Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Bump in the Night

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

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! Start your investigation and download June’s Journey! Available on Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as on PC through Facebook Games. Listen to SUSPECT wherever you get your podcasts. Prime Members can binge the entire series ad- free on Amazon Music! Download the Amazon Music app today. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive!

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. Lieutenant 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 coming 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. 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 surge 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 Piree responded. I observed a white female with severe facial and head trauma injuries to her body, naked, partially on her side. He said a Nike swish tattoo in 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 swab 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 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 batch. A year later, they had a lot of names, but no suspects. Here's Detective Seltzer. We were frustrated, I guess that's easiest way. I never, to the point where we wanted to give up, no. Just frustrated. Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer, or buried in the back of your closet, or accidentally left at your cousin's house after dinner.

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The light shined in Patty's mirror. Here's Patty. And I just thought, wow, you know, a guy's going pretty fast. And then at the time, it's 1 o'clock in 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 a 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, watching them 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. Because I was so scared, and I was like, this is not right. So I got his plate, and I thought to myself, like, yeah, my dad, 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 Beaumar. Here's a paroled murder following my daughter the way he did for as long as he did. The insistence that she pulled 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 we're 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 Merrient for an attempted burglary. He apparently was halfway in the house when the, uh,

The female saw him, and she called police. He was placed in her arrest for the burglary. The officers who arrested Beaumar told Seltzer enlist they ran the plates on their suspect's car and discovered the tags were Beaumars. 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 wait their turn and are eventually allowed to question Beaumar. He was just getting ready to eat when Detective List told him that we're here to 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 Beaumar 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 a 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, watches 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, oh, you've got to see the bottom of this car. On the bottom of Beaumar's car

was an oil pan with distinctive cross-hatch 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 investigation

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 and matched Amy's DNA, so that's pretty good evidence. The blood found inside Beaumar's car was the first piece of science that tied the suspect to the murder. A second link soon followed.

Forensics compared Beaumar's DNA profile to semen taken from the victim's body. The result was a full genetic match. We believe that she left Smokey Joes, 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 investigator 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 somehow burned herself. He captured her, and he 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 Beaumar 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 to push us the plunger, I'll know it and have no compulsion about 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 that's the only thing I really want I'll be for her to come back to life and I can't get that so whatever else happens I'm sure a lot of you have heard of happy mammoth

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If you're fascinated with true crime and criminal profiling, then join us as we discuss real cases and examine the behavior exhibited before during and after the commission of the crime. You can listen to the consult wherever you get your podcasts. It's as close as it gets to being in the room with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. In January of 1999, three months after Arthur Beaumar 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 Beaumar was driving, was matched by type to Cabanos, and cold case detectives are convinced he's also responsible for her death. But Arthur Beaumar is already facing a death sentence. No charges in the Cabano's case have ever been filed against him. In 2014, Beaumart 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 Beaumar. In 2015, Governor Tom Woof 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 somewhat a 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 McCamey Lynn and Steve Delameter. 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 podcast 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. This November, action is free on Pluto TV. Go on the run with Jack Reacher. Every suspect was a train killer. Then buckle up for drive, World War Z. Happy human being we save.

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