friends, Peggy Wick, who who just happened it was this pure coincidence, but you know so, but she got a visit them from you know, a
state trooper and a couple of DC cops who questioned her, you know about that. They just they did everything they could, they did, they did all the right stuff, but they were hampered in one great way because they didn't know what had happened after the murder in terms of what the killer did.
You talk about the incredible effort that's put into solving this case by the Pennsylvania State Police. Lieutenant Wems, You've got Broad and Simmers and Kimmel and Keepler here, so and everybody's involved with this. So let's let's talk about that effort and how many officers and how exhaustive and extensive this investigation was.
Sure, they started out with just you know, Simmers and Brody and Keybler and a few of the other troopers from the Rocky New Barracks, but they very quickly, you know, brought in troopers from around the central region of the state, you know, from Hollidaysburg, from Carlisle and Harrisburg. So in all, at its peak there were about forty state troopers on the campus interviewing students and factory just looking for clues.
They interviewed around twenty six hundred student you know, five hundred or more faculty and somebody they bought me something to say, so be able to tell them something, you know. They everybody that was in that English five oh one class, well Betsy and Merrily Early were in they were all questioned, you know, in turn by the state police. They were just looking for something anything, you know, and they just I mean, they really tried hard. But what they it
was what they didn't know. They didn't allow him to go down, you know, the right road.
Here you talk about a professor, Well, first you talk about a case of course that took this story of Betsy Ardsma, which you know, captured national attention and it took it off the front pages with Manson family murders. But you also talk about a professor that had been doing some work that was connected to Penn State that done some work in the Death Valley, very close to
where the Madson family was hiding out. So first tell us about the Manson family phenomena briefly, and then that tie in with the graduate student and the professor in Death Valley.
Sure, the infamous Tate La Bianca murders by the Manson family had occurred in August of nineteen sixty nine, and
there were no arrests. Immediately they got away. They retreated back to their hideaway at the Barker Ranch in Death Valley, and they were Charlie Manson believed that there was a hole in the desert that would lead down to this paradid underground where they could hide out during Helter Skelter when he believe that the blacks in America would rise up and kill and kill all the whites and take over.
And but you know, Manson, who was profolily racist, UH just believe that they wouldn't be able to run things. So it would turn to him. Charlie Mannon be there either Helter Skelter and UH, and so Manson and and his h his deputies would uh would ride through Delli uh, just looking for the hole in the desert, you know.
Uh so, and they they would the Manson women like Susan Atkins, would would sometimes go into this town about fifty miles away, which is actually close in death valley terms, uh called Shoshonee, California, where where they would panhandle on the streets and uh so and Shoshawnee was where doctor Lauren Wright, the Penn State geology professor, uh would stay during about six months out of the year when he
would do his death value research. And uh he had a house trailer there and he would often take uh, you know, graduate students out there to to do work for their their theses. Uh and and sometimes a second student to kind of act as the assistant you know.
So.
And the one I talked about in the book was a fellow by the name of Richard Hafner, who ultimately becomes the prime suspect in the Betsiers the murder. But he, uh, he was out there. He was there at the time that the Manson family was cruising around. I just found
it the proximity interesting. There was about a week period of a week where where Lauren Wright and the student assistant went away and just you know, and I mean, did he run into Manson, you know when he was out in the desert, uh, you know, Uh he was a geologist, better to talk to for tips on where
this hole in the desert might be, you know. And Manson did like to take you know, young men back to the Barker ranch, you know, to be entertained by his women, to do drugs, to listen to Charlie's philosophizing, you know, on life and death. So back a whole lot snaking this, but it was just an interesting juxtaposition, you know. And and Haifner later talked in some of the same philosophical terms about life and death than Manson did. And so it's got me wondering whether, you know, maybe
there was some tie between the two. But but ultimately what Hafner did was all his own.
Let's talk about Richard Haifner and what was found about what his background is sure.
Richard Hafner was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is famous in the tourism world as kind of the headquarters of you know where the the Amish live in Lancaster is the biggest city in Lancaster County. You know, the Amish live in the city of Lancaster. But they live all around it. And but it's a it's an interesting town. It's it's very very German, very very very religious.
Uh.
And hey, this is where Haefner grew up. He was a descendant of a beer baron who had operated a brewery in in Lancaster. H his ancestor had come from Bavaria and and set up for a brewery in Lancaster. And but by the time Richard came along, the family's fortune basically was gone, you know. Uh, but they still had this lingering reputation as being, you know, a solid family, a family of of.
Now you know.
And and Richard was was an intelligent guy. He was he was book smart, you know. He he wanted to be a Jiles and was certain that he was going to be, you know, one of the great ones, you know, and he wanted He had done his undergraduate at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster and then had been accepted to the Penn State for his graduate study in geology there. But OPI was that he was a pedophile, a very bad one. He he there I found documented incidents going
back to Franklin and Marshall College. And the thing was was that it's clear that the police knew about it,
but he was never prosecuted, you know. And and these were you know, like like one of the incidents, the one I talked about probably the most in the book was he was working as a kind of a recreation aid at at a city summer camp, city day camp in a supernation sixty five and towards the end of the summer, he invited two boys, two brothers, sons of a single mom to go to Ocean City, Maryland, you know, with him for a week of fun in the sun and seashore. Well, and the mom's sure, you know, and
this is the more trustled thing. And he takes them down there, molests them both, and they come back. They tell their mom, who's furious. She goes to the head of the recreation commission and tells him, you know, and he starts looking into this and you know, and horrified at what he what he finds. And what I found particularly galling and fascinating at the same time was the
debate that was held. And it's all in the documents, you know, whether they should turn Richard over to the police, and the psychiatrist they encountered said no, you must not do that, you must not turn them over to the police, because you were ruined his life. And so they didn't. They didn't turn them over to the police. They just said, you psychiatric care, you know, when you go off to
Penn State. And and then there was a final document in this file that I was able to get and where the Recreation Commission had noted that he had followed up and that Richard had not gotten any psychiatric help, you know, at Penn State. And this would go on throughout his life, you know, you know, because he was never arrested in Betsy's case, he was able to go on and molest many many more, many many more boys who win many more wives. And but he was I
mean he was also he was a psychopath. He knew how to fool people, you know, he could come off as he was handsome, you know, he was smart, he was well spoken, you know, and and he could fool the best of them. And that was why he was able to get away with this, you know, for so long, you know, Plus again the fact that this is a more trusting era as far as you know, pedophelia goes. But Yeah, that's Richard Hayner and he was Doctor Lauren
Wright was his thesis advisor. In fact, just a couple of weeks before Betsy's murder, doctor Wright had signed off on Richard's master's thesis in geology, which was based on the research work that he had done in Death Valley.
Incredible, Now what do police do? We will go back to this case that's baffling them and they have no leads, but they've done incredible amount of work, including hypnotizing u Offinda and Merri Lee and also interviewed six hundred people and everybody that came in and out of that library. So what's the next move for police? What area do they go? How far do they go with that wild goose chase for broad and what is their direction and what kind of progress do they make?
What the.
Critical things that happened, you know during the about Well, when they were about maybe three four weeks into the investigation, they come upon a student by the name of Larry Paul Mauer. And uh Mauer was was also a student in the English five oh one class, and he uh, he was he was an idbord, he really was. I mean,
they wanted to question him ask Marble. And he lived in Betsy's dorm Afterton Hall, and it actually had been briefly a roommate of har So they go to Maher's room, two troopers do you know, and and there, and this was just a routine visit because he was in that
English five oh one class. And and they're talking to him, and the trooper who's not doing the talking, just looks around the room and he sees this wooden desk chair, you know, with arms on it, and and on one of the arms of the desk chair was carved here sits death in the guise of man. And the trooper thinks, holy shit, you know. And and so they they asked him about it, and and and Maert says, oh, I thought that was a neat saying. And and they said, well,
do you do you have a knife? Oh yeah, yeah, I carry a knife. I used to cut cheese. And it was like he was taunting them, you know. And and ultimately, looking at all this, I I just came to the conclusion that that for some reason he just got on pretending and maybe he was involved in Bessy's murder, you know. But he was very he was very convincing I mean, he did everything he could and makes him think that he was the killer, and they put him on a lie detector and he passed with fine colors.
He dropped out of Penn Stay almost immediately and disappeared into First Army and then into the National Security Agency. And there was a group of state troopers who were convinced, and many of them are still convinced of this day. But he was the killer, you know, I don't believe he was. I think he just had his own special set of problems and made him behave that way. But you know, because and I get into into it in more detail in the book as to you know, why
I don't think he could have been the killer. But but again, I mean, you look at things like he was there, He told the same He was there in the I Mary the same stacks where the murder took place, not well and before it happened, you know, but didn't see anything. And so I fully understand why they some of them believed still believed that he was the real killer. But I believe that for a number of reasons, that Richard Hafner was was the actual killer.
The police fill in all kinds of other areas too. They interview a person named Spencer, and then they have they hear a rumor that she might have posed for some Betsy might have posed for some art, for art paintings, or appeared in the nude anyway, peered nude.
Yeah, so what Yeah, that was another thing to start. Go ahead, go ahead?
When do when do police give up officially on this and when does it become a cold case.
It started becoming a cold case in January of nineteen seventy, right around the time that the state police became involved in the investigation of the murder of United Mine Workers dissident Joseph Yablonski and his wife and daughter out in western Pennsylvania. They were it was ultimately determined that they were murdered by thugs hired by Tony Boyle, the head of the United Mineworkers Union, to eliminate you know, rival meaning of Blonsky, And that kind of stuck all yere
out of the yards of investigation. So they started taking troopers away from Teebler, and he told me he didn't really mind, because he thought he had too many to begin with, and a lot of these guys were, as he put if they were traffic cops that were kind of drafted in because they need a feet on the ground. But in other words, they were not trained criminal investigators. But so yeah, and throughout in the first six months of nineteen seventy, the state Police car started kind of
whittling down the investigation, you know. And then there were campus riots at Penn State relating to the Vietnam War right around it was not related to Kent State, but it was around the same time as the Kent State massacre. And then you know, by about the summer of nineteen seventy, it was just down to Tabler, you know. And and he he kept it up, you know, as well as he could, and he would for the next fourteen years. But really by by the summer of nineteen seventy, it was it now, tell.
Us how you get involved or when you get involved, and why you get involved. Tell us about the progression to lead to the discovery of this Richard Hefner as a probable or possible suspect.
Sure, in the fall of two thousand and eight, I had written a two part series for my newspaper, the Harrisburg Patriot News and Harrisburg Pennsylvany Am about the arts mccays. And at that time, there was no ending to the story. I mean, I've been my story, you know, basically reviewed everything that was known, the various theories of why, why and how she was killed, and but at that point
Richard Hafner was was totally unknown. And and so I didn't really think about I mean, I thought about writing a book, but I didn't think I could because there was no ending to it, and so I just kind of put it aside, and you know, working on a different book. And and but then comes the summer of
twenty ten. One day, I think it was in August, I get an email from Peggy Wick, Betsy's friend, saying that Kathy Hafner, her younger sister ben in Holland for her high school class reunion, and it was telling people that the case was solved. And I'm thinking, oh wow. And so I contacted a friend of mine who was also a friend of Kathy Hafner, confirmed you know, what was going on, got the name of the suspect as had been delayed to my family by Lieutenant Leep Arrow's
a female and officer. And at that point that's when I decided, Okay, now there's an ending. I think there's an ending anyway, and so I immediately set out, you know, to just start writing the book. You know. I traveled out to Death Valley to you know, interview people that knew Hafner out there, you know, and do that part
of the story. And you know, started going through the archives of the courts in Pennsylvania, you know, looking for cases in which Hafner was involved, and he was involved in a lot of him because he loved to sue people, and so yeah, it just kind of, you know, progressed from there. And Sergeant Keebler, who who for the newspaper series,
had had declined to speak to me. He later told me it was because the state police had asked him not to speak to me because there were thoughts at that time that they might be indicting Larry palm Auer. But they didn't, you know, They they looked at him, decided they had no evidence.
You know.
But in any case, Sergeant Keebler was was kind of to sit down for five or six lengthy interviews. And I went out and I interviewed, you know, every trooper I could find who had worked at case. Even in a small way, I find that even if you just get one big fact out of somebody. It's it's a worthwhile interview, you know, because all those facts, you know, meld together into the narrative that you tell about how the case played out. You know. So that's not the book came.
Pardon me, I did miss that last part.
Oh, in August of twenty fourteen, my book was published.
Now since that time, well, maybe we'll talk about your interviews. What was the you say, if you learned one thing from interviewing any of these officers, but with Keebler, what was the what was the most surprising thing you learned from those interviews? The most important thing.
Was yeah, most important thing? Well, what was? What was it? What was most important with with George Keebler was his ability to tell me what really went on. There were a lot of rumors, a lot of myths that had grown up over forty some years.
Uh.
You know, for example that for a long time, you know, it was just assumed that there had been two people who ran out of the stacks, and you know, on November twenty eighth of Matthew sixty nine, and Keebler said, no, I looked into that. And the second one was with finda you know, and the other one was was the killer, you know, and so you know, he was able to demolish the myths and and give me the correct facts, you know, of of everything that he knew and was
willing to tell me. There were a couple of areas where he was always reluctant to to give me names of witnesses if he had promised the man a messy even you know, forty five years ago, but there weren't a lot of that. He was he was generally very open, uh and uh got along well, you know, and I was, uh, just really pleased with my interviews with him.
What did he think of your ideas about the killing?
He was he didn't dismiss them. Uh, you know, you could have solved this, but didn't you know. Uh, But he he was not He was not dismissive. He thought they were interesting ideas. Uh and uh, you know, but he wasn't willing to give me the ultimate you know, pat on the back, you know, as far as you know my my theories, you know. But he certainly did not ridicule of him or or even speak harshly of them.
You know.
It was just he thought they were good ideas, interesting ideas. But he just wasn't willing to necessarily say that they were correct, even though I believe they are.
What would you attribute your narrowing down the suspects enough to name in this book? What would you attribute but without giving away too much for for those that are going to pick up this book and read it, what would you attribute most for this progress in finding a viable suspect?
Well, an hour after the murder, h Richard Hafner shows up at Lauren Wright's house on the edge of State College. And and he's all kind of frantic and out of breath and discombobulated. Uh and and and and he, you know, Lauren Wright opens the door and there's Hafner.
Uh.
And he invites him inside. And and Hafner says, is there anything in the paper about that they're all being killed in the library? Uh? That was a little differ one, right, a different cages. And he was pretty tall on what had happened happened that night? Uh, And so he stayed. Cathner stayed at at doctor Wright's house for you know, maybe half an hour forty five.
Minutes or so.
And then and then leaves is as quickly as he as he arrived. And so there was there was that very strange incident which well, uh and and then uh. The other the other important things came from Paper's cousin, Christopher Hasner, who told me in a series of interviews about what he had overheard his cousin and uh, his aunt talking about one summer day in the in the summer of nineteen seventy five. This was right after Richard Hagner had been arrested finally for molesting two boys who
worked for him at his rock shop in Lancaster. And you know, and Chris, who musso worked at the rock shop, was inside and they just a few feet away from the conversation that ensued, and Aara Hafner, Richard's mother, was furious with him about the arrest and and she saw him just kind of lively, you know, out in the alleyway between the house and the rock shop, and came out and started screaming at him. You know, you did this again. You got away with it once, but you
did it again. And you know, why don't you just kill me the way you killed her? And and so Chris, here's this, you know, and you know, and he isn't quite sure what to think, you know, and and he hears, and he hears, you know, Richard yelling back at his mother her and and then in the weeks to come, you know, Richard tried to make him believe that he
hadn't heard what he knew that he had heard. And so there was that, Uh, there was the fact that that Lauren Wright believed that Richard Hafner was to kill her, you know, based on the fact that he knew that Richard that carried a knife, and in fact, he told this to people over the years. But on the other hand, he also maintained a least a professional relationship with Hair went out together, you know, the crazy situation.
Yeah, that's amazing. What has been the response from any camp that again would have shocked you or impressed you or concerned you. Since twenty fourteen, since his book was released.
The Pennsylvania State Police seem completely uninterested in in pursuing any of this. They they wouldn't interview Chris Hafner in person about if they were somewhat harsh and abusive to him over the phone, and uh, it was just it was this strange. I mean, you think that you get a credible tip like this, you're gonna you're gonna, you know,
the work the hell out of it, you know. But uh, but they didn't, you know, and and and they would make statements like, oh, we think that Hafner knew something, knew who the killer was, but wasn't the killer himself. Uh, and you know, based on what and and then and they would make statements like, well, we have some good leaves and and and we're going to probably been making an arrest in a couple of months, while they never did.
And so.
I just I don't know, I mean, are they so worried that you know, there's something in the files there that would would would cast them in a bad light, you know? Or is it just pure institutional defensiveness. I don't know, but yeah, that's that's that's probably what disturbed me the most, just the lack of interest really in pursuing any of this. And uh and then State itself certainly has no interest in in pursuing this any further.
In fact, will not you know, make their records available, you know about the r as an investigation.
Have you heard back as sometimes it it you do with an unsolved case like this officially unsolved case from students, from anybody from that time contacted.
You, yes, several several did uh, you know. And what they basically, what they told me was was a creative you know, it added to what I what I already knew, but it wasn't you know, narrative changing. Really it was
interesting stuff. And in fact, in the audio version of Murdering the Stacks, I added a chapter that includes some of what I heard from students, you know, like the guy who worked for the campus radio station you know that night, and how he heard about that something was going on at the te library and what he did
and you know, that sort of thing. And there was also a very interesting call from a detective at the Lancaster Police Department, the one who had investigated Rick Haefner back in nineteen seventy five when he was arrested for molesting the two boys. I tried six ways to Sunday to try to find him an interview, and you know, when I was doing the research for the book, but
was unsuccessful. Well after he read the book and then he calls me up and said, well, I got a good story to tell you, you know, and and he basically, you know, filled in a lot more details about about Hafner as a pedophile, and you know, and what had happened when he had in the police station, you know,
that night. And but but ultimately, to make a long story short, nobody's come forward to say, you know, you know, I know who did it, you know, I you know it was Hafner, it with somebody else, you know, it was it was just you know, I mean, there were so many students who were affected in one way or another by this. I mean students were terrified. A lot of them were terrified to go into the stacks for
a long time afterwards. You know, women's students would say, well, I wouldn't want to listen to the boyfriends that was with me, you know, because it had never been solved. And so for all them, the killer was still lurking, lurking around, and ironically he was. But anyway, so that's that's kind of I guess the best way I can answer that, as far as you know, people live contacted me afterwards.
It's an incredible story too, because we really didn't capture as as you do in the book, the the juxtaposition by the culture, this murder in the small community, all the events nationally that were happening, the Vietnam War, and then sort of the rise of the super killer, the Zodiac and the serial killer columns that you talked about, the Mansion family and quick there pardon me, sorry, I didn't catch that.
S right, and you you've blanked out there. I didn't get in your question at all. Yeah, you were talking about, you know, the events that were going on at the same time, but then you just cut out.
Well, what I've talked about was the juxtaposition that you do capture between the culture at that time and then the effect of this murder in the small community and at the same time the rise of the serial killer phenomena itself.
The fact.
Yes, anyway, we will dis We'll have to give credit to the cell phones for a little bit of a disturbance in the interview tonight. So but I want to thank you very much David for coming on and talking about murdering the Stacks, the Penn State debtsy, ARDSMA and the killers that got away. For those that people that might want to do you have a Facebook page or a website, how might people contact you or see your other work?
I d e. K okay their website and there's a there's an email link on there.
Okay, can you give it that information one more time?
Okay. My my author website is David Dcook one word dot com. Uh and uh and that will take you to uh, you know, my uh, my website that tells you about my various books and and uh and there is an email link, you know, on that site where you can contact me through that.
Well, thank you very much for this and talking about murdering the stacks. Thank you very much, David de Cook and uh, thank you for this, and have a great evening and good night, okay, thank you, good night. Thanks