GUILTY PA - Katie Connolly, 24, Lancaster, 7 July 2011

KaylynnCouture

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A Lancaster mom of two is missing and police are asking for your help in tracking down leads. If anyone knows anything they’re asked to call West Hempfield Township Police, officers say at this point they’re not organizing search parties because police can’t pinpoint a specific spot where they believe the mom could be.

Have you seen 24-year-old Katie Connolly? West Hempfield Township Police say the mother of two young girls has disappeared. She was last seen on July 7th.

“She loved her children,” said a concerned neighbor, Jay Summers. “She spent a lot of time with them in the backyard.”

Which is one reason police believe the woman’s disappearance is suspicious. “I feel very uneasy about it,” said Summers.

Summers lives next door to Connolly in the 3100 block of Thistle Road. “They were a very nice couple,” Summers said. “I never would’ve suspected anything like this.”

The West Hempfield Township home is now a piece of police evidence. Her car and belongings were left behind. Police say Connolly lived in the home with her boyfriend and the father of her children.

The man has since taken their two young girls back to up-state New York where the couple lived before Connolly took a job with QVC earlier this year. Police say the woman was a dedicated employee, which is another reason police are raising an eyebrow.

Snipped from: http://www.whptv.com/news/local/sto...-Lancaster-mom-of/QUf4QXjIeEK_Z9FbTqqBXg.cspx (Photo and video at link)
 
Whoa, that's about an hour from me. It says she was missing several weeks, but this is the first I've heard of her.
 
How strange...three weeks almost? And her boyfriend took the kids and moved back to NY?
 
How strange...three weeks almost? And her boyfriend took the kids and moved back to NY?

I didn't find anything when I searched her name on our other big local site (pennlive.com).
 
The District Attorney says Connolly's boyfriend, Timothy Handel, has Connolly's cell phone, car, and debit card. He moved to New York with the two kids the same week Connolly vanished.

"I wish he would be more cooperative with us, I certainly would like to have his cooperation in the investigation, more so than what we're getting," said Stedman.

Snipped: http://www.fox43.com/news/wpmt-missing-mother-folo,0,2846952.story
 
Body Found in Backyard

A Lancaster mother of two who was reported missing a month ago has been found murdered and buried in the back yard of a home in New York.

The Lancaster County District Attorney appropriately called this case disgusting.

And now Timothy Handel is in a New York State prison and faces murder charges.

On July 7, Kathleen Connolly, was reported missing. She, Handel and their two young kids (two and three years old) had recently moved to the area after Connolly got a job working for QVC. Shortly after she went missing, Handel rented a moving truck and moved back to New York.

He stayed with a friend who was on vacation for two weeks and when she returned she noticed that something didn’t look right in her back yard. She called police and when they investigated they found Connolly’s body buried. No word on how she died.

Handel will be tried in New York because that is where the body was found, unless it can be proven that Connolly was killed here. Then the case will be tried here, which is what the DA would like to see because in NY Handel would be eligible for parole after so many here, while in Pennsylvania he faces life with no possibility of parole. The two children are now with their grandmother.

Snipped: http://www.whptv.com/news/local/sto...ad-buried-in-back/Np16Zxbkv0a48o08-DL8eQ.cspx
 
Thank God for dumb criminals!

OMG, did he kill her and then travel with her body to NY??? With her 2 and 3 year old sons??? WTH

And then he buries her body in a yard where he is a house guest!! Good grief, did he not think the owner would notice anything?

Where were these poor boys when he did this?

I'm so sorry, Kathleen. Prayers for her family and friends.
 
I'm glad the friend noticed something not right when she came home and reported it.
 
From July 2012:

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20120704/news/207040334

Timothy Handel did not speak before he was sentenced to 27 2/3 years to life in prison for killing 27-year-old Katie Connolly, the mother of two of his children...

An Orange County Court jury convicted Handel, 40, on May 30 of second-degree murder and two counts of tampering with physical evidence...

Her dismembered remains were found buried on Aug. 3 in the back yard of a Riley Road, New Windsor home where Handel had moved with their 2- and 3-year-old daughters just days after Connolly vanished. At trial, John Geidel, the chief trial assistant district attorney, presented increasingly damning evidence against Handel: He had kept Connolly's cell phone and he'd been checking her messages; he bought a freezer on July 9 while in town for an uncle's funeral and sold it 10 days later; he rented an excavator for a few hours from a New Windsor business; he'd dug up the backyard at the Riley Road home, and asked the friend who owned the property, who had been away on vacation, to lie to police about it.
 

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