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1:03

Next on trek Investment Mate Next

1:41

Welcome to True Crime Garage wherever you are

1:43

whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your

1:45

host Nick and with me as always is

1:47

a man that has decided to devote the

1:50

rest of his time to living out every

1:52

single sublime song. Here is the captain. Thank

1:54

you, thank you, thank you it's good to

1:57

be seen and good to see you. Thanks

1:59

for listening. listening and thanks for

2:01

coming afraid. Today

2:08

ladies and gents we are still sipping on

2:10

what some consider to be the original

2:13

craft beer. Yingling traditional lager, a

2:15

beer that at one time we

2:17

could not purchase here in Ohio.

2:19

So if you were traveling by

2:22

means of car, truck, or ban

2:24

the van, one would stock up

2:26

and bring some back home. ABV

2:29

4.5% garage

2:31

grade 3 out of

2:33

5 bottle caps and

2:36

let's give some thanks and praise to our

2:38

friend that helped us out with this week's

2:40

beer run. First up, shout out to Hillary

2:42

and Cordelane, Idaho, and last

2:45

but certainly not least we have a

2:47

double fist of cheers that goes out

2:49

to Charlotte and Lottie listening

2:51

over the pond they say in England.

2:55

Everyone we mentioned they helped us out

2:57

with this week's beer fund and for

2:59

that we thank you. Yeah big shout

3:01

out to Aston Villa fans all around

3:03

the world. I want to thank you

3:05

for the BWE the bar you in

3:07

beer run. If you need more

3:09

true crime garage for your ear balls

3:11

check us out on patreon or through

3:14

the Apple Podcasts app. Also

3:16

if you're listening to off the record and you

3:18

want to hear us discuss a

3:20

certain thing or you have a question for us email

3:23

me the captain captain at

3:25

true crime garage.com and just

3:28

put in the subject off

3:31

the record subject or off the

3:33

record topic or off the record

3:36

question and we'll make sure we put

3:38

that on the show. And

3:40

that's enough of the business. OTR

3:42

if you're nasty. Alright everybody gather

3:45

round grab a chair grab a

3:47

beer let's talk some true crime.

4:02

Here we have these

4:04

two unsolved murders taking

4:06

place not only close

4:09

together on the calendar, but

4:11

the added terrifying

4:13

aspect to these two crimes

4:16

is the close proximity

4:19

from one another. It's

4:22

like 0.2 miles from

4:24

one murder scene to

4:28

the other victim's front doorstep.

4:31

The second victim is delivering

4:34

newspapers and found about 0.2 miles

4:37

from her home on her

4:39

newspaper route. About a five-minute

4:41

walk from where she took

4:43

off that morning. Again, these

4:45

murders while the police are working

4:48

under two different ideas here with their

4:50

investigation. Are they connected? They're

4:53

working under the idea that yes they are, but

4:55

also no they are not. Running

4:58

this investigation, all hands on deck

5:00

operation here for the murder of

5:02

Joan Burghard who took place August

5:06

9th or 8th 1992. She's

5:09

found on the 9th and then Charlotte

5:11

Schmoyer who was found June

5:13

9th of 1993. Her

5:16

body was found in a wooded area

5:19

near the Eastside

5:21

Allentown Reservoir. The

5:25

way that the two individuals were attacked,

5:27

different. We have stab wounds in one case and

5:30

then a bludgeon type

5:32

murder in the other case. One

5:34

taking place, everything taking place outside,

5:36

outdoors we assume. And

5:38

then the other attack, everything took place inside

5:40

the victim's apartment. This

5:43

neighborhood is not going

5:45

to get really any relief at

5:47

all. Because

5:50

what we're going to have happen here is June 20th.

5:54

So this is 11 days after the

5:58

murder that we discussed at length. We

6:01

have another situation where

6:03

someone breaks into a

6:06

home. This home is located on

6:08

North Maxwell Street. This is an

6:10

all in the same neighborhood. Every

6:12

one of these locations that we've just mentioned

6:15

all within walking distance from one

6:17

another. You could walk there in minutes

6:20

time. Someone entered

6:22

through a window. Now

6:25

this is going to be similar to the

6:28

Joan Burghard case. Whoever

6:30

broke into her apartment and killed her,

6:32

they entered through one of the windows.

6:35

They pulled out or pushed out the

6:38

screen to one of the windows and climbed

6:40

into the first floor apartment. At

6:43

this home on North Maxwell Street, someone

6:46

broke into the home in

6:48

the middle of the night. So the way

6:51

that this is described Captain is that it's

6:53

believed that this was probably

6:55

in the early morning hours. There

6:59

is two adults in the home,

7:01

but very sadly there is a

7:03

five-year-old girl in the home. The

7:05

five-year-old is snatched from her bed,

7:07

carried by her neck, thrown

7:10

into a like laundry basket

7:12

type of thing. Carried

7:15

to another location where she

7:17

is assaulted and choked and

7:20

strangled. It's believed

7:23

that the attacker had every reason

7:25

to think that he had

7:28

successfully killed the victim before

7:30

fleeing the home. Now

7:34

we don't have a lot

7:36

of details on this case

7:38

because you can imagine the

7:40

sensitivity of the case given the young

7:42

age of the victim. We're

7:46

very lucky that the victim

7:48

survived. Because the victim

7:50

survived, they didn't want

7:52

to release a lot of details in this case. So

7:54

that makes a lot of sense. Now one thing we

7:57

do know that there was a burglar robbery

8:01

type aspect to this

8:04

assault because the

8:07

adult female who was in the house, her

8:10

purse was found on

8:13

the lawn of the property and

8:16

some of the items from her purse

8:18

had been taken and they didn't recover

8:20

those items. So it

8:22

was hard to determine for police

8:25

and investigators several

8:27

different things. One, was

8:30

this a situation where somebody broke in

8:32

with the intent of stealing money and

8:34

then for some sick reason decided to

8:36

assault a child or

8:39

was assault all part

8:41

of the break-in to begin with?

8:45

And then you have to go a step

8:47

further and go okay well is this connected

8:49

to the two previous crimes? This is

8:51

a very different victimology.

8:54

Joan Burghardt lived alone. This is a

8:57

home of at least three persons in

8:59

the home that we know of and

9:01

Charlotte Schmoyer was out alone on her

9:05

newspaper route. June

9:07

29th, nine days after the five-year-old

9:09

girl is attacked, a

9:12

home on East Highland Street.

9:15

Again this is the same neighborhood. Somebody

9:19

broke into that home. Now

9:23

the way that this story goes is

9:25

pretty unique because

9:28

inside this home we

9:31

have a woman she's in her late

9:33

30s. She's there alone

9:35

that night. Her husband,

9:38

she's married and lives with

9:40

her husband but her husband travels on occasion

9:42

for work. He happens to not be home

9:44

that night. So she's at home sleeping alone

9:47

in the middle of the night when she

9:49

says that she she woke up for unknown

9:51

reasons. She don't know what startled her from

9:53

her sleep. She wakes up and she gets

9:56

like this really uneasy feeling. You know how

9:58

you just sometimes you just get this

10:01

gut feeling, right? That something is not

10:03

right. Yeah. Something you feel in

10:05

your gut. And then she

10:07

says she woke up

10:09

with this feeling that not only is something not right,

10:12

but she doesn't hear

10:14

anything. Doesn't see anything. She

10:17

just says, I

10:19

had this mysterious anxiety quote.

10:22

I had a very eerie feeling.

10:26

I felt like somebody was in my

10:28

house. So she

10:30

decides this

10:32

is how freaked out she is. She

10:35

doesn't have a lot of clothing on. She's sleeping. She's

10:37

in her own home. It's a midnight, right?

10:41

She's not even worried about getting dressed.

10:44

She thought I'll just wrap myself up

10:46

in the, in the blanket. And I'm,

10:49

I'm running outside and I'm going to

10:51

the neighbor's house. Well, before

10:53

she could get out that door, somebody

10:55

grabbed her from behind and

10:58

she was attacked. She was

11:00

sexually assaulted. She was beaten

11:05

very badly. So one can almost say

11:07

that attempted murder, 100%

11:09

attempted murder. And

11:11

let's just go back to this idea that

11:14

her husband happened not to be home. You

11:17

have all these crimes happening in

11:19

this neighborhood. Somebody

11:21

is stalking and monitoring some

11:24

everybody's actions within this

11:26

neighborhood. This attacker left

11:29

her for dead and a lot,

11:31

a large portion of the attack, she's

11:35

she's doing her best to fight back

11:37

and to fight him off and to

11:39

try to escape. The best she

11:41

can do is she, this

11:44

attack, it starts inside when he grabs her

11:46

while she's trying to flee, but it ends

11:48

up on the, on the

11:51

lawn. And so a large

11:53

portion of the attack occurred outside in

11:56

the pitch black in the middle of the night. She's.

12:00

left for dead, there's again, similar

12:02

situation as we just talked about from

12:04

the June 20th attack.

12:07

Police, they're on the scene, paramedics

12:09

on the scene, and everybody sitting there going,

12:12

there's a very good chance that whoever

12:15

did this only left, only

12:17

stopped the attack because they thought

12:20

they were successful in killing the victim.

12:23

Here again, we get lucky, no,

12:26

that's not the case. Our

12:29

victim here survives. But

12:33

think about what we've been talking about here. Forget about the

12:35

1992 murder for a second. Once 93 hits the summer

12:40

of 93, Charlotte Schmoyer

12:43

is killed June 9th, the

12:45

attack on North Maxwell Street is

12:48

June 20th. This is June

12:50

29th. So

12:53

11 days between attack number two and

12:55

three, and then just nine days between

12:57

three and attack number four. And I

12:59

know there's some

13:02

differences in all these attacks, but

13:04

there's also some similarities. And

13:08

if you're law enforcement, you have to start thinking

13:10

that maybe all of these are connected, but it's

13:12

not going to stop there. We're

13:15

going to end up with July 14th. We

13:18

have a woman, her husband, and their four

13:20

kids. They are staying

13:22

with the woman's mother. This

13:26

is at 407 North Bryan Street.

13:30

Again, same neighborhood.

13:33

The mom and grandmother is 47 year

13:35

old Jessica Fortney. Now

13:38

in the early morning hours of

13:40

July 14th, 1993, Jessica's daughter and son-in-law,

13:42

who had

13:47

been sleeping on the third floor with

13:49

their four children, they

13:51

wake up early that morning. They

13:53

find 47 year old Jessica Fortney

13:56

dead on the living room couch.

14:00

So they go down to the first floor and

14:02

they find her strangled and bludgeoned to death on

14:05

the sofa here. You,

14:07

you talked about similarities. We

14:11

already mentioned the bludgeoning the, it

14:15

was clear that the attacker entered this

14:17

property through a window as well climbs

14:20

in through windows. Almost exactly like the

14:22

1992 murder. Yeah.

14:25

And it's somehow able to

14:29

attack this woman. And,

14:32

but also at the same time, keep

14:34

the commotion level down enough to

14:36

not alert her daughter

14:39

and son-in-law and their kids that are

14:41

sleeping on the third floor. It's

14:45

very likely that if these attacks

14:47

are happening at similar hours of

14:50

the night or early morning hours,

14:53

that some of these persons that are being attacked, like

14:55

the woman that says, I just woke up in the

14:57

middle of the night and had this feeling somebody was

14:59

in, in my house. These, these

15:01

persons may be attacked while they're still

15:04

sleeping, that they, they never, they didn't

15:06

wake up before the attack started. So

15:08

now police are dealing with their third

15:11

homicide investigation in less

15:13

than one year's time, all in

15:15

the same neighborhood. And

15:17

while you don't have anything forensically telling you

15:20

that these are all connected, I don't

15:23

know how. And it doesn't appear

15:25

that the detectives were confused. It

15:28

appears to me that they weren't willing to

15:30

openly state that that's, there's no

15:32

reason for you to state that these are 100% connected until

15:34

you connect them. Well, and

15:36

once you make that statement to the

15:39

public, you're pulling the

15:42

fire lawn and you're going to have

15:44

a, it's a double edged

15:46

sword. You want the community

15:49

to take this seriously. You want the

15:51

community to be locking their doors, not

15:54

staying alone, making

15:56

sure their windows are locked, but

15:59

you don't want. them to be

16:01

in an all-out panic even though you

16:03

know chances are these are

16:05

all connected. The other thing too that and

16:07

this is not

16:09

like not so risky but you'll

16:12

see that this should be a

16:14

consideration. If you are

16:16

quick to go to the public and say all

16:18

of these attacks or all three of these murders

16:21

are connected we're looking

16:23

for a serial killer. The

16:25

problem later becomes if science

16:27

tells you no they're not

16:29

all connected and you make an arrest

16:31

and you make it let's say you make

16:33

an arrest in all of the cases and

16:36

you end up with two perpetrators or

16:38

three perpetrators. What you're going to have

16:40

is if one of those perpetrators has

16:42

a smart able defense

16:44

attorney they are going

16:46

to present at court right

16:49

out the gate. Keep in mind

16:51

my guy the guy that's standing

16:53

trial today wasn't always the guy that

16:56

the police were looking for. The

16:58

police were on record saying that all

17:00

these crimes are connected so those other

17:02

person or persons that they arrested in

17:04

those crimes those guys

17:06

were at one time considered that guy was

17:08

one time considered a suspect. So

17:11

what you're doing is you're already creating

17:13

doubt you're creating some

17:15

form of doubt which which we talked

17:17

about this a hundred times here in

17:20

the garage what the best

17:22

detectives do is

17:24

you work the case you collect

17:26

the evidence you follow the evidence

17:30

all the while being concerned

17:32

about a conviction getting the

17:35

conviction in trial how

17:37

can I best drive

17:39

this investigation to number one find

17:41

the guy get my guy but

17:44

to make sure that I

17:46

don't do anything or say anything that

17:49

could later muck this up in the court

17:52

we're going to go four days later after the

17:55

murder on July 14th this is going to

17:57

lead us to July 18th when

18:00

we have, remember

18:02

the break-in at East

18:04

Highland Street that

18:06

took place June 29th? Well,

18:09

there's another break-in at that same house, July

18:12

18th. This

18:14

time, the

18:17

woman, her husband is home this night.

18:20

And in fact, after the first

18:22

attack, they didn't move,

18:25

but they did go to great lengths

18:27

to upgrade the security of

18:29

their home. They changed the locks. They

18:32

installed a security system. The

18:35

woman would say, who survived the

18:38

previous attack, says

18:40

that she wakes up, again, she wakes up in

18:42

the middle of the night. Again, her husband's home

18:44

this time. She wakes up,

18:47

looks over at her husband. Her

18:49

husband is lying in bed, eyes

18:51

wide open, staring at

18:53

their bedroom door with the

18:56

gun that they purchased to keep them safe

18:59

in his hands, on his chest. He

19:02

goes, he looks right at her and he says,

19:04

quiet, there's someone in the house. So

19:07

he's already aware, he's already heard

19:09

something that has alerted

19:12

him that there is someone in the

19:14

house. Yeah, he

19:16

had that feeling in his gut and in

19:18

his butt. This

19:21

would lead to something to tip off

19:23

the intruder. And

19:29

the intruder flees. Thankfully,

19:32

no one is attacked that

19:34

night. Oh, come on, it

19:36

would have been great if the guy would have opened

19:38

up the door. Got

19:41

a face full of lead. Well, this

19:43

is going to be a pivotal point

19:45

in the investigation

19:47

and for this case. Because

19:51

what we're

19:53

going to see here is that police

19:55

come up with this idea. They go, okay,

19:57

well, we are... Kind

20:00

of quietly behind the scenes working this

20:02

as a lot of these if not

20:04

all of these situations are 100% connected.

20:08

But here we have a situation where. The

20:11

guy may have returned to the home now

20:14

you're starting to think back to the jon

20:16

burghard murder aren't you where you go wait

20:18

a second she reported a burglary at her

20:20

apartment five days prior to. The

20:23

break in that led to her murder right

20:25

is that there can't be

20:27

a coincidence now that doesn't seem like

20:30

a likely coincidence now now that we

20:32

have a situation where this woman's nearly

20:34

killed on her lawn and

20:37

then. We have less than a

20:39

month's time. 20

20:41

days later the home is broken into again

20:43

and this again this is a safe neighborhood this

20:45

is not a neighborhood that was

20:47

dealing with with a large amount

20:50

of break ins prior to. What

20:52

starts happening in june of nineteen

20:54

ninety three it's almost like the

20:56

attacker realized. All the

20:59

you know when i broke into the house and

21:01

i attacked that lady she didn't

21:04

die. I

21:06

gotta go back could have came back to

21:08

try to silence. A

21:11

witness to permanently silence a witness

21:13

or you know finish the job

21:16

police with the permission of

21:19

an i bet you they didn't have to ask too

21:21

hard. They decide you

21:23

know what we're gonna put an officer. In

21:26

this home the home that

21:28

was broken into twice and we

21:30

want to put an officer in

21:32

the home of the five-year-old girl

21:34

who survived the attack on north

21:36

maxwell street thinking of course both

21:38

families agree. So

21:40

now. You're doing

21:43

this not just to keep these people protected

21:45

but also you're doing it hoping

21:47

to lead to a potential

21:49

arrest should this person enter one of

21:51

these homes again. So i think this

21:53

is a good plan by law enforcement

21:56

and a good plan by the community

21:58

the trap is. that to catch

22:01

this piece of shit. So we have a

22:04

officer, Allentown police officer Lewis,

22:07

who was assigned to stay in the

22:09

house of the prior

22:11

adult victim on East

22:14

Highland Street. So

22:18

you have the husband

22:21

and wife that are in their bedroom. You

22:24

have the officer who was positioned

22:27

himself in the dark

22:31

living room. You have the lights turned

22:33

off in the living room, but they

22:35

purposely left some windows

22:37

cracked, maybe a window or

22:40

two open, and a light or

22:42

two on in the house. You

22:44

want to kind of showcase to

22:47

your potential perp that the

22:51

here it is for the taking. Come

22:54

and get it. Now around

22:56

this is July 31st. Okay,

22:59

so the the initial attack

23:01

the first time that this home was

23:03

attacked and the woman inside was attacked

23:06

would have taken place June 29th. The

23:09

second attempt at whatever took place

23:11

July 18th. We're now at July

23:14

31st. So just about

23:16

a month later at 1 30 in

23:18

the morning, the police

23:20

officer stationed inside of this home,

23:23

Officer Lewis spotted a gloved hand

23:26

coming in one of the windows.

23:31

Then he sees the screen being

23:34

knocked out and

23:37

the officer plays it cool. He's

23:40

gonna he's gonna wait till he can see a

23:42

body. Right? He's

23:45

not gonna risk because you get one shot

23:48

at this after he sees

23:50

the gloved hand and then the knocking out of

23:52

the screen. The officers

23:54

in the living room. He's

23:56

watching and watching and watching waiting

23:58

for the intruder. to enter

24:01

the home. And

24:04

he does, he sees somebody crawl

24:06

into that window and that's when

24:08

the officer made his presence known.

24:10

He stands up, gun drawn, he's

24:13

yelling, police freeze, police freeze. Instead

24:16

of surrendering, this intruder

24:19

reaches for a gun and

24:24

at the same time starts to dive

24:27

to the floor. We're going to have a

24:29

bit of a shootout

24:31

here. Not a

24:34

lot of bullets fired. I've heard this

24:36

described a couple and read this described

24:38

a couple of different ways. It

24:42

sounds like both the

24:44

officer and the intruder shot

24:47

at each other a couple of times. This

24:51

led to somehow the intruder managed to

24:53

smash out a window. This was

24:56

a window of the back door and

24:59

then escapes using that method.

25:02

Now here's another thing that the

25:04

police got right. They are

25:07

now searching the area.

25:09

They're out in the middle of the night looking for

25:12

whoever broke into this home. But

25:15

they're also convinced that there's a high

25:17

probability that during either the course of

25:19

the shootout or him breaking out the

25:21

window and

25:24

fleeing that maybe their

25:26

intruder was injured in the

25:28

process. So they notify

25:30

all the area hospitals to

25:32

be on high alert for a

25:34

man seeking treatment for cuts. They

25:37

believe that he cut himself. They're not saying that

25:39

they found blood at the scene. I'm guessing they

25:41

must have found some blood at

25:44

that scene or fleeing

25:47

from that scene. This

25:51

is where they get their break. Because

25:53

just a couple of hours later they get the call that

25:56

they were looking for. They

25:58

end up arresting a man out of the house. outside

26:00

of the Lee High

26:02

Valley Hospital, this man

26:05

had gone in for treatment. Can

26:08

you say dumbass?

26:10

So here's going to be the icing on

26:12

the cake. So the individual that they arrest,

26:17

his name is Harvey

26:19

Robinson. And

26:21

he's, he's very, he's surprisingly young. He's

26:24

19, 20 years old at the

26:27

time. They

26:30

arrest him. This is going to allow

26:33

them to search his home. They

26:36

go to his home and in his

26:38

bedroom, they find a gun that

26:40

is hidden in one of his boots inside

26:42

of his bedroom closet. The

26:46

interesting thing here is this gun is,

26:48

is going to secure him as suspect.

26:53

Number one, right? Right. Cause he

26:56

could claim he got cut elsewhere. He

26:58

could come up with some kind of

27:00

story, but what he cannot explain away

27:02

is the gun that

27:05

he used to fire back at the

27:07

officer that he had with him that

27:09

night was a gun that he

27:11

stole from one of these homes that we've

27:13

discussed. So he's

27:15

in these homes, captain. He's assaulting

27:18

the women attempting to kill them

27:21

and he's stealing items. And

27:23

one of the items stolen in the process

27:25

was this gun. Eventually it's

27:28

going to take some time, but

27:30

eventually they're going to

27:33

get DNA back and

27:35

secure evidence from Harvey

27:38

Robinson that tells

27:40

them that he is absolutely the

27:43

person who killed the first two victims we

27:45

discussed. He

27:47

killed Joan Burghard, 29 years

27:50

old, nurses aid in her one room

27:52

apartment, her two room apartment on August

27:54

9th, 1992. He

27:57

killed the newspaper carrier, Charlotte

27:59

Schmoyer. June 9th,

28:02

1993. And they

28:04

had every reason to believe that

28:06

he was responsible for the assault

28:08

and attempted murder on the five-year-old, the

28:12

murder of Jessica Jean Fortney, July

28:15

14th, 1993, and

28:17

that he was the individual that attacked this

28:20

woman that lived in the Smallbrook House on East

28:23

Highland Street on

28:25

June 29th, 1993, attempted to break

28:27

into the house on July 18th of 1993, and

28:31

then was the intruder that the

28:33

officer shot at on

28:35

July 31st, 1993. Say it with me. Got

28:41

it. Of course, they find

28:43

a vehicle belonging to Robinson

28:45

that matches the description given,

28:47

provided to police in

28:50

the murder of the newspaper carrier. So

28:53

a lot of evidence to connect

28:55

this guy. There's a

28:57

lot of things that I found very

29:00

interesting about this investigation, Captain. Something

29:02

that we don't see in some

29:05

of the investigations that we've discussed. While

29:10

you cannot, no one would

29:12

go out of

29:14

their way to call this a successful

29:16

investigation. There's so, there's so much tragedy

29:18

that took place here. We

29:21

got three people that were killed and

29:24

two that were nearly killed. But

29:28

what you see right away

29:30

is the police did everything

29:32

right. The town, Allentown

29:35

did everything right. The mayor's saying,

29:37

look, use anything. By all means,

29:40

cost is not an issue. Figure out

29:43

how to catch this guy. Figure out

29:45

how to protect this town, this city,

29:47

this neighborhood. They

29:50

collect DNA at multiple

29:52

crime scenes. They bring in

29:54

the FBI to help them assist with

29:57

the science of that DNA and making

29:59

computer. comparisons in the testing. They

30:03

put undercover officers spread out

30:05

through the neighborhood, especially right

30:07

after the Charlotte case

30:09

took place. And

30:12

then later they're putting officers inside

30:14

the homes of these

30:16

two individuals to protect them and hopefully to

30:19

catch this guy. You've

30:34

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30:36

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30:38

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31:12

right, we are back. Got

31:15

him. Cheers. Got

31:18

him. You know, we don't like to go through the

31:21

court stuff too much here and there was a lot

31:23

of different

31:25

things as far as the

31:27

legal process goes in

31:29

this case. Sometimes it's really fascinating.

31:31

Other times it's a bore. Well,

31:34

and what you're going to have

31:36

here, Captain, is that in 1994,

31:39

Harvey Robinson was sentenced to

31:41

death for these crimes. Anytime

31:44

somebody is sentenced to death, there's going to be

31:46

a lot of appeals that go back and forth

31:48

with that. Some of the problems

31:50

that we will have with

31:53

the courts here in this

31:55

case is keys,

32:01

18, 19 years old, very young

32:04

when he's committing this very violent

32:06

killing spree, killing three people severely

32:08

injuring two people. And

32:11

because of his young age, you're going to naturally,

32:13

you're going to have people on the juries and

32:15

you're going to have people in the courts, officers

32:17

of the court that are going to be concerned

32:19

about his young age. And should we

32:22

sentence somebody to death? Should

32:26

that be the criminal penalty here for

32:28

these cases? He is still

32:31

incarcerated to this day. The convictions were

32:33

for first degree murder, three counts, attempted

32:36

murder, burglary. He's 49

32:38

years of age. Now

32:41

he was a local boy,

32:43

Allentown, Pennsylvania. And

32:46

what's crazy, Captain, and I mean,

32:48

you don't have to be in

32:50

Sherlock Holmes to make this connection.

32:54

I'm guessing you had the same suspicion I

32:56

did. Not just born

32:58

and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he's

33:01

local to this neighborhood. He

33:04

lives very nearby this

33:06

neighborhood. And there's some

33:08

things though that are surprising to me. The

33:10

police did a really good job about getting

33:12

this vehicle description out to the public, so

33:14

much so that they even provided pictures. Of

33:16

course, they don't have pictures of the actual

33:18

vehicle, but they provided pictures to

33:20

the public that says this is

33:23

based off of the description and all of

33:25

our efforts and all of our talks with the eyewitness.

33:28

This is a vehicle that is extremely similar to the

33:30

one that we are looking for. Put this in the

33:32

papers and put it on the local news. Harvey

33:35

Robinson, Harvey Miguel Robinson, young

33:38

man living with his mother in the

33:41

area. The fact that she

33:43

didn't come forward saying, oh, yeah, I

33:45

recognize that car, or oh, here's somebody

33:47

you should probably talk to. Yeah, maybe

33:49

you want to talk to my ship

33:52

princess of a son. Either she doesn't

33:54

watch the news or

33:56

was living under a rock. Maybe

33:58

she just didn't know. Maybe she was just oblivious to

34:01

the situation or not oblivious to

34:03

the situation, never saw the description

34:05

or the picture of the car.

34:07

Yeah, or maybe she heard people

34:09

talking about this and she just

34:11

couldn't fathom that her son would

34:13

be responsible for this. One thing

34:15

too here, we talked about in

34:17

the first episode that when you

34:19

have these types of crimes and

34:22

we're talking about the sexual

34:25

assault aspect of these crimes, is

34:28

that the driving factor? Could be.

34:32

The murder seems to be a big part of it

34:34

too. This individual for

34:36

whatever reason seemed to have a

34:39

need to kill or have something in

34:41

him that made him incredibly evil in

34:44

a drive to destroy and a drive

34:46

to kill. The

34:48

robbery, the burglary,

34:50

the sexual assaults

34:54

are all a part of that of course. But

34:56

I really think like you're looking at someone

34:59

that just wanted

35:02

to kill. We talked

35:04

about how fast, how

35:06

the speed, the repetition

35:08

of this would pick up and

35:11

increase and that when

35:13

we've seen other types of these crimes that

35:16

they always escalate. One

35:18

thing that probably saved some lives

35:22

or prevented these attacks and

35:24

murders from taking place earlier

35:28

is that after

35:30

the murder of Joan Burghardt and

35:33

before the murder of Charlotte Schmoyer,

35:37

Harvey Robinson was arrested

35:39

for burglary. Because

35:41

of those charges he served eight

35:43

months in

35:45

prison. That to

35:47

me tells us why

35:50

we had a ten-month gap between murder

35:52

one and murder two. But it also

35:54

like we've seen in other cases where you go

35:58

well we can't just look

36:00

at individuals that have

36:02

sexual assaults on their records or attempted

36:05

rapes. If

36:08

you would have had your

36:10

search go out a little further and say,

36:13

well, let's look into somebody that has

36:16

any criminal activity as far as burglaries

36:18

go. This

36:20

guy would have been on their radar from, from

36:23

Jump Street. Yeah. You're, you're knocking on the door

36:25

of something that I was just about to talk

36:27

about. One thing that we've brought up a few

36:30

times on, on the show

36:32

over the years, if you

36:34

go back, one of my favorite interviews

36:36

that we've done was

36:38

with retired FBI agent, Jeffrey

36:40

Reinick. He wrote

36:42

a book that we've recommended several times.

36:44

It's called In the Name of the

36:47

Children and FBI Agents Relentless Pursuit of

36:49

America's Worst Predators. In

36:51

that interview, he told us that

36:54

when you are looking for

36:57

a rapist or

37:00

someone that breaks into homes and kills people,

37:03

he said that he found that

37:05

he should always be looking

37:07

at persons who had

37:09

been arrested for burglary charges as well.

37:13

Because he found

37:16

that a lot of times it goes

37:18

to intent, right? He's

37:20

saying they got arrested on a burglary charge because

37:22

the person woke up in the middle of the

37:24

night and saw the man standing there in their

37:27

room or heard something in the house called the

37:29

police and the police catch the guy fleeing from

37:31

the house. They're

37:33

arrested on burglary because what

37:35

their intent was to break into the home

37:38

and rape and murder one

37:40

or the other or both, they

37:43

didn't get to do because they were detected before

37:45

they could get to that. So

37:47

the only charge they can bring them up on is burglary.

37:49

And in fact, these crimes

37:52

are rare enough that one would easily

37:54

go, okay, well, this was just a

37:57

burglary. Great. We caught the

37:59

guy. He's probably. burgled some

38:01

other homes. But

38:03

what's interesting to me here is we

38:07

don't know the details of the

38:09

burglary that Harvey Robinson

38:12

was arrested for. But

38:17

that is that exact same scenario

38:19

that Jeffrey Reineck explained to us.

38:23

But what happens here, Captain? What do we

38:25

see between murder one and murder two? The

38:29

burglary arrest and the burglary charge. The

38:32

first victim unfortunately was killed inside her

38:35

apartment. He broke into the home and

38:37

killed her there. The second victim, he

38:40

saw her out on her paper route

38:42

and he attacked and abducted her there.

38:45

He adapted. He

38:48

learned from that arrest. And

38:52

then you go, well wait a second, but the

38:55

next victim was attacked inside their home. And then the

38:57

victim after that attacked inside their home and killed inside

39:00

their home. Yeah, he

39:02

adapted again because

39:04

of how quickly the second victim

39:06

was found and how there was a

39:09

witness. There was a witness

39:11

that saw him driving away, gave a

39:13

great description of his vehicle to police.

39:16

They put flyers up everywhere. They're

39:18

looking for this vehicle. They're looking

39:20

for this person. Yeah, but

39:22

also that victim could be happenstance. It

39:24

could be I'm looking for

39:27

a house to break into or I

39:29

was on the prow and

39:31

monitoring different houses and

39:34

now I'm going home for the night. Oh, here's

39:38

this girl out doing

39:40

her paper route. Yeah, I'm

39:42

gonna attack her. This

39:44

guy, when

39:47

you think of serial killers, he

39:50

has an impulse that

39:53

I don't think that was not

39:56

going to be controlled. He

39:58

was not going to stop. He could not

40:00

even stop his impulse to go back

40:04

to the scene of other

40:06

crimes, to then try to

40:08

commit another crime at

40:11

a place he already victimized

40:14

somebody. Yep. Time

40:16

and time again. You want to talk about impulsive.

40:20

This guy's repulsive and impulsive.

40:22

We talked about when

40:25

we went through the starved rock

40:27

murders case, there

40:29

was a scenario in that

40:32

case where a

40:35

group of searchers, when they found the

40:37

bodies of the three

40:39

victims, the

40:41

searchers, some of the searchers

40:44

that were used were youngsters, these, these

40:46

young guys from a troubled

40:49

youth camp nearby. And

40:52

one of those youths went on to murder

40:55

someone just months after having

40:57

found the starved rock victims. So we

41:00

brought up the idea of, well, is it the

41:02

chicken or the egg? And

41:05

oddly enough here, captain, we have, we

41:07

have grounds for that same discussion here because

41:11

Harvey Robinson's father, who he did not

41:13

have a great,

41:15

lengthy relationship with,

41:18

his father had murdered

41:21

someone, had, had, had beat a

41:23

woman to death. And

41:25

this was back in, I believe it was 1962, at the

41:27

end of 1962, murdered a woman

41:30

named Marlene

41:36

Perez. And

41:38

it sounds like that his

41:40

father was married. He

41:43

was a musician, father of

41:45

three. They find this poor

41:48

Ms. Perez killed in

41:50

her apartment. Now he kind of gets caught

41:52

red handed because

41:54

one of the neighbors hears what's

41:56

going on and calls

41:59

the police. And when the police show

42:01

up, it's, it's Mr. Robinson

42:03

and the neighbor and Marlene

42:06

Perez, who has now sadly

42:08

been fatally beaten. So

42:11

he gets caught red handed. And this

42:14

is not something that our perp,

42:16

Harvey Miguel Robinson would not have been

42:18

aware of. And

42:21

so you just, you analyze these things and you

42:23

look at it and you go, well, does this

42:26

have anything to do? Yes, it has to

42:28

have something to do with how this guy

42:30

turned out. Now is it the, is it

42:32

the sole reason that he would go on

42:34

to be a serial killer? No,

42:36

I can't believe that. But

42:38

yeah, you're right. He has something in

42:40

him, some something in him that drives

42:42

him to do these horrible things. And

42:45

part of that has to be something

42:48

that was handed down to him

42:50

from his father, either genetically or,

42:54

or through the, his

42:56

upbringing. But

42:59

yeah, captain, you have everything that

43:01

was done right. Unfortunately, it wasn't

43:03

able to prevent Harvey

43:05

Robinson from being very dangerous, from

43:07

killing a lot of people, from

43:09

killing three people

43:12

and almost two others. And who knows

43:15

how many lives he destroyed along the

43:17

way. This tragedy,

43:21

it carries far and wide with this

43:24

number of victims. Well,

43:27

and let's just take a minute to applaud

43:29

law enforcement. Yes, there

43:32

was a bunch of crimes happening in a

43:35

very small location, but

43:37

they were all hands on deck. And on

43:40

top of that, we had officers that put

43:42

their lives on the line to put

43:46

themselves in between

43:48

this animal, this piece

43:50

of shit in the

43:52

community. And

43:55

to, could you imagine what that

43:57

would be like? What

44:00

are you doing today at work? Well, I'm going

44:02

to go sit in a house and

44:05

wait for this vicious

44:07

murderer to show up. And

44:11

then it's go time. Then it's

44:13

less roll. It's

44:16

either going to be him or me. And

44:19

because of this fight that the officer put

44:22

up, there

44:24

became damage to Harvey and Harvey

44:26

had to then go seek help. And

44:29

when he went to seek help, boom, we

44:31

got him. But you have to

44:33

you have to applaud law

44:36

enforcement for putting

44:38

themselves into danger like that. And

44:40

how intelligent their investigation

44:43

was and

44:46

the efforts that they were making. As

44:49

said, you can see it was all hands on

44:51

deck and they were willing to do whatever it

44:53

took to apprehend this

44:55

individual. Because as you can clearly see on

44:57

the flip of that is this guy was

44:59

not going to stop. And he was

45:01

going to continue to do this and he was going to

45:04

work to get better at it, more stealth

45:07

like. That's the other thing, too. It's

45:09

it. The killer gets lucky.

45:11

Police didn't get lucky here. They

45:14

never saw him running around in

45:17

the dark of the night. All

45:19

of the and they are they're patrolling

45:21

heavy patrol in this area. But

45:25

that's where I would disagree

45:27

with you. I think because

45:29

of his impulsiveness and

45:32

because I think these urges to

45:34

want to attack, to

45:37

rape, to kill, were

45:39

becoming more and more

45:41

frequent. And

45:43

I think once it was almost like once he

45:46

got put in jail. Even

45:48

though it wasn't for murder, it was just like, F

45:51

it. Here we go. I'm

45:53

going to keep doing this until I get caught. Yeah.

45:57

And so I don't know if he was trying

45:59

to become. more sophisticated

46:01

because I don't think a

46:03

sophisticated killer would go

46:05

back and

46:08

try to attack a victim they already tried

46:10

to attack before. Right.

46:13

But he's certainly not trying to get worse at it.

46:16

And he did manage to go

46:19

undetected even though the police are

46:21

patrolling and watching

46:23

this area. The thing too,

46:26

about the officers stationing

46:28

themselves inside those homes, from

46:30

my understanding, it

46:32

was the way that they would do this, it

46:34

would be a, their shift would start

46:37

around midnight and I think it would end at

46:39

five or six in the morning. And I'm

46:42

guessing that they based those times off of

46:44

things that they were seeing in

46:46

the previous break-ins and what they

46:50

knew from what time of night that those previous

46:52

break-ins took place. But to be clear here, captain,

46:55

they didn't set this trap in on night one. He was caught.

46:57

No, they, they

46:59

set this trap the night after he

47:02

broke into this home on East Highland Street.

47:06

The second time, the night after he

47:08

broke into that home the second time. So

47:10

for 13 nights in a row, there

47:14

was an officer in both of these homes waiting and waiting

47:16

for the next night

47:19

that he would finally come back.

47:21

And he did finally come back. And that would

47:23

ultimately lead to his arrest. I

47:26

do want to go back to that house on

47:28

Bryant Street where unfortunately we had the

47:33

third murder, the

47:36

house on Bryant Street where Jessica

47:39

Fortney was murdered after the arrest of Harvey Robinson, Jessica Fort, Fortney's

47:41

son-in-law, Ricky, who

47:44

was 35 years old. And still living

47:46

in that home with his wife and

47:49

kids. You're

47:54

worried about this guy coming back? Of

47:56

course, Ricky, 35, wife

47:59

and kids in the home. mother-in-law had

48:01

been murdered there. He's

48:03

worried about this guy coming back. He's

48:05

terrified. His kids are terrified. When

48:08

he learned that there was finally an arrest

48:10

in this case, he said, quote, I jumped

48:13

for joy at the news, adding,

48:15

we feel safe now, he

48:17

said. Now I sleep in

48:19

peace. And

48:21

to this day, Captain Harvey

48:24

Miguel Robinson, he remains in

48:26

custody. He's imprisoned

48:28

at the SCI Phoenix

48:31

location correction facility

48:34

in Pennsylvania, where

48:37

he has been since 1994

48:40

when he was convicted. I think

48:44

that what we see here from this case

48:46

is that there is a lot to learn,

48:50

not only about the behavior

48:52

of individuals as evil, as

48:55

Harvey Robinson, but also

48:57

a lot to learn and to

48:59

be gained by the

49:01

way that the Allentown Police Department handled

49:04

and conducted this investigation

49:07

and their attempt to keep

49:09

the people of this neighborhood safe. Oh,

49:25

yes. I want to thank you for joining

49:27

us here in the garage. You can be

49:29

anywhere and you chose to be here because

49:31

you're amazing. Colonel, do we

49:33

have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?

49:36

This week we are recommending A Need to

49:38

Kill by Mark Pettit. It's

49:40

the true crime story of John

49:42

Jobare, a serial killer who

49:45

after the FBI was

49:47

brought in, he was apprehended and later

49:49

executed in Nebraska. He

49:51

was convicted of murdering three

49:53

boys. Mark Pettit is the

49:55

only reporter to talk with Jobare and

49:58

Pettit spent hours talking with

50:00

families of the victims and found that

50:03

Gilbert most likely felt his need to

50:05

kill long before he came to Nebraska.

50:07

Check out A Need to Kill by

50:09

Mark Pettit. You can find that great

50:11

recommendation and many more on

50:14

our recommended page on our website truecrimegarage.com.

50:16

And while you're there make sure you

50:18

sign up on the mailing list and

50:20

until next week. Be good, be kind. you