Criminology - Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

In 1994, the bodies of 23-year-old Gail Matthews and her 5-year-old daughter, Tamara Berkheiser, were found in their Williamsport, Pennsylvania home. The double murder shocked the community of Williamsport and police were determined to solve it. One man was charged twice with the murders, but both times the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the baffling double murder of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser. There have been a large number of suspects over the years but, to date, no one has been convicted of the murders. We are joined in this episode by one of the investigators in the case, Kenneth Mains, who helps provide details and give insight into the case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 96 of the criminology podcast on Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm keeping a little bit busy. I've got a weekend getaway here celebrating my 23rd wedding anniversary to my beautiful wife. So that's happening and I'm excited about that. How about you? What are you up to? Well, first, congratulations, man, 23 years. That is awesome. Yeah, and thanks to my wife, Rhonda, for sticking with me through that, you know, you know how us guys are so it can be trying for for the wives. So I hope. No, it definitely is. And it also is for the wives of podcasters or the husbands of podcasters. I mean, it's quite a time commitment. I mean, you know that. I think everybody that does a podcast knows what type of time commitment it is. So.

You really have to give it up to your spouse for putting up with what it takes to put out a podcast. I know my wife and family oftentimes have to stay upstairs in their bedroom just because if you walk around too much, it makes too much noise. So, you know, it's a big inconvenience for them. Oh, yeah. They've definitely got to work around you sometimes. Don't flush the toilet. It's going to make noise, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of that.

They really, really support us. So that's something that I'm appreciative of them. All right, buddy. So we have some new Patreon supporters. So let's give some shoutouts. We had Daniel Tykin, Trina Zuleta, and Joseph Johnson. So big thanks to all of those folks. Very much appreciated.

Thanks to all of you for that Patreon support. It really means a lot. And it really helps us. And anyone out there listening that would like to help support the show on Patreon can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. So more if we're excited for CrimeCon, it's this May in Orlando, Florida. We'd love to see all of you out there. Now, if you're thinking about going, make sure you use our promo code,

Criminology 2020. When you check out at CrimeCon.com, you'll get 10% off your standard badge price. And just a reminder, we've been getting some requests from people that want to binge our old episodes on the Zodiac, the Golden State Killer, all of the other stuff we've put out over six months ago, you can still listen to those anytime you want with a Stitcher Premium app. And that comes with a 30-day free trial. So you can download that app now and get your binge on, listen to those older episodes in a matter of minutes. So all that out of the way. Let's get into this episode. In 1994, the bodies of 23-year-old

Gail Matthews and her five-year-old daughter, Tamara Berkheiser, were found in their William Port Pennsylvania home by Gail's mother. The double murder sent shockwaves of grief throughout the Williamsport community. Despite a number of suspects in this case and one particular man who was charged twice, the case remains unsolved. This case still haunts people. Over 25 years later, and the big question remains, who killed Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser, we were lucky enough to be joined by one.

of the investigators in that case, Kenneth Mains, who many people may know from the A&E series Hunting the Zodiac, you'll hear from him throughout this episode. Williamsport, Pennsylvania has a population of roughly 28,000 people, and it's situated just 66 miles west of Wilkesbury. The small city calls itself the birthplace of Little League Baseball. In 1938, a local man named Carl Stott's came up with an idea to form an organized baseball League for Boys in Williamsport. Carl didn't have any sons of his own, but often played baseball with his young nephews. After obtaining sponsorships from local businesses, the first Little League baseball team was formed. The first season opened on June 6, 1939, and in the first game,

Lundy Lumber beat Lycoming Dairy, 23 to 8. The first national tournament was held in 1949, and since then, Williamsport has hosted the Little League Baseball World Series at Carl E. Stott's Field, or as locals call it original field at Memorial Park every August. While Williamsport might be a young boy's dream place to visit, what happened there in 1994 is what nightmares are made of. In late summer 94, 23-year-old Gail Matthews resided in Williamsport at 812 Center Street, which was one side of a two-story duplex,

Gail and the tenant in 814 shared a porch and a front yard. Gail was a hardworking single mother to her daughter, five-year-old Tamara Berkheiser. Gail was born on March 4, 1971, to Galen and Lois Matthews. She was the fourth of six children born to the couple. During Gail's high school years, she met a boy named Eric Berkheiser while cruising the streets of Williamsport, as many teens did back in the 1980s. Eric was a couple years older than Gail and a high school dropout. They started dating, not long after, Gail became pregnant at the age of 16.

She dropped out of high school before giving birth to Tamara on October 23, 1988. Eric was in jail at this time, but Gail's best friend was with her during the birth of Tamara to support her. After Tamara came along, Gail cherished her new role as a mother. To make ends meet and to help support her daughter, Gail held down a couple of jobs. One was a waitress job at Tailwind's Cafe where she started working in 1990. Eric eventually got out of jail, but this relationship between Gail and Eric didn't last long.

They parted ways in 1991. It was after that point that Gail raised Tamara on her own, which became increasingly difficult. As Tamara got older and more of having two girls. girls of my own, I understand how that can be, right? You get into those two, three, four, five year old time frames. That's when you get into the talking back, the temper tantrums. It can be a trying time. Now, we all know that being a parent is rewarding, but at the same time, it's not always a bed of roses. But despite that, Tamara was very close to her. mother and her grandmother Lois.

Gail was determined to make it on her own without relying on anyone else's help. She was dedicated to her job at the Tailwind's Cafe and worked her way up to acting manager. Gil, she was 23 years old and she was a single mother, to Mara, who was five years old. And they were frick and frack and by that, I mean, you know, where you saw one, you saw the other. She was a great mom, and she was trying to live on her own. Again, she's 23. She worked as a manager at a cafe and a waitress there, and she was trying so hard to start her own life, you know, a single mom, trying to make ends meet.

You know, she didn't have a lot of money, but she put a roof over Tamara's head, you know, kept food on the table. And, of course, she had help from her family in doing so, but she didn't live at home. You know, she could have, you know, but she wanted her own life. With the modest amount of income that they had, of course, they lived in a modest area. It wasn't an upscale area or anything like that. And there is crime in that area. I mean, Williamsport has crime, but it's mostly drug-related. Williamsport probably has 10 homicides a year, and nine of those are drug-related.

So this is very unusual. for it not to be solved was just mind-blowing to the community. And to me, honestly, when I took over the case, you know, I thought, you know, I was very cocky, arrogant detective, I think, at the time, at least in my own mind, that I could solve that case within six months after getting it. And, you know, I really thought that. During the summer of 1994, Gal met and started dating a man named Jay Maylee. Jay started coming over to Gail's house quite often.

By early September, Gail was hoping for a bigger commitment from him. She was happy and felt like she was ready to settle down. Every morning, Gail and Tamara would go to Gail's mother's home for breakfast before Gail went to work. Gail and Tamara spent a lot of time at Lois's home. In fact, Gail rarely cooked meals at her house. She would go to Lois's instead. On the morning of Friday, September 2nd, 1992, Gail never arrived.

at Lois's home for breakfast like she normally did. When she failed to pick up her best friend, Shana Bartholomew, to take her to work, Shauna called Lois. Gail's co-workers at the cafe also called Lois when she didn't show up for her 10 a.m. scheduled shift at the Tailwind's Cafe. Growing concerned, Lois and a friend named Sarah Horn drove to Gail's house around 10.30 a.m. When they arrived, they knocked to. on the front door, but no one answered. Lois noticed Gail's car parked in front of the home,

and her fears grew. Something wasn't right. Sarah went around to the side door, which was the entry into Gail's side of the duplex, and she noticed some broken glass around the doorknob. She reached her hand through the broken window and opened the door. Lois and Sarah entered Gail's home, but they weren't prepared for the scene that awaited them. In Tamara's second floor bedroom, they found Gail lying on her back, Tamara's bed under Comforter. They didn't see Tamara at the time and began calling out for her. Little did they know that little Tamara was lying next to Gail on her mother's left side in the crook of her left arm, and that both mother and daughter were dead. Devastated at the sight, Lois ran and called police, and they arrived shortly after.

They checked the bedroom and confirmed that Gail was dead. She was nude from the chest down. Her underwear had been pushed down, and her top pulled up above her breast. They then found Tamara's fully clothed body under the blanket. It was obvious that they were dealing with a double murder, so they called in detectives. When the detectives arrived at 812 Center Street, they cordoned off the area and began the investigation. Neighbors began piling into the street to see what was going on. When they eventually found out a mother and young daughter had been brutally murdered, shock and fear set in. Word quickly spread, and neighbor, neighbors were scared for their own lives.

Some bowed to protect their families at any cost. Ken Maines describes the scene for us in detail and how things unfolded on that fateful day. So the crime scene is your typical neighborhood where houses are probably, you know, a couple feet apart. You know, it wasn't a residential area where, you know, the neighbor was far away. All these houses are grouped together.

So that strikes you, number one, because you think, okay, somebody had to have seen or heard something. It was a small house, which was a duplex. So you had 812 Center Street, which is the side that Gail and Tamara lived on. And then you had 814 Center Street, which is the other half of the house, where her friend, Brenda Brill, lived. And she lived there with her sometimes on and off boyfriend named Skip Kramer.

So what had happened is on, you know, in September of 1994, Gail was supposed to be at work. I mean, she was supposed to be there at 8 o'clock in the morning. She usually went to her mother's house and ate breakfast and went to work. Well, this day she didn't show and people started calling her, trying to figure out, you know, hey, where is she? And, you know, you didn't have cell phones back then, so they were calling and leaving messages on the answering machine. No one could get a hold of her.

So Gail's mother and a friend of hers decided to drive over there and see what's going on. They went to the front door and it was locked. She's knocking on and nobody comes. She goes around to the side door, which had its own separate porch area. And she noticed that the glass is broken out of the door. But the door is locked. She reaches in and unlocks the door from the outside. side and the friend ends up going upstairs and in Tamara's bedroom laid the body of what at the time she thought was just

Gail. All she could really see was her leg. The right leg was laying off of the bed on the floor, but a blanket was covering the upper half of her body. So she comes downstairs, she tells Gail's mom. Gail's mom makes the phone call to 911 and police eventually. do arrive and they make the discovery after pulling back the comforter that Gail is in bed and Tamara is cradled in her left arm. The investigators continued to process the crime scene. They noticed an open window in Tamara's bedroom where the bodies were found. A window screen was leaning against the dresser, but it did not fit the window properly. There was also a window. There was also a open in Gail's bedroom, but the shade was pulled down. A fan was running in the middle of the room.

That fan was normally in Gail's window. Detectives wondered if there was some significance as to why the killer left the bodies on Tamara's bed versus Gail's bed. Had she been putting the little girl to bed when the killer struck, did the murders happen in Tamara's bedroom or were the bodies placed there after the killings. These were just a few questions that detectives were asking themselves. Luminol sprayed around the home, detected blood on the bathroom faucet handles, down the sink trap, and on the back of the sink. It looked as if the killer may have tried cleaning up after they committed the crime. Police found bank statements and copies of personal checks on the kitchen table, which possibly indicated Gail had been going over her finances. There were dirty

dishes in the sink and a bunched-up blanket on the couch. Both were unusual because Gail always kept their home clean and organized. Authorities said the suspect may have slipped through a first floor kitchen window to make an escape. That window was found damaged. A forensic pathologist arrived on the scene to examine the bodies. The forensic pathologist found several stab wounds on Gail's body and her throat was slashed. She also appeared to have been strangled and she had multiple bruises on her body. Gail appeared to have been sexually assaulted and the examiner collected a large amount of semen from her vagina so much that it was visible to the detectives on scene.

One of them even made a comment to a fellow detective. There's our killer right there thinking that the seaman had to belong to the murderer. Tamara was strangled by someone using their hands and a piece of clothing. She had been hit on the head and her throat was slashed. But she was not sexually assaulted. The medical examiner could not give an exact time of death for each victim, but estimated that their deaths must have occurred sometime between 8 p.m. and 10.30 a.m.

More recently, renowned pathologist Cyril Wecht placed the table. place the time of death between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. The original pathologist noticed that Gail had what looked like a blood-stained imprint of a knife on her torso. It matched a kitchen-paring knife found in the dish-drainer with its blade up. This is something that investigators and family found very odd. We mentioned it. Gail worked in a cafe and was taught numerous times to put sharp knives away with the blades down. So it was thought. No way would Gail have ever placed the pairing knife in the sink with the blade up, especially with Tamara in the house. Lab reports later revealed no blood on the pairing knife. As usual in a homicide investigation,

detectives looked into Gail and Tamara's movements and activities before their murders. The two were lasting alive around 9.30 p.m. on Thursday of September. 1st, 1994, by David and Wanda Danley. The Danleys were friends of Gail's neighbor, Brenda Briel, who lived in the other half of the duplex. Brenda had three small children of her own, and occasionally her boyfriend, Skip, Kramer, lived with him. Brendan and Skip had been seeing each other for about seven years, and had one child together. That night, Gail asked Brenda's friend David to kill a moth for her in her kitchen, which he did with Tamara's shoe. After that, Gail spoke to the first of her.

spoke on the phone with her cousin, Tina Coons, and the two talked until about 10 p.m. Tamara was still awake during his time. Normally, Gail would have given Tamara a bath before bed, but Tamara was found in the clothes she had worn that day. Police questioned a lot of people that knew the murdered mother and daughter. And while they had some theories and persons of interest, there were no arrest made, and the case cooled off leaving the community guarded and wondering who had committed the murders, and if the killer was living amongst them. almost a year after the murders, then Lycombeing County district attorney Thomas A. Marino

announced that he wanted to exhumed the bodies of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser so that additional tests could be performed. One test that was not available at the time of the murders could detect fingerprints and other markings on their bodies. But for whatever reason, their bodies were never exhumed. Although not much was happening publicly during that year after the murders, detectives always had a suspect in mind from day one. And that was Skip Kramer, the boyfriend of Brenda Briel, Gail's neighbor, and they looked at him very hard. What had happened is there was some witnesses the night of the murder that said, hey, I seen a gentleman that I know as Skip Kramer walking towards that house and actually get up onto the porch of the crime scene

at about five in the morning. The girl said, I saw him. He saw me. I said, hi. He said, hi. What time is it? It was five o'clock in the morning. And he said, okay, she didn't think nothing ought of it because he had lived in the other hand of the duplex with Brenda Brill. Well, some people didn't know. She obviously didn't know. Brenda had kicked him out earlier that night. They were having some difficulties. He showed up, you know, earlier in the day, took his clothes, and left another witness who lived right across the street from Dale. And this, to me, of all the pieces of evidence, this is the most crucial to me. The neighbor across the street says he was awakened at about the same time, five in the morning, by voices.

looked out, there was a streetlight there. He seen Skip Kramer, who he knows, who had worked for him. I mean, he has no doubt it was Skip Kramer, talking on the front porch to a blonde-haired child. But make out who the child was, just that it was a child and that blonde hair, and Skip said, to this child, your mommy's not here. Go back inside. To me, that's the crux of the case. there was two children in that house that had blonde hair.

One was the victim, Tamara, who was five, and one was Brenda Brill's son, who was 10. But he had some sort of disease that made him look younger than what he really was. But the witness couldn't tell whether it was a boy or a girl. All he knows, it was a child with blonde hair. And Skip said, your mommy's not here, go back inside. So they find Skip. And this, again, I'm telling you that this case is unlike any other case I've ever looked at because there's so many good suspects. And there's so many ironic things that happen.

The neighbor at about 10 in the morning after the murders, calls police and says, hey, there's a car parked out here. We've been out here for a long time. Looks like the person's sleeping in there. Can you come and check it out? So the police show up and they identify the driver as Skip Kramer. He is sleeping in his car about a block away from the murder scene. The car won't start so the police actually help him push the car and they have no idea that he's a murder suspect. And they help him try to start his car.

Fast forward about a day later, after they get done interviewing everybody, these witnesses, they said, well, we need to talk to Skip Kramer because you know, we got to find out who's talking to while I was on the porch. They find them. They interview him. He states, yeah, you know, I was on the porch. I was actually at Brenda's house checking her doorknob. I wanted to see if she had any other guys there in the house with her or anything like that. They said, well, who was the child you were talking to?

And he gets a surprised look on his face. And he says, I wasn't talking to any kid. And they're like, well, we have a witness to saw you. And he denies this. Absolutely not. Who has reason to lie? You know, the independent witness, who is a, you know, 70-year-old man, or is it, you know, Skip Kramer, who is the murder suspect. So based off of that interview, we made some incriminating statements like he asked the police investigators,

do you think that I murdered them? And they said, well, Skip, you're going to have to tell us. And he said, do you think I could have blacked out? And, you know, so that raised a red flag. And they gave him a polygraph test. He failed a polygraph test. And in the post-test interview, he made a statement, something to the fact that in my head, I've convinced myself that I've done it.

But in my heart, I know I didn't. So his statements, you know, raised red flags. So they ended up getting his clothing from that night. They go to his house, they get his clothing, and they were washed. Yeah, when he came home that night, he washed his clothes. In March, 1998, Williamsport Police arrested Skip Kramer and charged him with the murders of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser. Police apprehended him while he was at the Lycombein County Courthouse on another matter.

They charged him with first, second, and third-degree murder, burglary, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint and related offenses. The news of an arrest was welcomed in the community, but disappointment was on the horizon. Within weeks, Lycombeian County Judge Dudley N. Anderson dismissed all charges against Kramer due to insufficient evidence. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved.

unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. In 2001, investigator Dave Ritter of the Williamsport Bureau of Police took over the murder case. He had Skip's vehicle sent to the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory for testing. Inside the car, experts found small bits of a glitter-like material. Tests performed on the car's carpet revealed the glitter-matched pieces of material found in Tamara's bedroom, where the bodies were found.

Initial testing on Skip's vehicle in 1994 found no physical evidence, linking Skip to the murders. So armed with this new evidence, authorities arrested Skip Kramer for the, the second time in March of 2002. Fast forward to 1998, Detective Dave Ritter, where I got a lot of respect for, did a lot of work on this case. He tracked down Skip Kramer's vehicle

that he had that night. It was in a junkyard. He vacuumed it out, and what he found was glitter in that car. Well, what's significant about that is there was glitter all on the carpet of Tamara's bedroom. So based on this additional evidence, they arrested Skip Kramer again. And this time everything bound over and it was getting ready for trial. And they were interviewing witnesses.

And one of the police officers they brought in for an interview said, yeah, I remember seeing that glitter not only in Tamara's bedroom, but also outside on the front porch. So Skip always stated. I was on that front porch that morning. So that could explain how the glitter got into his car without him actually being at, you know, inside the murder scene. So charges once again were dropped. Skip Kramer's story about the events of September 1st, 1994, has never changed.

He said that he was at Brenda's home around 8 p.m. on the night of the murders. He went inside the home to get a basket of his clothes because the two were ending their relationship. Skip wasn't even supposed to be in Williamsport that night. He was working in Altoona during the week and had originally planned to return to Williamsport on September 2nd, but came back on the first instead. While he was away, Brenda used his car, an older brown Ford Pino,

but the starter wouldn't work properly. Skip claims that he put his belongings into his car, and he tried starting the Pinto, no luck. He then walked to a friend's home located at 8,000, 33 Center Street. This was just down the road from Brenda's place where he called the taproom bar to get a ride from some friends. Ken Brown and Steve Swisher, they picked him up and the three returned to the bar. Skip said that at some point he briefly went outside to smoke crack cocaine, but he stayed at the bar until 4.30 a.m. when another friend named Rob Lentz drove him to

Hawthorne Avenue. Not far at all from the crime scene, Skip and Rob chatted, and they walked around for about an hour. Skip said they were talking about Brenda and the ending of that relationship. One of Gail's neighbors saw Skip walking south on Center Street toward Gail's home at around 5.15 a.m. And this neighbor even said hi to Skip. And in turn, Skip asked the neighbor for the time. A few minutes later, another neighbor named Sunny Upton Graff saw Skip on the front porch of 812-814 Center Street talking to a blonde-haired child. The neighbor said that they heard Skip say, your mommy's not here.

It is possible that Skip was talking to Brenda Briel's son, Jason Matthews, who had blonde hair. Brenda had two other children with Gail's brother, Gail and, Matthews. So this is something more if we didn't bring to light up front, but I think it needs to be talked about. Brenda Briel, who shared the duplex with Gail, had been involved at one point with Gail's brother, Gail and Matthews. So obviously, Brenda was someone that Gail knew very well. Sonny Uptongraph wasn't sure if he saw Skip Kramer on September 1st or September 2nd because he was working long hours and often got his days mixed up. But Skip wasn't in Williamsport on September 1st.

Therefore, investigators concluded that he saw Skip around 5 a.m. on the 2nd. Skip later admitted to being in the area because he was checking to see if Brenda had any men visiting her. Skip was jealous because he believed that Brenda had cheated on him before. Skip also admitted to being drunk and high on crack cocaine on the night of the murders. He even tried turning Brenda's doorknob to see if she had locked the door. Afterwards, he walked to his car and tried to start it. When that failed, he flagged down a motorist who helped push the pinnow about a block. When the car still wouldn't start, the motorist left.

That motorist told police there was nothing unusual about Skip's demeanor that night. Skip claims that he then slept in his car, and this was witnessed by a concerned citizen who actually reported it to police. An officer arrived and tried to start Skip's car but failed. Skip walked a block away to the Williamsport Hospital to call his sister. She arrived. They too tried pushing the car to get it started but had no luck. So his sister drove Skip to their parents' home.

Investigators tracked down Skip Kramer and they interviewed him. within a day or two of the murders. He gave consent to police to search his car and to take the clothes he was wearing that night. Police sent the clothing to the PSP laboratory for testing, but the initial tests on the clothing revealed nothing. Now, later testing done in the FBI laboratory found a single hair on Skip's clothes that was consistent with the hair of a stuffed animal on Tamara's bed. But here's the problem with that, Morph.

Police had taken photographs inside Brenda's home after the murders. And in several of those photographs, there were stuffed animals. So it's quite possible that the hair could have come from one of those. If Skip was the murderer, what was the motive? One possible theory is that Skip was sexually attracted to Gail. Another possible theory was that Skip wanted revenge against Gail for telling Brenda to break up with him. We should point out that in 1994, Skip Kramer consented to providing blood and hair samples and to being examined by medical personnel.

When they examined him, they didn't see any scratches on his body. It wouldn't be until years later that police learned that Skip's DNA didn't match the semen or touch DNA found at the crime scene. In March 2004, two years after Skip's second arrest for the murders, then district attorney Michael A. Dinges dropped the charges against Skip Kramer, saying there wasn't enough evidence to convict. But he also added that there was no statute of limitations for murder and that the case would remain open.

And Morf, I was very confused, to be honest with you, about Skip, arrested twice, charged twice, twice had the charges dropped against him twice. And then you figure out, right? At some point, the police knew that Skip's DNA did not match the semen collected from Gail's body. It also didn't match any of the touch DNA found at the crime scene. When we talk about their statement saying that there was not enough evidence to convict, yeah, I get that because we really didn't have a great sense of what evidence they had, it was almost like they had more evidence to prove that it most likely was not him. So just because the seaman found at the crime scene and the DNA in that seaman didn't belong to skip didn't necessarily rule him out as being the

killer, but it would definitely seem to poke holes in any kind of theory that implicated him. Yeah, I get you. I mean, you know, it doesn't 100%, right? completely rule him out, but you have to imagine that any defense attorney worth his or her salt would make a very big deal about this DNA and the fact that none of it matches their client. So there's someone out there, right? There's someone else out there that is much more likely to be the murderer than my client, Skip. Skip wasn't the only suspect or person of interest in this case. In fact, there were quite a few, as Ken Mainz explained to us, not to mention lots of frustration on the part of the police.

One detective told me after I let him look at the case and showed him all the suspects, he said, you know what, if you took this case to a grand jury, you could get an indictment on about 14 different suspects. and obviously not all of them committed this crime. It's very unique, very difficult, very intriguing case. It is horribly, horribly frustrating. You go from the highest of highs when you find a lead that you think, you know, is there to the lowest of lows when it gets explained away or it just doesn't match. You know, there's been so many cases where I get done interviewing somebody, you know, in this,

case, you know, you would think that the interview is going to go good. You got, you got something. And then it turns out to be nothing. And I would walk outside and just look up to the sky. And I'd be like, Gail, you know, help me out here. Please, you know, I'm trying everything. Give me a break. And it's just so, so frustrating. But you just got to keep piling forward. And, you know, you do it for the victims. You do it for the victim's family. You know, just this morning, know, I got a text from Gail's sister, and we were, you know, talking about different theories and stuff like that. So you do it for them, you know, and you just keep working on it. So more if we're going to talk about some of those other potential suspects and persons of

interest, one is Ken Brown. Ken Brown was Skip's best friend who, along with Steve Swisher, gave Skip a ride that night to Center Street. Ken and his wife, Gloria, had recently moved to a home on Center Street near Gail Matthews' residence. Ken took and failed a polygraph test. It was reported that he also gave inconsistent statements to police about what time he left the taproom bar. He originally said he left at 11 p.m. on September 1st and went home. Then later, he said it was more like 2,000. 30 a.m. on the second. And then even later, change that to 4 a.m. On top of all of these

inconsistencies, Ken Brown was about an hour late to work the next day. Ken Brown was previously arrested for criminal homicide for hitting his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and causing her to miscarry. Charges were later dropped. Some locals believe Ken and his twin brother Bill killed Gail and Tamara. Suspicion has also been cast on Brenda Briel, who was Gail's neighbor. People think she had something to do with the murders, or at the very least, helped cover up for Skip Kramer. The walls between Gail and Brenda's apartment were very thin, and some believe Brenda must have

heard something coming from Gail's home when the murders occurred. Brenda's story, though, has never changed about the night of September 1, 1994. She said she had spoken on the phone with Wanda Danley, who was at Brenda's home earlier that evening. While she was on the phone with Wanda, Brenda was straightening up the house and getting ready for bed at 10 p.m. She claimed she was a sound sleeper and slept through the night until her son's crying woke her up the next morning. She then got her children ready for school. She claimed she heard someone walking around in gal's bathroom at around 8 a.m. But that's all she could add. After police arrived at the crime scene, Brenda Briel and Wanda Danley returned to Brenda's home after being told about

the murders. Police questioned Brenda and Wanda about who was at Brenda's home the previous night and if Gail Matthews had any visitors. Wanda said she left Brenda's at 9.30 p.m. the night before. Wanda told police that Skip Kramer had been there to get his belongings. Brenda had not mentioned this to police and when they asked her why, she answered that she simply forgot and started crying. Over the years, Brenda Briel has been accused of telling a number of stories around her suspicion that Skip was involved in the murders. She has said that he had intended to kill her, but went to the wrong house because he was drunk and high. She has also claimed that Skip hired a hitman who went to the wrong house. Brenda has said that Skip killed Gail and Tamara to get back at Gail's brother Gailen,

the father of Brenda's kids. The one thing we do know is that at some point Brenda was charged with perjury by a state grand jury for lying in regards to some details of the crimes that she told others. There were details of the murders she wasn't supposed to know. Now, Brenda's claim that she learned of this information through police, some of it through the news, and some of it from Lois Matthews. Police have said that they never released crime scene details to her or anyone, for that matter, but many of the details of the crime were leaked to the Williamsport Sun Gazette. So therefore, Brenda could have been telling the truth about reading some of these details in the news. Brenda Briel has since remarried, and her husband defends her innocence on social media.

Another possible suspect is Gail's ex and Tamara's father, Eric Berkheiser. A possible motive is that Eric was angry about Gail's relationship with Jay Maylee, and the increase in child support he was ordered to pay. He was $1,600 in arrears and was paying almost $3,000 in fines and cost. and Eric's living girlfriend, Ricky Shoemaker, was ordered to pay almost $330 in child support to her ex, Sylvester Shoemaker, for her two children. This theory centers around the fact that between the two of them, they were swimming in child support debt. Gail had agreed to give Eric back $10 a week for the $40 his employer would take out of his paycheck for child support. But on the night of the murders, Gail told him that she spent the $10 and couldn't give it back.

Eric Berkheiser claimed that he was in bed with his girlfriend Ricky, around 10 p.m. on the night of the murders and never left the house until the next morning. He was supposed to have his nephew over that night, but it didn't materialize because his nephew was behaving badly. Eric Berkheiser took and passed a polygraph test in 1995. Police reports stated that Eric's demeanor was suitable for a person who had just lost a child and an ex-girlfriend. And more than I think this is something that you and I have talked about in the past. How should someone act in the wake of some type of terrible tragedy? Not everyone reacts the same way.

But from the police's point of view, Eric Berkheiser was acting in a way that they would expect to see from a person who had lost both a child and an ex-girlfriend. But even though Eric passed a lie detector test, he had a serious criminal history that included a criminal homicide attempt in 1988 when he conspired to murder two Williamsport police officers. He was convicted and served two years in prison before being parole. Eric has also been in trouble a number of times for domestic disturbances, DUIs, and thefts. Tamara's father, Eric Berkheiser, he was a person of interest early. He would not look at very hard by the original investigators, certainly not as hard as I looked at him and as much as I investigated him. when I took over the case, I really focused on him. And the reason being is he was a violent person.

He had been in jail before. He tried to shoot a cop one time, I guess. And he got in a lot of fights. And when he was with Gail, he had hit her, you know, where Gail's brothers had to intervene. And he fit, you know, the profile a little bit better than anybody else. and you throw on top of that motive. You know, you got to go back to, well, why were these people killed? They're not involved in drugs.

There's no prostitution. There's nothing to make them a high-risk victim. So one of the things that I focused in on was that Eric owed a lot of child support. And it was learned that recently, Yale was going to take him back to court for more child support. And we're not talking a lot of money. You know, they had this arrangement set up where he would pay the child support and she would actually give him like $10 back. A couple of days waiting up to these murders, they informed them, hey, I can't give you any more money back. You know, I knew it.

Well, to me and you, you know, maybe $10 isn't nothing. But, you know, to some people, $10 is a lot. So I thought maybe that that was a stressor that caused these homicides. So I really focused in on him and, you know, his inability to pay child support. I think he missed 151 payments at one point in time. And when I interviewed him, you know, there was a lot of discrepancies. I gave him a lie detector test. He failed that polygraph.

And at the end of it, you know, he said, I got a lot of soul searching to do. and he made a lot of comments that were made me, you know, really focus on him to the point where I went to the district attorney and I said, I think I got it. And I laid out my case in front of him and some other detectives on a PowerPoint. And everyone in that room agreed that he more than likely committed these murders and I would have enough to make an arrest. I didn't because I wasn't 100% sure. And I would never arrest anybody unless I'm 100%. And I'm glad I didn't. But he fit everything so much that I went to the FBI behavioral unit.

We had a conversation and showed the evidence and everything. And they told me you have him appropriately prioritized as the number one suspect. And the VDOT Society as well, I went to Richard Walters House, is the head of one of the founding members of VDoc, and he told me it's him to the point where he actually came up and spoke to the district attorney and explained to him why he believed it was him. I was on him. I was on him hard,

and harder than I've ever been on any other suspect in my life. I mean, to the point where he absolutely hated me. But you know what? He never refused an interview with me. And I talked to him. him 20 times. And he always, always talked to me. And looking back now, you know, 10 years later, you know, is he a suspect? Nah, I don't know to me. It could just be somebody that really wants to find the murderer of his daughter. Another person of interest is Thomas, Tommy Bartholomew.

He's a relation of Gal's best friend, Shana Bartholomew, through her marriage to Brian Bartholome. Tommy was allegedly attracted to Gal, but she didn't feel the same way. To her, they were just friends. During the phone conversation between Gail and Tina Coons on the night of the murders, Gail was complaining about Tommy and how persistent he was in wanting to date her. Tommy was employed as a substitute teacher at the time of the murders and was seen at Gail's home around 8 p.m. on the night of the murders, talking to Tamara through the chain-link fence.

He claims he asked the little girl what her mom was doing, and she replied, Staying home because I got school tomorrow. At that moment, Gail came outside to throw leftover noodles she had cooked for Tamara into the garbage. Tommy said hi to Gail, and Gail told him she was watching a movie. Gail then walked back inside. Tommy allegedly asked Tamara for mother kept her doors locked. He told police that he then got into Gail's car to roll up her windows and left afterwards.

Tommy said that after he left Gales, he went to a local bar, drank for several hours, and then left the bar sometime between 10 p.m. and 11.30 p.m. But this exact time has never been established. Tommy has said that he was home by 10.30. His mother said 1130. Tommy's brother said that he was home by 1030. And then later Tommy's mother changed her story and said, yeah, Tommy was home by 1030, which coincided with both Tommy and his brother's statement.

men's. Like Skip Kramer, Tommy Bartholomew consented to medical examinations. He had some scratches on his body, but medical personnel couldn't determine how fresh the scratches were. Tommy admitted to police that on the day after the murders, he went to Kmart and bought cleaning supplies that he used to clean the inside of his car. The Kmart receipt was found in his car. Tommy had just recently purchased the car from Gail's childhood friend, a guy named Joe Ham, who lived near Gail. Now, what Tommy has claimed is that the car was dirty the night before the murders, and he simply wanted to clean it. He has always denied any involvement in Gail and Tamara's murders. Gail's boyfriend, Jay Maley, was also looked at as a possible person of interest in the murders.

His behavior after the murders is questionable. In the summer of 1994, Jay and Gail met through mutual friends at a nightclub called Shadows. The relationship wasn't exclusive. Jay had also been seeing a woman named Tina Heaton, who he impregnated before dating Gail. Her due date was October 7, 1994. On the night of the murders, Tina found out that she had a venereal disease and called Jay that night angry because she thought he had given it to her. Police questioned Jay after the murders.

In 1994, Jay said that he and Gal had sex a week before the murders. In 2013, authorities questioned Jay once again. At first, Jay stuck to his original story that he and Gal had had sex about six days before the murders. Police confronted him and told him about the large quantity of semen found inside Gal and on her underwear. Seamen that had been determined to be Jay's. confronted with this new information, Jake broke down and admitted that he and Gail had sex closer to the time of the murders than he originally admitted to. He said he lied because he was embarrassed to admit that he and Gail had sex while she was on her period.

He had been dating Gail for a couple of months at the time. He didn't even live in that town of Williamsport. He lived in Jersey Shore, which is about 20 minutes away. and, you know, nothing to suspect him at all. And again, it was his semen, but everyone assumed, you know, that it should be there. Eventually, after I got the case and I started looking at, you know, peripheral suspect, he was one that I obviously wanted to look into, but I was talking the case over with some colleagues, and what we determined was, wait a second.

Gail was on her period at the time. That means, you know, there should be no semen in her because Jay had said, yeah, the last time I had sex with Gail was like six days previous to the homicide. So, okay, hold on a second. You start backtracking saying, okay, you had sex, six days. You ejaculated in her. And she got her period after that time. there is absolutely no way,

demon of any sort, should be in her at the time of her death. And that got me to really start to focus on Jay, the boyfriend. Either, you know, is he lying about the last time he had sex with her, or is he the murderer?

And I spent a lot of time, you know, trying to come to grips with that. At the time of the murders, Jay had two friends who were his, alibis for that night. But Jay and those two friends refused to take polygraphs and eventually refused to talk anymore with investigators, all three of them hired lawyers. Then there's Jay's pregnant girlfriend, Tina Heaton. She admitted that she was the angriest she had ever been on the

night that Gail and Tamara were murdered over having contracted this venereal disease. and believing that it was Jay, who had given it to her. In 2013, Tina took and failed a polygraph test. She later stated that back in 1994, she gave Jay an ultimatum. Jay was going to have to choose between Tina and their baby or Gail Matthews. There's also the possibility that Gail Tamara weren't murdered by any of these people, but were instead murdered by a complete stranger. Gail had told someone she felt as if somebody was looking in her windows in the days before the murders.

She also said that a neighbor had been staring at her, which made her feel very uncomfortable. There's also the broken glass on the door at Gail's residence. This could possibly indicate that the killer forced their way in, not having a key, and that Gail didn't know them to let them in. In 2011, Touched DNA was found on the front inside waistband of Gail's underwear, After further testing was done, Tommy Bartholomew, Eric Berkheiser, Ken Brown, Skip Kramer, Rob Lentz, and Jay Maley have all been excluded as a contributor of this DNA. So, Morph, I think there are a lot of people that look at this as lending more credence to the stranger theory. Although it does appear that this theory is not widely believed by those clues. closest to the case, the stranger theory. But there have been no further arrests in the murders

of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser. In 2011, Ken Maines, who was then a Williamsport police officer, was asked by District Attorney Eric Linhart if he was interested in solving the Gail Matthews case. And Ken told the DA that he was. But Ken asked his captain for permission to investigate case, and he was told no, because he wasn't a detective at the time. It turns out, a few months later, there was an opening for a detective working with the district attorney. Ken resigned from his $88,000-year job as a police officer and accepted the $38,000 detective job with the district attorney, taking a $50,000 pay cut. This new job allowed him to investigate the Matthews case as well as other cold cases. Ken shared with us one of the things he found in the case that he feels may be an important clue.

One of the biggest clues, potential clues in this case, is an answering machine call. So when they were going through evidence in that house, they took the answering machine and on it was a message from Tamara. It says to the effect, she's whispering into the phone and she says, it's happening. It's hitting me and everything. Come get me. She's very chilling and very haunting. Well, in those old message answering machines, you could hit a memo and it would record your voice on it.

So it's possible that that was Tamara calling, trying to call for help in the midst of this homicide. So the original investigators thought that important enough, obviously, that they sent that tape to the FBI to get an enhanced. When they enhance it, you hear some additional clues. you hear a person yell hang up and then Tamara leaves her message and then at the end you hear somebody groaning and that becomes very important because now you think oh my goodness that five-year-old girl was calling for help and she hit the memo button and recorded herself and her mom obviously you know laying there dying or groaning and the person that's yelling hang up you know you can you can deduce things from that.

And I'll tell you what I deduce from it. Sounds like a female to me yelling, hang up. And Tamara and her message says, he is hitting me and everything. So now you could deduce if this is related to the homicide. There's two murderers, one's a female and one's a male. That's if that call, that message is related to the murder. But when you listen to that, just like the 911 call and hear that,

It is haunting and it is chilling. In 2013, Ken Maines formed the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases or ISAC, a nonprofit organization that reviews cold cases involving murders and missing persons. The review panel is impressive to say the least. Among the members is Lieutenant Joe Kenda from Investigation Discoveries show Homicide Hunter, retired FBI agent Mark Safarrett, who worked in the behavioral analysis unit in D.C. and Dr. John Lieber, a forensic psychiatrist who contributed his expertise on the Atlanta child murder cases, Ted Bundy, and the Green River Killer. So more if I think if you are putting together a team to work on cold cases, those three gentlemen

are at the top of the list, right, of people that you want to include. There's definitely some impressive credentials there. Ken Mainz is still very passionate about solving the Matthews case and vows to never stop until there's an arrest. The family of Gail Matthews was thrilled to have Ken on board investigating the case. Gail's sister, Julie Strobel, has described Ken as being an amazing detective. The case has haunted Ken and stuck with him so much. he's decided, partially at the urging of Gell's family, to write a book about the case.

Well, initially, I had no intentions of writing a book. I did have the intention of going a television show. So after the hunt for the Zodiac Killer, you know, I had a lot of offers from a lot of TV companies and to do something. And that was a passion project of mine that I needed out there. I want people to steal. So leads can come in. So Cargah 7, who I did The Zodiac Killer with, they were interested.

So we filmed a, you know, a pilot, a trailer in order to pitch to the networks to get this as a series. You know, my investigation into the Gail Matthews and Tamara Berk Heiser murders, and it was called chasing demons. I thought it was phenomenal. I thought it had great potential. But as I've come to learn, Hollywood is a very fickle business, and it did not get picked up by the networks. So I left it at that. I had no intentions on writing a book. But then I talked to Gail's sister, Julie, and she wanted a book done, and she wanted me to write it.

And that's the only reason when I'm doing it is for Julie. And that's it. I mean, I want people to know about this murder and I want it to solve. One of the unique things about this book that I think is unique anyhow, I don't think's ever been done. I've decided when I started this case, I kept the journal of every single thing that I did on this case. You know, I put the date, September 2nd, 19, you know, whatever, I did this. I interviewed this person. They said this.

I sent this evidence to the lab and these are the results. It's over 400 pages, and I want to release that so people can see how a cold case detective works, what they do, and I'm going to put that in there. And I don't think that's ever been done before. It's an actual cold case journal, and it'll show everything that I ever did on the case, and people can make up their own minds. In this book, what I want to do is leave it up to the readers. They get to see everything that I did on the case,

and then they get to see what the original investigators did on the case as well. And those are the facts. And after you read the facts, you can come up with your own opinion of who you think did it. And a lot of this is up to Julie, because, you know, again, I'm doing it for her. She wants this done. She wants the memories of her sister and her niece not be able to be. forgotten. And that's the big thing here. In cool cases, you know, they get to be 20 years old, 25 years old. They become myth. You know, they become a folklore. They become a legend.

Almost as if they weren't real, you know, well, I'm here to tell you that Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser were real. They were real people and they were murdered. And as generations go on, They just become named on a book or named on a computer screen or on a Facebook post, Gail and Tamara. They forget that they were real people, and their death impacted a lot of people. So that's what I want to get out there, is that this isn't a myth. You know, this isn't a folklore. This is real stuff. And people need to realize that when they're reading this book.

And I hope that's it is. Every year since the murders of Gail and Tamara, friends and family gather in September to hold a vigil in their memory at Brandon Park in Williamsport. Gail's mother didn't live long enough to see someone held responsible for these murders. She passed away on May 18, 2018 at the age of 74. The murders of Gail and Tamara inspired Lois's granddaughter, General. for Matthews to become a detective to help families who have gone through similar tragedies. Tamara's father, Eric Berkheiser, still lives in Williamsport and is married with two children.

He still talks about Tamara on Facebook. If you have any information regarding the 1994 murders of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser, we encourage you to call the Williamsport Police Department at 570-3-2-6.7-7-7-3-6. 7-7560. So, Morp, as we wrap up this case, I have a couple of thoughts. There are a number of men, right, that police have looked at over the years as persons of interests, possible suspects, whatever words you want to use in the murders of Gail and Tamara.

We know one or more persons murdered these people. We don't know if it's any of the individuals. that we've talked about in this episode, what I will say, and I think about this a lot in, you know, some of these unsolved cases that we do to be linked in some way as a person of interest in these cases. If you had nothing to do with it, that has to be horrible. Because I feel like unless police come out and definitively clear you as being a possible, suspect, it's just a cloud, right, that hangs over your head for that entire period of time.

One thing that really jumps out to me is the length of the list of persons of interest here. And we talked a little bit about it in the episode how frustrating it is to have that many suspects, persons of interest, but not be able to have enough to make a case against any of them stick. That's got to be frustrating for not only the police, but for the family. of these victims. And it's almost the complete opposite. Sometimes there are investigators with no suspects or persons of interest. And as much as that's frustrating, it's probably equally as frustrating to have too many persons of interest. And then you go back to Skip Kramer, right? The only person

that we talked about that was charged, and he was actually charged twice, both times. Judges throughout the case against him due to lack of evidence. And we didn't have all of the details around the evidence that police had. But obviously, just by the mere fact that both charges were dropped, they couldn't have had much. Very special thanks to Ken Mainz for joining us in this episode. Thanks also goes out to Debbie Bucket, TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. As always, if you love the show and you haven't done so,

please go out, give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review, but keep telling your true crime-loving friends about criminology. It goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology podcast discussion and fans. All right. That is it for another episode of Criminology. We will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode.

So for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of you.