Criminology - The Washington Strangler

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

Between November 1976 and May 1977, four young women and girls were murdered in or near Washington County, Pennsylvania. For decades, authorities believe that this was most likely the work of a serial killer. It would take major advancements in DNA technology to prove that there were multiple killers. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the crimes of what the press originally dubbed The Washington Strangler. The murders struck fear in the hearts of residents in Washington County. Many years later, the police began to unravel parts of the mystery, using DNA to solve some of these murders. 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 113 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you today? I'm doing good. I'm staying positive. How about you? No, I would agree. I think I'm doing that too. And I think that's very important. You know, you watch the news. Okay. Depending on which news is.

it is and how they're reporting, it's pretty easy to get negative, to get down. But I think there's a lot of positive things that are going on. Yeah, I agree. I'm seeing a lot of people just slowly venturing out. And then you're hearing about things being lifted and a little bit more relaxation on some of the rules. So hopefully, before too long, we can get out there and get back to normal. Yeah, I saw an interesting site the other day.

I had to run out and pick something up. And I went by a Mexican restaurant. and they have like an outside section. And there were people there. And it's just something I hadn't seen in, in quite a while. So that was, you know,

kind of made me feel good that people are, are getting out. And I'm sure there's a ton of restrictions and, you know, they have to sit X amount of feet apart and all that. But I still see it as a good sign. Yeah, it's a step in the right direction.

Yeah, definitely. We continue to have some amazing support on Patreon. People are really stepping up. to help us out. So let's give some shoutouts. We had Margaret McLean, Devin Withers Hum, Mary Lynn True Love, Ron McKee jumped out at our highest level, Faith Mitchell, Storm Loman, Krista Dexter, and Donna Simmons. So just an amazing amount of support. Yeah, thanks to each and every one of you for that support. And if there's anyone else that's considering supporting criminology

on Patreon, you can do so by visiting patreon.com. slash criminology. And speaking of restrictions getting eased and getting back into the swing of things, it's time to start thinking forward to this fall in CrimeCon in Orlando. It's coming in late October. Of course, it was supposed to be this past May, but I think we're all going to be chomping at the bit to get out and get away. I know you and I are excited about it, Mike. Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, that was tough to miss CrimeCon, but we knew it. We knew there was no way it was going to happen. And so I am looking forward to it in October. So if anyone did not buy their tickets for May and now want to go in October, go to the

CrimeCon website. Use our promo code. Criminology 2020. You'll get 10% off a standard badge. All right. Morf with all of that out of the way, it's time to get into this case. Today we're diving into the Washington County Strangler. Between November, 1976 and May 1977,

Four young women were brutally murdered in or near rural Washington County, Pennsylvania. For decades, police believed a lone serial killer was responsible. It wasn't until advances in DNA technology proved that there had been more than one killer all along. Washington, Pennsylvania sits about 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, and it's the county seat of Washington County, consisting of over 800 square miles. its history dates back to the late 1700s, and the county itself is named after President George Washington. Despite being largely rural and being dotted the fields and farmland, the county's population is currently over 200,000 people. Many of the residents there are employed by hospitals, schools, or by the county itself. In the 1970s, Washington County and neighboring Allegheny County had at least 27 unsolved murders that struck fear.

in the hearts of the communities there, but the murders of four young women in Washington County had police and residents convinced that a serial killer was running loose. Susan Elizabeth Rush was born on October 10th, 1955. She graduated from Washington High School in 1974 and Pennsylvania Community Beauty Academy in the fall of 1976 as a licensed beautician.

She got a job at a Murphy's mark in the Washington Mall, located near Interstate's 70 and 79, but had hoped to land a job as a beautician. Susan lived with her mother and siblings at 410 Duncan Avenue in Washington. On Wednesday in November 24, 1976, Susan drove the family car to Murphy's Mark, where she worked until 5 p.m. After leaving the mark, she was never seen alive again. when she hadn't returned home by midnight, her older brother's Gary and Terry called police. The next morning, Thanksgiving morning, the brothers set out on their own to look for their younger sister. At 9.58 a.m., Gary found the family car that Susan had been driving, parked along North Avenue,

about a quarter of a mile away from Murphy's mark. The car was locked, and Susan's bra and panties were on the seat of the car. Gary called the police, and when they arrived, they opened the trunk. Susan's lifeless body was crumpled up inside. She was wearing only a pair of green pants and a turtleneck sweater that was inside out. Susan's body was removed from the trunk and taken to the Washington County Coroner's Office. There an autopsy was performed and it was estimated that Susan's time of death was at approximately midnight. Susan had been strangled to death, possibly with a shoe string or a piece of leather, her larynx. was shattered from the force of the strangulation, it appeared that Susan had voluntary sex with a man

roughly 30 minutes before she was strangled. There was no physical trauma on the body, such as bruises or scratches, usually associated with sexual assault. The only visible injuries were those caused by the strangulation. Police theorized Susan consented to having sex with her killer in an unsuccessful attempt to save her own life. They believe she was killed elsewhere and brought to North Avenue afterwards. Susan's murder stumped police. And unfortunately, Susan's murder was the first in a series of murders that baffled police and left these neighborhoods shattered.

A few months after Susan's murder, 16-year-old Mary Irene Jensie disappeared. On February 13th, 1977, she had dinner at 6.30 p.m. with her mother at their family home, located at 5747.47th Street in North Charlotte. Mary asked her parents if she could go hang out with friends at a local store called Isolese. The Isolese store manager later told the Pittsburgh press, the store was always full of teenagers drinking coke and laughing. he had seen Mary many times in the store and almost every Sunday. So he knew the teenager well, but couldn't remember if Mary was in the store that night. The last verified sighting of Mary was when she was seen walking to Ice Lees at around 7 p.m. Mary's purse was found later that evening in front of Fallow Field Township Fire Hall,

two miles from her home. Six days later on February 19th, her partially clothed and badly beaten body, was found in an open fallow field township field by two brothers, John and Ronald Yancek. These two brothers were spotting deer near the Charleroi Sportsman's Club when they stumbled across Mary's body. Her blue jeans were lying on the ground nearby. When Mary disappeared, she was also wearing a long, rust-colored coat with a hood and a white t-shirt with the word cores on it. And she had shoes with laces. Those pieces of clothing were never recovered.

An autopsy showed Mary had died of a fractured skull and brain laceration. With wounds inflicted several times by a heavy object, she was likely murdered within three or four hours after she left home. She had been raped, and it was discovered that she was also several weeks pregnant. Authorities interviewed friends and family, including Robert Irwin, Mary's ex-boyfriend and the father of her baby. He had dated her for two years, but the couple had broken up a few weeks before her death.

Rumors started circulating about a blue car and that a strange man had picked Mary up, so investigators focused on following that lead. It paid off, and by early July, 1977, authorities arrested 19-year-old David Jedd Davoli. He drove a blue Buick, and witnesses placed him with Mary on the evening of February 13th. A few days after police arrested him, DeVoli appeared in court at a preliminary hearing before

magistrate Stephen J. Morgow. The session lasted two and a half hours, and several people testified, but it was the testimony of two teenage boys and a police chief that was the strength of the prosecution's case. Brothers Aaron and David Cash of North Charleroy testified they rode in DeVoli's car to Isolee's store to buy some ice cream. About 7.30 p.m. on the night of February 13th. Aaron, who was 16 years old, said that he met Mary, exiting the store as he was entering. He said hello, and she said hello back. Then Aaron saw her in the doorway of the travel agency next door to Isales.

Aaron's brother, David Cash, who was 17 years old, testified he had known DeVoli for about three years. He stated that on February 13th, he saw Mary come out of Isolese and stand in the doorway of the travel agency. A few minutes later, a car driven by DeVoli pulled up in front of David Cash's car. DeVoli rolled down the car window and he spoke with Mary. Then he rolled the window back up and he started to pull away. But then all of a sudden he stopped and he made a gesture to Mary who then passed in front of David's car and got into the passenger seat of DeVoli's Buick. When prosecutor Samuel Rogers asked David Cash, what kind of gesture DeVoli made?

David said it was a smoking gesture, like smoking a cigarette. He then raised his thumb and forefinger to his lips to demonstrate. North Charlotte Roy Police Chief Roy Kearns said that when Davoli was questioned by his department, Davoli denied seeing Mary the day she vanished. The prosecution's expert witness, Dr. Ernest Aberna. A pathologist at Washington Hospital testified that Mary suffered a violent beating in which the entire back and left side of her skull was shattered. And the injuries didn't end there. Her body was covered with more than 100 bruises and contusions.

Abernathy also testified that, in his professional opinion, Mary was about five or six weeks pregnant. Defense attorney Bernard Shire moved for immediate dismissal after the prosecution presented its witnesses. there were no defense witnesses. And Shire said the prosecution failed to present any sufficient evidence. Prosecutor Samuel Rogers countered that a preliminary hearing was not to determine guilt or innocence, but to decide if there was some credible evidence to show that DeVoli could be responsible. At the end of the court session, Magistrate Morghau called the prosecution's case one of the weakest he had ever seen. but he ordered a trial nonetheless saying, quote, if I were to dismiss this case now, the prosecution could refile and refile and refile

again. So in the interests of serving justice as quickly as possible, I am ruling there is a prima facie case. And I ordered the defendant bound over for trial. On July 20, 1977, David DeVoli walked out of a jail of free man after another judge ruled there was not sufficient evidence to proceed with a court hearing. However, the judge did say, quote, if a fuller investigation brings additional evidence against him to light, the defendant can be re-arrested. But on the present state of the record, this case cannot go on to

trial. David Devoli returned to his home in Charleroy. Many people who knew him never believed for second that he was guilty of such a heinous crime. And more if I thought it was so strange that the magistrate, the first person would say, okay, this is one of the weakest cases I've ever seen from a prosecution, but I'm going to go ahead and order this guy to trial. Because from his quote, it sounds like he's saying, all right, it's weak, but if I don't, they're just going to refile, they're going to find more. They're just going to keep going and going and going until they have enough. I just thought that was so strange.

And one reason I thought it was weird for him saying that was because there were multiple eyewitnesses that placed this man with her the night she went missing before she was found murdered. So to me it seems like he would be someone that they should pursue and see if there was something there. Not long after Mary Jensie's murder, another teen vanished. 17-year-old Deborah Debbie Cappiola was a quiet teenager who spent. most of her time at home with her family, she was a junior at West Allegheny High School and attended nursing training classes at Parkway West Technical School. On the morning of March 17, 1977, which was St. Patrick's Day, Debbie briefly chatted with her mother, Kathleen, outside their trailer home. At 7.45 a.m., she left home to walk three-tenths of a mile to the school bus stop. Normally, her

brother walked with her. But as it happened, he was sick that day and stayed home. At 8.05 a.m., Kathleen drove up Point Park Road and saw books scattered on the ground with something white on top. She backed the car up and saw a nursing uniform. She turned the uniform over and saw Debbie's name tag, trying not to panic. Kathleen hoped Debbie had just dropped her belongings as she was running for the bus. Kathleen contacted the school and learned that Debbie never caught the bus that day. Kathleen estimated it took about eight minutes for Debbie to reach the spot where she found her books in uniform, just 75 feet short of the bus stop. The bus driver later told police that when she arrived at Debbie's stop at about 7.55 a.m., Debbie wasn't there.

The community and police frantically searched for Debbie Capiola. A $7,300 reward was quickly offered for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Debbie's disappearance. Debbie's grandfather, August Capiola, said, Debbie was unhappy at home. She lived in a trailer home with her mother, stepfather, Gerald, brother, August, and a three-year-old stepbrother from Kathleen's second marriage. Debbie's grandfather said that both Debbie and Butchie wanted out of the home, and they had both asked him if they could live with him. he said no because he didn't want to get involved in a family dispute. According to August, he and his late wife, who had died two years before Debbie's

disappearance, had practically raised Debbie and Butchie. They spent summers and every weekend with the couple. August believed that it was possible. His granddaughter had simply run away. At the time of Debbie's disappearance, Kathleen and her husband were separated, but he still lived in the trailer, making for sometimes difficult situations. On March 25, 1977, eight days after Debbie went missing, a group of kids playing near a lake called Blue Lake found Debbie's purse and shoes.

The next day, police dispatched divers who searched Blue Lake, unsuccessfully for Debbie Capiola. A massive air and ground search ensued. Police found Debbie's yellow jacket, her wallet, and several photos of her family and friends scattered on the ground. but there was no sign of the young girl. The search for Debbie continued the next day. That's when a volunteer fireman from Imperial Pennsylvania found Debbie's body at about 12.30 p.m.

near an old strip mine roughly three miles from her home and about a mile from Blue Lake. She was lying face down and partially clothed wearing only her bra, blouse, and socks. Her blue jeans had been wrapped her. around her neck. Washington County coroner Farrell Jackson performed the autopsy enlisted her cause of death as exphyxia due to homicidal ligature strangulation. Debbie had also been raped. But her body showed no signs of a beating. Jackson said Debbie was most likely killed the day she disappeared. Police and the community were beginning to realize that too many young girls and women were turning up dead in their area.

and they began to wonder if a maniac was on the loose, a maniac which some people dubbed the Strangler or the Washington Strangler. During Debbie's murder investigation, police questioned several suspects. A man named David Robert Kennedy became a suspect when his maroon vehicle with a vinyl top was seen speeding near Debbie's home and the bus stop the morning she disappeared. The day of Debbie's murder, Kennedy arrived late for work, telling his coworkers that he had a flat tire.

He later told police he was late because he had visited a local car dealership. State Game Warden said they had seen Kennedy's vehicle at Blue Lake twice that day. Several days later, one of his co-workers saw Kennedy removing the vinyl top from his car. The problem was police had no evidence, linking Kennedy to the murder, and he was not charged. It was yet just another instance in which police thought they were on the right track in regards to a suspect. They just couldn't get enough evidence to make a charge stick. Two months after Debbie was found, tragedy struck again. Brenda Lee Ritter lived in a town called 84 in Washington County.

The 18-year-old held a secretary job with Kennedy and Carter Construction Company in Washington. She had graduated from Cannon McMillan High School in 1976. Brenda was last seen at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18, 1977, by her boyfriend Larry Benazza. Larry last saw Brenda when she left for home after dropping him off at his house in Houston Township. Earlier that night, the couple had watched TV at Larry's and then ran out to get dinner. After dinner, Brenda dropped Larry off. There was a severe thunderstorm that night, so Brenda pulled her car up into Larry Jar. Larry locked his door as he exited the vehicle, and Brenda drove away.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained 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. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for.

Hey, guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who-done-it. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Brenda's parents were waiting for her to come home and she was late. Brenda always called her parents if she was running late.

But on this night, when they had not heard from her, they assumed that the storm had knocked out to telephones and that Brenda decided to stay at Larry's. When Brenda didn't return home the next morning, her parents called Larry and found out that she had left the night before. They were terrified, and they quickly called the state police. Police quickly jumped into action looking for Brenda. That morning, at 11.15 a.m., area residents reported to police. They had seen Brenda's car on a rural road in South Straubane Township, about six miles east of Washington. A couple later recalled seeing the car parked there at 11.40 p.m. the night before. When police found the car, Brenda's purse was inside, and the key was still in the ignition.

The passenger door was still locked, but the driver's door was unlocked. The car had a half a tank of gas in it, and there was no sign of Brenda. Police began a search of the area surrounding Brenda's car. A state police helicopter searching from above spotted a woman's nude body at 205 p.m. on May 19th, about a mile from Brenda's car. Police made their way to the body and discovered that it was Brenda. Police theorized that Brenda either walked to the site or was carried because they didn't find any evidence that she had been dragged there. Most of her clothing was found about 50 feet away from her body. The jeans she wore had been ripped.

Washington County coroner Farrell Jackson ruled her cause of death as strangulation. Brenda's panties were wrapped around her neck and twisted with a stick. she had also been sexually assaulted. Brenda's mother said she never went anywhere without a purse and figured she was forced out of the car, maybe by someone impersonating a police officer. This theory possibly explained how the killer managed to get Brenda to stop driving and pull over.

South Straubane police chief, Donald Softchak, said the investigation determined Brenda did not take her normal route home. But Brenda's boyfriend told police that sometimes Brenda would drive down different back roads when she went home and didn't necessarily have a designated route. Police also found that Brenda's car had no damage to it. Not long after Brenda's body was discovered, police found a brush used to groom horses on Raupe Road in South Strawbane, close to the location where her body was found.

The brush was near a snow fence that had been broken. The brush had a nozzle for spraying horses. and it did not belong to Brenda. It had quite a bit of horsehair on it, and the hairs appeared to be from a sorrel, a light chestnut horse that often has white legs, mane, and tail. Investigators took the brush to Meadows, a harness racing track,

and questioned horse owners and groomers, but police learned that that type of brush was seldom used on a horse. Thurrow breads were groomed with a curry comb, several times a day, and groomers cleaned off their brushes frequently. Police couldn't locate any employee there that would have used that particular brush or nozzle. So while they felt the brush might have been an important clue, it unfortunately didn't lead them to a suspect. Investigators interviewed about 200 people in connection with Brenda's murder in the days following their death, but no arrest was made. On May 21, 1977, a man's gold-colored bracelet was found along Route 26, near Linwood Grove and North Straubane Township,

about a mile from where Brenda's body was found two days earlier. The bracelet was manufactured by a company called Spidel. It bore the name Jack on it and appeared to have been torn off its owner's arm. The name was engraved in both upper and lowercase letters, but police never found the owner of the bracelet and weren't sure if it was connected to Brenda's murder. Police were looking closely at the four murders they had in their county, comparing the crime scenes and the clues, and they noticed similarities between Brenda Lee Ritter's murder

and that of Susan Rush. Both victims had been strangled with a piece of cloth or shoelace, and both had been driving their own vehicles before they were killed. Although those two cases bore the most similarity to each other, police also thought Brenda and Susan's cases might still be possibly connected to the murders of Mary Genesey and Debbie Capiola. All four murders occurred on or around four different holidays. Susan Rush disappeared the day before Thanksgiving. Mary Jensy was killed the day before Valentine's Day. Debbie Capiola disappeared on St. Patrick's Day. And Brenda Ritter disappeared 12 days before Memorial Day.

Despite their gut feelings, police were unethical. unable to conclusively link the four murders together. Within days after Brenda Lee Ritter's murder, Washington County Sheriff Hannah Pye Johns shot himself to death with a 357 magnum revolver inside his Washington home. His wife Jenny found his body at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 24th. No suicide note was found. People immediately thought that the sheriff may have been behind the killings, but authorities found no evidence tying into the murders of the young women, and ruled him out as being involved. Hannah John's family said he had been depressed since losing his bid for another four-year term as county sheriff. Johns finished second to Michael Flynn in a 10-man field.

Johns told family members he felt he had been let down. He had been appointed sheriff in mid-March 1977 by Governor Milton Chap. He replaced James Fazzoni, who had been the acting sheriff since the previous sheriff Alex Debrazini had accepted a job with state auditor General Al Benedict. But for decades after his suicide, some people still believed he was the killer, even though police had cleared him. Investigators continued to dig for leads in the four murders. They began looking at other cases to see if there might be other victims who were connected. And it turned out that there were indeed a couple of other cases that had some striking similarities. One of those cases was the murder of Barbara Lewis.

30-year-old Barbara Jean Lewis of Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, was found strangled to death in a shallow trash bin behind the Black Ridge Civic Association Clubhouse. This was along Bueller Road in Churchill, Allegheny County, about a mile from her home. She had been strangled within hours after she was seen leaving her home at 6.15 a.m. to catch a 6.33 a.m. bus to downtown Pittsburgh where she worked.

Barbara's nose and mouth had been stuffed with cleaning tissue, and her hands were bound with the belt from her overcoat, which was missing. Her blouse was also missing. She was wearing only a white brawl, dark slacks, and shoes. The killer had placed a towel across her upper body. The coroner's office said Barbara had not been sexually assaulted and estimated that her time of death was shortly before 7 a.m. A few days after Barbara's murder, her blouse overcoat. and purse were found by children, playing in a wooded area in Wilkinsburg. No one has ever been arrested in Barbara Jean Lewis's murder, and her case remains unsolved.

On June 13, 1977, 26-year-old sister Roberta Ann Elam was found murdered in a field near an overturned bench on the grounds of her Covent and Wheeling, West Virginia. Wheeling is about 30 miles from Washington, Pennsylvania. Roberta, known as Sister Robin, was a postulate nun, and had just arrived at the convent two weeks prior. She had been employed for several years by the Wheeling Charleston Catholic Diocese, working mainly in rural areas of West Virginia. She held a master's degree in religious studies from Fordham University. Sister Robin had been raped and strangled to death by a man with very strong hands. His thumb imprints were found on the front of her throat.

police theorized she had been sitting and praying when her killer attacked. Soon after, police were seeking four male construction workers who were working at the convent prior to the murder. They had made lewd comments to Sister Robin and the other nuns, which angered her and made all the women uncomfortable. But in newspaper reports after the police made the announcement, there was no mention of any arrests of these men, and police had few clues to work with in Sister Robbins' murder. West Virginia authorities worked closely with Pennsylvania police to establish if Sister Robbins' murder might have been connected to the four Washington County murders, but they failed to turn up any evidence linking her case to the others.

The unsolved strangler murders struck fear in the Allegheny and Washington County communities. Guns sales skyrocketed, and there was a run on security. locks and other security devices. High school kids were walking in groups of five or six, and parents were taking their younger children to school. Residents who normally never locked their doors at night began locking

them. For decades, authorities believed there was only one killer in the four murders. They even thought of the possibility that serial killers like Ted Bundy or Edward Serr were responsible. But in 2000, the one killer theory was disproved thanks to DNA.

That's when authorities just discovered that there were at least three murderers connected to these four cases. New DNA technology allowed police to analyze samples from Susan Rush and Debbie Capiola's crime scenes. In 2000, state police trooper Rebecca Loving and other members of a cold case squad took the sperm sample on Debbie Capiola's blue jeans that were used to strangle her and had it tested. They got a hit. the DNA belonged to David Robert Kennedy, who had been a suspect in Debbie's murder from the start. Authorities arrested him in December 2000 for her murder.

Up to that point, police were never able to arrest him before because despite having DNA evidence, the sample they had was insufficient for testing until advances in DNA testing ultimately provided police with a genetic profile. Authorities tried Lincoln Kennedy to the other three murders, but DNA ruled him out. In November 2005, David Robert Kennedy, who was then 50 years old, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Debbie Capio on St. Patrick's Day, 1977. Assistant DA Mark Tranquilli told the jury during the trial that Kennedy, who was only 22 years old at the time Debbie was killed, had been stalking her. He knew that she usually walked to the bus stop with her brother and Tranqually said, quote, Kennedy was waiting for the day Debbie's brother was sick. This was not a random incident.

And when that happened, he struck like a cobra. And we talked about it. The fact that several witnesses had seen a vehicle similar to Kennedy's Maroon Osmobile Cutlass driving near the bus stop that morning. In court, a former co-worker of Kennedy's, Robert Stoner, tested. testified Kennedy, who in 1977 was a laborer at a nearby builder supply store, was 27 minutes late to work that day, which Stoner said was unusual for him. After Kennedy sentencing, State Police Corporal Beverly Ashton of the Cold Case Squad said DNA evidence had linked unknown men to Susan Rush's 1976 strangulation and the 1970s.

77 rape and murder of Roberta Ann Elam, aka Sister Robin. In 2010, 30 years after the brutal rape and murder of 16-year-old, Mary Irene Jensi, DNA evidence linked David DeVoli, who was by that point 53 years old, and Robert Irwin, Jr., who was also 53, to Mary's murder. Both men were arrested. DeVoli, like Kennedy, had been an early suspect, but police didn't have enough to make anything stick. As you'll recall, DeVille was arrested in charge with Mary's murder four months after her death, but was set free due to lack of evidence. Irwin was Mary's boyfriend and the father of her unborn child. At the time of her murder, Mary's clothing had been recovered and showed evidence of

sperm, but DNA testing didn't exist in 1977. So the clothing was stored in evidence. In June 2009, Mary's underwear was sent to a lab to be tested, along with DNA samples from several individuals, including DeVoli and Irwin. The result showed that sperm on her pants matched Irwin. Testing also indicated there was a mixture of DNA profiles matching DeVoli and Irwin found in a semen stain in her underwear. DeVoli denied having sexual contact with Mary. In 1977, Robert Irwin said he had broken up with Mary several weeks before she went missing, and that they did not have sex for at least a month prior to her murder.

But both men did admit to being together that night, riding around in Davoli's Blue Buick. David Davoli pleaded guilty to hindering apprehension and evidence tampering, and he testified against Robert Irwin. prosecutors as a result dismissed the murder charge against DeVoli and he was sentenced to two to four years in prison followed by two years of probation it's unclear why prosecutors struck a deal with the voley and decided to go after Irwin witnesses had placed Mary with the volley the night she disappeared but never mentioned seeing Irwin yeah Morph I think it's always something to talk about in cases like this where you know you have two perpetrators

and one ends up testifying on behalf of the prosecution, that person gets a lesser sentence. Sometimes we don't know why. It could be as simple as DeVoli caved first and said, you know what, I'll testify and he got the deal. I've heard that before from investigators, people doing the interview saying, you know, and sometimes I think that's just a tactic, but maybe it's. It's true in a lot of cases. Hey, your buddy's in the other room talking. Whichever one of you talks first gets the deal.

Yeah, I think we've covered plenty of cases where these deadly secrets are kept between people until one of them or both of them are arrested. And then all of a sudden, one of them is willing to talk and roll on the other one. Yeah, you just never know. A lot of times I think those details don't always come out. At the end of October 2011, a jury found Irwin Guilty. of third-degree murder, which means the murder was committed with the intention of causing bodily harm, but not necessarily death. It can be a killing that results from indifference or negligence or

recklessness. Irwin was later sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. Washington County Judge Paul Posonsky presided over Irwin's trial. Judge Posonski later pleaded guilty to stealing cocaine, entered into evidence in cases over which he presided. In 2015, Philadelphia attorney Brian Zieger filed an appeal under the Post-Conviction Relief Act, asking a judge to consider Pazonsky was stealing cocaine from evidence for his own personal use when he presided over Robert Irwin's trial. And this is important from the standpoint that Irwin opted for a bench trial, not a jury trial. So, Pizonsky was the only person to determine whether he was guilty or innocent. Ziegler said at the time, quote, this was a murder case and it was trial by judge,

and the judge was found guilty of a crime. In this case, the judge was deciding the facts, and there are indications that at the time he was using drugs. The appeal also questioned trial testimony, whether witnesses should have been called to show Robert Irwin was with other people at the time of Mary's murder. They also questioned why prosecutors waited so long to test DNA. The appeal sat until August 2016 when Washington County Judge John DeSail ordered the district attorney to file an answer to the appeal by October 3rd. It was around this same time that Steve Genesey, Mary's older brother, publicly said he didn't believe.

Irwin had killed his sister. He didn't feel the DNA evidence was sufficient because Mary, Mary, had consensual sex with Irwin many times before her death. And he said that could be the reason why sperm was found on her underwear. In February 2017, Robert Irwin was back in Washington County Court before Judge DeSalle, hoping to get a court order that would either free him from his 10 to 20 year prison sentence or grant him a new trial. Robert Irwin's sister Ruth testified, she told then defense attorney Joseph Francis that Judge Pizonsky was acting funny during Irwin's bench trial in 2011. But when Francis took the stand, he denied ever seeing any signs and had no

knowledge of Pazonski's drug use. Prosecutions witnesses included DNA expert John Tobin. Under questioning, he submitted to the court a 250-page report on the Mary Jensie case. Tobin testified that technological advances developed in 2008 permitted testing of a specific type of Y chromosome that is present only in males, defense attorney Zeger argued that the type of DNA analysis used in the Mary Jensy case was available as early as 1998. By failing to charge Irwin sooner than 2010,

witnesses who could have helped Irwin's defense became unavailable or their memories faded. Ziegre told Judge DeSalle the delay was serious enough to have Irwin's murder charge thrown out. Judge DeSalle rejected Zieger's arguments and upheld Orwin's conviction. Erwin appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania,

but in 2019, his appeal was denied and his sentence upheld. He remains in prison today. The murder cases of Susan Rush and Brenda Lee Ritter remain unsolved. And more, if you can make the case that they're pretty cold at this point. I mean, these murders occurred in the 70s.

But even so, authorities remain hopeful that DNA technology will one day solve both of these cases. It took a while, but they did solve two of the Washington County Strangler murders. I think they should be hopeful that they will also be able to solve these two. I mean, more of tragic. that four females lost their lives in Washington County. I mean, we talked about a number of other murders as well. These are tragic cases. Two of them took some time to solve. The other two are still cold. I think what to me is extremely fascinating about this series, and I'll call it that this series, is, you know, at first it seemed as though you have one predator that committed these

four murders in Washington County. And I can completely understand why police would believe that. There were some similarities, a couple of them a little more similar to each other than some of the others, but still, in the 1970s, wouldn't you think? Okay, we've got four murders in a span. There's a maniac running around on the loose. Yeah, I could definitely see people thinking that having that outlook and they dubbed the killer killers, the Washington County Strangler, because they thought it was one maniac.

And it sort of reminds me of the case we just covered the Texas killing fields. That had a lot more victims over a longer period of time, but there's still that mentality. And the question, hey, is there one person doing all of this, or is it multiple people? And here in this small community over a shorter period of time, it turns out that there were multiple killers. Well, I think you mentioned it. I think you talked about it, the fear, the panic that was going on in these communities at the time. People had to think, okay, there's one monster, right? There can't be three or four different monsters. No way. There's got to be one monster that has committed all these murders. The problem is we know that there are a lot of monsters out there. Some of them

operating in the same area at the same time. Both of them are very scary thoughts. You got one monster who's out roaming the city or you have multiple people out doing it. Either one, scary. And this was a time when people didn't lock their tours. And we talked about how as a result of these murders, they were buying guns, security devices, locking their doors. It was really the end of an air.

for them as far as where they had maybe a false sense of security because they lived in a quiet rural area and this kind of thing didn't happen there. And you and I have talked about that in a number of cases. It seems like in many of these smaller communities, sometimes more rural, there's one incident or a series of incidents that kind of shattered that whole mystique of Mayberry, right? We don't lock our doors. You can set your pies out on the window sill to cool. And then all of a sudden, something extremely horrific happens. And all of that is gone. You can no longer do that. It's kind of sad, but true. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for rating and research

assistance in this episode. If you love the show, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your true crime loving friends about the podcast. That 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, Morf, that is it for another episode of criminology, but we'll be back next week with a brand new episode for everyone on Saturday night. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.