Cold Case Files - Bump in the Night

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

In 1996, Aimee Willard was home for the summer in Northern Pennsylvania. One night, her car was found abandoned on a highway off-ramp with blood on the nearby pavement. Investigators are left to figure out where she is... and what happened to her. Check out our great sponsors! Shopify: Go to shopify.com/coldcase for a FREE 14 day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features! LifeLock: Join now and save up to 25% off your first year at LifeLock.com/coldcase  Purple: Get 10% off any order of $200 or more at Purple.com/coldcase10 and use code "coldcase10" Talkspace: Match with a licensed therapist when you go to talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month with the promo code COLDCASE

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. Amy Willard was 22 in June of 1996. She lived in northern Philadelphia and was home for the summer. She would soon be starting her senior year of college at George Mason University, where she played lacrosse. Amy was an active person and decided that over her break, she would take a course at the local community college and join a summer lacrosse league, all while looking for a job. On Thursday, June 20th, she visited Smokey's Bar in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and was seen leaving around 1 a.m.

A little after 2 a.m., her car was found on an off-ramp on a section of Interstate 476, frequently referred to as the Blue Route. The passenger door was open, and there was blood on the pavement around the car. Lt. Lenny Bandy, from the Pennsylvania State Police, was the first investigator at the scene. The tires were all normally inflated, so the presence of the tire iron struck me as unusual. And it's close proximity to the blood that heightened my sense of concern. Lieutenant Bandy called for backup and was joined at the scene by Corporal Alan Stewart.

My main objective at that point was to try to get this, everything photographed as quickly as I could to be able to collect that evidence before it got wet. Just as he finished collecting the last of the blood evidence, it began to rain. The car was then towed to the state barracks garage for more testing. We didn't know what was going on at this point in time. We just knew that the operator of the vehicle wasn't there, and it became incumbent upon us to find out what happened to the operator.

At 5.45 a.m., Amy's mother, Gail Willard, received a call at her vacation home notifying her that a car registered in her name had been found abandoned. I knew instantly when I got the phone call that there was something drastically wrong. Gail was right. Something was drastically wrong. Gail was right. Something was drastically wrong. Amy was missing and presumed injured or dead.

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. Amy's father, Paul Willard, was a sergeant in the nearby town of Chester, and he was struggling with how he could best help with the investigation. You're always a father, but then again, you're always a cop. It was hard to divide the two, because I wanted to solve it, but yet I was so concerned about her. As soon as it was light outside,

a search party consisting of state troopers and volunteers combed the area along the ramp and the blue route looking for any clues that could help them determine what had happened. About half a mile from where the car was abandoned, a trooper found a pair of underwear and some sneakers. Gail identified them as belonging to her daughter, Amy. You just kept going and just kept answering their questions and you just kept hoping for the best. And all the while, in my heart, I knew the worst was going to show up.

Around 4 p.m., four children were playing tag in an abandoned lot when they found the naked body of a woman. The police were called and Detective Jeff Pyree responded. I observed a white female with severe facial and head trauma injuries to her body. Naked, partially on her side, and she had a Nike swoosh tattoo on her ankle. The body was quickly identified as Amy's because of the tattoos and other pictures provided to the detective.

The lot was searched for any evidence that would help with the case, but nothing was found. It was obvious to us through the investigation at the scene she was considered a dumped body. She'd probably been killed, more than likely killed elsewhere and in place there.

The lack of a murder scene made Amy's body the investigator's best source of evidence. Her body was transported to the morgue to be processed by the medical investigator. The autopsy revealed that Amy had died from massive trauma to the head, and her neck and shoulders also showed trauma and bruising. They also discovered some unusual burn marks on her side. Here are Corporal Stewart and Lieutenant Bandy again. On her right side, there was a burn pattern. It was a series of Xs that were encased in squares.

It just struck me as very unusual, and my hope was that because of its uniqueness, that when we identified its source, it would leave no question in our mind that this is what caused that injury. The burns were photographed and included in the case file. Amy's body was swabbed for biological evidence. The swabs indicated the presence of semen. A DNA profile was extracted from the evidence, but when compared to the database of

known offenders, no matches were found. The autopsy was then complete and Amy's body was released to her family. The investigation continued with the car Amy was driving on the night that she was killed. A thorough examination resulted in no unknown fingerprints and no blood. Here's Lieutenant Bandy again. It was consistent with our belief that she exited the car and then encountered her sailing outside of the car and that he had no direct contact with the car. Detectives Charles List and Greg Seltzer,

experienced homicide investigators for the Delaware County DA's office, wondered why Amy Willard got out of her car in the first place, especially in the middle of the night. This is Detective List. One of the reasons that came up as a possibility would be that, you know, someone pulled her over. List and Seltzer suspected Amy's killer might have pretended to be a driver in distress

or a police officer tricking her into pulling over and then waiting for his chance. The two detectives investigated their theory, looking for similar styles of attack or anyone who might have had a history of using a phony police badge. A year later, they had a lot of names, but no suspects. Here's Detective Seltzer. We were frustrated. I guess that's the easiest way. I never to the point where we wanted to give up. No, just frustrated. Almost a year after Amy was murdered,

a 19-year-old woman named Patty Jordan said goodbye to her friends and then got into her car and headed for Interstate 95. As she exited the ramp, a large car appeared behind her and quickly caught up. The light shined in Patty's mirror. Here's Patty. And I just thought, wow, you know, the guy's going pretty fast. And then at the time, it was 1 o'clock in the morning, 95 was pretty dead. And I noticed he stopped behind my car, so I kind of thought that was a little

unusual. Patty switched lanes, but the car stayed on her tail with the light still shining in her mirror. Patty pulled off the highway but was stopped by a red light at the bottom of the ramp. The mystery car pulled up behind her. I saw him, watched him in my mirror.

I'm looking at him and I'm like, oh my God, this guy's going to hit my car. The car tapped Patty's bumper and the man who was driving motioned for her to pull over. She stayed locked inside her car and the man drove away, leaving a terrified Patty behind. I was so scared and I was like, this is not right. So I was so scared, and I was like, this is not right. So I got his plate, and I thought to myself,

yeah, my dad will take care of that. Patty's dad was a Philadelphia police sergeant named Jack Jordan. He ran the license plate number, and it was registered to a paroled killer named Arthur Bomar. Here's a paroled murder

following my daughter the way he did for as long as he did. The insistence that she pull over, I just knew there was something. Jack Jordan's police instincts told him to look for a connection and he found one. The case of Amy Willard, another cop's daughter, the sort of person who might be trained to do the right thing and stop for an accident regardless of the circumstances. Sergeant Jordan shared his theory with Delaware County detectives Greg Seltzer and Charles List. Myself and Detective List were talking, is this what happened to Amy? Is it possible she was bumped

and got out of the car thinking she was in an accident? I mean, this hit a possible scenario of what could have happened. Somebody bumped Amy. It seemed to fit, so we were very excited. The detectives decided to talk to Arthur Beaumar, who wasn't hard to find as he was in the county jail. Here's Detective Seltzer. He was arrested in Lower Marion for an attempted burglary. He apparently was halfway in the house when the female saw him and she called police.

He was placed under arrest for the burglary. The officers who arrested Bomar told Seltzer and List they ran the plates on their suspect's car and discovered the tags were Bomar's. The vehicle itself, however, had been stolen out of Philadelphia and belonged to a woman named Maria Cabanos. She'd been reported missing months earlier and now had been linked to the convicted killer. This is our guy. I mean, there's just too many things now that are popping up. You know, he's in another woman's car that's missing,

believed murdered. It was huge. It was very big. List and Seltzer await their turn and are eventually allowed to question Bomar. He was just getting ready to eat when Detective List told him that we're here talking about Amy Willard.

As soon as I said that, he very carefully closed up the sandwich, put it away, and said, I want no parts of that case. That's a death penalty case. Unfortunately, the detectives had no physical evidence linking Arthur Bomar to Amy Willard's murder. The best chance seemed to be the car Bomar was driving on the night Amy was murdered.

We wanted that car for evidentiary purposes, figuring if there's blood on the guardrail, there has to be blood in the car. We now want this car. According to state records, Arthur Bomar drove a 1993 Ford Escort at the time Amy Willard was killed. Here's Detective List. We went through the insurance company and found out that his car had been in an accident in August of 1996, which would have been two months after the incident with Amy. We immediately went up to that garage. We found that the vehicle was still there. Seltzer and List had the car towed to the Pennsylvania Police Crime Lab.

State Troopers Alan Stewart and Harry Nelson watched as the car arrived at the yard. This is Corporal Stewart. The sun now is lighting up the bottom of the car. Harry looks at me and says, Al, you've got to see the bottom of this car. On the bottom of Bomar's car was an oil pan with distinctive crosshatch markings. Stewart and Nelson recognized them as identical to the burn marks noted on Amy Willard's side at the time of her autopsy a year and a half earlier.

The link motivated the investigators to tear out the car's interior. Inside a door panel, they found their smoking gun. On the passenger side door panel, they recovered blood. It matched Amy's DNA, so that's pretty good evidence. The blood found inside Bomar's car was the first piece of science that tied the suspect to the murder. A second link soon followed. Forensics compared Bomar's DNA profile to semen taken from the victim's body. The result was a full genetic match.

We believe that she left Smokey Joe's, traveled away, she did to go home. We think as she came to the end of the ramp, they probably bumped her from behind, got her to pull down the ramp slightly and pull over to see what had happened. The investigators suspected the two struggled on the road briefly. Amy was bleeding and perhaps knocked to the ground, leading to the strained burn marks on her body. I believe she was trying to get away from him

and may have crawled underneath the vehicle to get away from him and may have crawled underneath the vehicle to get away from him and somehow burned herself. He captured her and put her in his car and took her to some location that we've never found. He brutally beat her. He raped her. And then he dumped her body like a piece of trash. On September 30th, 1998, the case went to the jury. The panel deliberated only a few hours before delivering its verdict. Arthur Bomar was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Amy Willard. Her parents were in the courtroom when the verdict was read and accepted the outcome with mixed emotions. This is Amy's father, Sergeant Paul Willard.

If I can be the guy that pushes the plunger, I'll do it. And have no compulsion about it. If it happens in my lifetime, I will be sitting there in the front row. And this is Amy's mother, Gail Willard. Amy's not coming back, no matter what happens. Amy's not coming back, no matter what happens. Amy's not coming back. That's the only thing I really want, would be for her to come back to life. And I can't get that. So whatever else happens. In January of 1999, three months after Arthur Bomar was convicted for Amy Willard's murder, the bones of Maria Cabanos were discovered in a field just outside Philadelphia.

Blood found in the car Bomar was driving was matched by type to Cabanos, and cold case detectives are convinced he's also responsible for her death. But Arthur Bomar is already facing a death sentence. No charges in the Cabanos case have ever been filed against him. In 2014, Bomar exhausted his state appeals when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the death sentence. There are currently 150 people on death row in Pennsylvania, including Arthur Bomar.

In 2015, Governor Tom Wolf declared a moratorium on the death penalty. In the year 2000, Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, and it was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Under the terms of the law, whenever a state convicts someone of murder, rape, or a dangerous sexual offense, and that person has a prior conviction for any of those offenses in a different state, it can apply to the Attorney General for $10,000 to be allocated for the cost of apprehension and prosecution of the offender. It can also request $22,500 per year for up to five years for costs related to incarceration.

This law is commonly referred to as Amy's Law. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me at Brooke Giddings on Twitter and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram.

I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV.com slash real crime.