60 years of the FBI's Most Wanted list
Tuesday, Dec. 1 2009 @ 12:16PM
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| Forty years ago someone fatally stabbed Penn State University graduate student Betsy Aardsma in the heart. |
The smart young woman with a rock-solid reputation was likely in the dimly-lit stacks looking for research materials when she died. There were no screams, and nothing to alert anyone to come to her aid. Because she was dressed in a white blouse that was worn beneath a red jumper, the blood that mushroomed out of her chest was not immediately noticed when she was found...
Paramedics at first thought that Betsy may have suffered a seizure and collapsed amid the shelves of books. She was whisked off to a nearby hospital by ambulance, and the crime scene was not preserved as it should have been for the collection of evidence.
Following an autopsy, it was determined that Betsy had bled to death. Despite the medical examiner's findings, there was very little blood left at the crime scene because most had gone into her lungs. Since DNA technology was not available in 1969, most of the detective work consisted of the old-fashioned, pavement-pounding type in which the cops tried to round up witnesses who may have seen something.
One such witness was Dean Brungart, a supervisor in the library's stacks, who wonders to this day whether he may have seen Betsy's killer walk away. Brungart, now 76, saw a man leaving the library that day at around the time of the killing.
"It's just a shame," Brungart said recently. "I can't get over it, really. I worked there for 40 years and it's the worst thing that happened in my career."
Brungart said that the library's stacks was a place where students were known to meet for sexual activities and to make drug deals. One of the original cops, Mike Mutch, now 84 and retired from the Pennsylvania State Police, believes Betsy may have seen something that day that she shouldn't have -- such as homosexual activity or a drug deal.
"That girl was just a perfect individual," Mutch said. "It was just pitiful. I always felt sorry for her family."
Whatever she may have seen, Mutch believes Betsy was chased by her killer who, when he caught up with her, stabbed her in the heart with such force that it caused her chest to bruise. She was not sexually assaulted, nor did it appear that robbery had been a motive.
The community was shocked at Betsy's murder, Mutch said. Although he and about 40 other investigators interviewed thousands of students on and off campus, and interviewed people who knew her in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the case eventually went cold despite artists' sketches of people seen in and around the library at the time Betsy was killed. Making matters even worse, the murder weapon was never found.
"He took the weapon with him," Mutch said. "We couldn't come up with anything."
The case remains open today, and early this year Trooper Leigh Barrows took over the case. She provided Betsy's clothing and other evidence that she is reluctant to discuss to the state police crime lab for DNA testing, and is waiting to find out if the killer left anything behind, such as blood traces or hair. Many people are hopeful that Barrows' efforts will bring forth the clue that cracks the case.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to please call the Pennsylvania State Police at(717)783-5524.
This sounds eerily similar to the Zodiac's attack on Cherie Jo Bates in Riverside, CA at the RCC Library in 1966. A desk was found in that library and submitted as evidence. On it was a poem that talked about a young female dying who had on a red dress.
Posted 12/01/2009 at 08:41:33 PMA lot of parallels have been made between the Bates murder and Betsy's slaying.
I have to think that they were unrelated though. Anyone with information on the Aardsma case can also contact me: derekjsherwood@yahoo.com and I will forward it to the proper authorities.
I formerly ran the whokilledbetsy.com website and have been actively investigating the case on my own since 2008. I would love to see this solved...
Posted 12/01/2009 at 09:04:56 PMFormerly? Why don't you run the site anymore Derek?
Posted 12/02/2009 at 08:42:01 AM"I would love to see this solved..."
And would obviously love to have any information come your way so you can bring it to the police. Please... You've been working on her case for a year, ran a website for at most a year, and think you should be sent tips? Odd in my opinion.
If I thought someone would want to email or not give a tip, I would provide an email or link to the site of the relevant police dept or Penn FBI.
If I thought someone might prefer to email a person instead of the police, I would find a crimestoppers site or realize if they are too squeamish to call the cops they aren't about to give me the tip either.
It isn't your place to be asking for tips directed to you. It isn't best for the case either.
Posted 12/02/2009 at 04:56:15 PMAnd one has to wonder why "michelle" is acting as though she/he just realized those two cases sound similar. Come on...
Posted 12/02/2009 at 04:58:25 PMI found while I was running the site that a lot of people liked to talk to a responsive, normal person. It's very hard to get ahold of the police in cases like these. They have a heavy workload and often cold cases are not their top priority.
Furthermore, it helps to have a relationship with the police. I sent several tips to the PSP, and while I don't know if any of them panned out, it was easier for the POLICE to get them from someone whom they knew and had met in person. A lot of cranks out there trying to get attention, and often times these articles bring them out of the woodwork.
I've never taken a penny for the little bit of work I did on this case, and I take no pleasure in being mentioned when it comes to the case. I just would like to see it solved, as someone who grew up in PA, lived in the State College area, and who has a lot of family who attended PSU.
I stopped running the site because of the cost of maintaining it, and because I got divorced and moved away from PA.
IMHO, posts like yours are part of the problem, not the solution.
I honestly wish people would stop comparing the Bates murder to the Aardsma case. If there was any connection it would likely have surfaced by now, but it hasn't.
Posted 12/13/2009 at 07:58:34 PMWas a then Richard C. Haefner ever listed as a suspect in the murder? I worked by his side in the early 1970's and never knew about the case until yesterday. But now, knowing what I know about then there seem to be some eerie coincindences about this according to what is actually known. Rick became a geology professor but he died in the Majove desert in 2002. I am his nephew.
Posted 02/09/2010 at 01:06:14 AM