PA PA - Betsy Aardsma, 22, murdered in Pattee Library, Penn State, 29 Nov 1969 #2

littlehorn

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Hi all,

I'm working on trying to crack the Betsy Aardsma case. She was a 22-year-old co-ed murdered in the Pattee Library at Penn State University in 1969.

More information is available on my site:

www.whokilledbetsy.com

The most comprehensive site for articles and information about the case online.

I'd like some impressions and thoughts from the members here to try to point me in some directions I might not have gone otherwise.

Regards,
Derek

Thread #1
 
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betsy-1024x606-e1506209113991.jpg

Betsy Aardsma murdered 29 November 1969

LINK:

The Murder of Betsy Aardsma – The True Crime Files
 
Philadelphia police are hoping a new website can bring justice in some of the city’s unsolved murders.

Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Dennis Wilson and Homicide Unit Capt. Jason Smith will unveil PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

The site, which was not yet live as of Thursday morning, is going to serve as a tool for homicide detectives trying to bring some closure for people devastated by losing a loved one, police said.

“While solving these cases will not bring back those whose lives were taken, it may offer victims’ families and friends some sense of resolution,” the department said in a news release.
Solving an Unsolved Murder Could Now Be Just a Click Away
 
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Richard Haefner

Richard Haefner was a graduate of Penn State University. He was a geologist by profession. He is considered by some investigators to be a person of interest in the murder of Betsy Aardsma, who was killed by a single stab wound to the heart in the College Library on 28 November 1969. Haefner was mentally unbalanced and had a violent streak. He carried a sharpened screw driver at all times "for protection". At one time, he used it to puncture someone's tires. On one occasion, he assaulted a woman he did not even know in a grocery store parking lot and injured her badly. Haefner died in 2002.
 
Betsy Aardsma murdered 28 Nov 1969
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There is an interesting discussion on another Websleuths topic area which compares Betsy Aardsma's murder at Penn State on 28 Nov 1969 with two other earlier unsolved murders; those of Cherri Jo Bates in Riverside, California in 30 Oct 1966 and Valerie Percy of Kenilworth, Illinois 18 Sept 1966.

The post suggests Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) as a potential suspect.

LINK:

Unsolved 18 From The First Zodiac Code And Possible Kaczynski/Zodiac Connection


Here is a portion of that post:

  1. Looking at the pictures of Valerie Percy, Cheri Jo Bates and Betsy Aardsma, there are clear similarities... All the girls are beautiful, with fresh faces and mid length hair. If perhaps not looking quite like sisters, they certainly look like they could be cousins, all from the same family.
  2. All these women were in the same age range and all were college students. All were intelligent, charming, independent and assertive. All were "good girls" to use the language of the times. All lead clean lives with no clear suspects in their murders.
  3. Percy and Aardsma were both graduate students. Percy had graduated from Cornell and was to start graduate school at John Hopkins; Aardsma had graduated from the University of Michigan and had just started grad school at Penn State.

    It seems Ted Kaczynski had either actually or potentially crossed paths with each of these women, had a tie to the area they were in and was actually in each of the three different states they were in when they were killed.

    * Percy's Kenilworth home was within 30 minutes of where Kaczynski's family home in Evergreen Park was located, and four hours from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

    * Before enrolling at the University of Michigan, Aardsma visited and spent extensive time in Ann Arbor in 1966-1967, Ted's last year there, they both shared an interest Native American Indian cultures and in politics, Aardsma was researching a mathematician when killed and most importantly a witness has placed Ted at the murder scene, in the Penn State library the day before the murder.

    * Bates was killed in Riverside, California during the time that evidence shows Ted went out there in the late Fall/early Winter of 1966 to interview with the University of California, Berkeley, which also has campuses in LA and Riverside.

    * Percy was stabbed multiple times and bludgeoned in the head; Bates was stabbed multiple times and kicked in the head; Aardsma was killed by a single brutal knife thrust to the heart....

    In particular, there are very notable similarities between the murder of Ms. Bates in California on October 30, 1966 (when evidence shows Kaczynski was in that state), and the murder of Ms. Aardsma on November 28, 1969 at the Penn State library (when evidence shows Kaczynski was there, at that library). In some instances there are also similarities to the Percy murder. University of Michigan graduate Betsy Aardsma, attending Penn State graduate school, was brutally murdered. Like the murder of Ms. Bates:

    * The murders took place within one day of a major Fall Holiday (Bates Halloween, Aardsma Thanksgiving). (Percy near the Autumnal Equinox and Harvest Moon...

    * Two murders took place at or in a campus library (Bates at the library, Aardsma actually in the library).

    * The weapon (in the Aardsma and Bates cases) was a short knife, approximately 1 inch wide and 3 1/2 to 4 inches long....
  4. Most importantly, a witness recently picked out a picture of Ted Kaczynski as being present in the Penn State library the day before Aardsma was killed, acting strangely and perhaps wearing a wig...
 
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Aardsma was an English Literature major and was in the section on poets at the time she was murdered; she was researching a paper at the time.
 
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Comparison of Ted Kaczynski (L) with Sketch of Unknown Suspect in Aardsma murder.
 
I read an article that mentions Ted Bundy potentially, as well. And shows his glasses that he allegedly wore when stalking women.

I find this interesting as just this week a book has been released on the 1969 unsolved murders of Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry. And Ted Bundy is heavily mentioned as a suspect in their deaths.

Similarities? Both stabbed. All coeds. Susan lived in Camp Hill, PA. (On the route that would travel to State College.. Penn State is about 5 hours from Somers Point, NJ..driving distance.) The murders were 6 months apart as well. Probably reaching in my speculation, but my curiosity was peaked because both of these threads have just recently reappeared here on WS with new comments.

And the fact that I discovered that Ted Bundy was likely in my Jersey Shore town, where I was born and spent many summers, including summer of 1969...gave me pause for sure. I was not aware of any of this.

Anything possible I guess. All JMO
 
ted_ka21.jpg
suspec10.jpg


Comparison of Ted Kaczynski (L) with Sketch of Unknown Suspect in Aardsma murder.

Is there any record of Kaczynski using a knife to attack someone or to have personally physically attacked anyone (as opposed using a bomb and being away from the area when it went off).
 
Is there any record of Kaczynski using a knife to attack someone or to have personally physically attacked anyone (as opposed using a bomb and being away from the area when it went off).
Not that I've heard of, and moreover his known crimes were all motivated by ideology. He does resemble the suspect sketch, but we already have an extremely strong suspect in Haefner (not to mention the CIA operative).
 
Is there any record of Kaczynski using a knife to attack someone or to have personally physically attacked anyone (as opposed using a bomb and being away from the area when it went off).

Good question! As far as the Unibomber associated attacks are concerned - No there are no cases where he made physical contact with those victims. He did personally plant at least one bomb in a parking lot and that is where he was seen by a witness and which resulted in the famous Unibomber sketch of the guy in a hooded sweatshirt and dark glasses. The other Unibomber attacks were all done by him mailing homemade bombs to his victims.

However - there were a number of items taken from his shack which might point to other more "up close" physical attacks. For instance, he possessed a homemade pistol which could only be effective at close range. Numerous knives were also found.

He also had a strange pair of shoes which had a smaller size shoe sole attached. It is speculated that this could have been so that footprints left at the scene of a crime would be smaller than his feet. Rather than leaving a size 9 shoe print, it would be a size 8 print that was left behind.

Kaczynski kept prolific journals and notes in which he spoke of a "queer classification" system numbered from 1 to 14. He wrote that his "Most Queer" crimes must be buried and kept secret.

Some believe that he was involved in other crimes besides mailing bombs, and that his earlier attacks could have been much more close and personal, but that he may have changed m.o.'s as he aged.

Today, he is housed in a Federal Prison and is well known as an "idealistic" killer whose interest in the environment and nature motivated him to kill those trying to hurt it. It would not be in his own best interest now to admit to other murders which could get him transferred to a state penitentiary or a death sentence.
 
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Here is another quote from a post by AKWILKS on the previously linked Websleuths thread about Zodiac/Kaczynski. In bold print, he refers to and quotes from Ted Kaczynski's journals.

Quote: ... there is evidence Kaczynski actually thought about and even did kill up close and personal.

The FBI states he actually did shoot and wound a miner with a rifle. In his journal that recorded in detail all of his bombing crimes, he also wrote of unspecified other crimes whose evidence he had destroyed and accounts of had burned or buried, because their revelation (in light of his growing reputation as a political terrorist and anti-technology activist) could prove "dangerous, embarassing or just very bad public relations." Certainly the lovers lane killings of young couples by the Zodiac would not be something he would want publicly known, when some on the fringes of the radical environmental and anarchist movements now touted him as a hero of sorts.

He recorded a desire to kill people by "bomb or other means". He wrote fantasies about mutilating a women's face with a knife and raping a woman in front of her husband. He spent a year and made a one shot .22 pistol from wood and junk parts that he wrote he intended to use as a "homicide weapon". As a one shot untraceable weapon, it would best be used in situations were the victim was immobile, such as being bound or asleep.

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Ted Kaczynski's homemade .22 pistol
 
A pistol, homemade or not, can be used as defense. With no silencer, which can be homemade, it is not the kind of weapon used in the library.

Haefner, in comparison, did have physical altercations, including at least one with a woman. I think Littlehorn had the right guy, but proving it is a different matter.
 
I also would not characterize a Harvest Moon, or Autumnal Equinox as a "major Fall holiday."

While you or I might not characterize a seasonal shift or moon phase as such, this sort of thing can sometimes be seen as a pattern with certain killers. The Zodiac killer is one such person, and the Unabomber was another.

While true that a pistol can be an effective defensive weapon, Ted's statement about using it as a "homicide weapon" indicates his thinking or intentions pretty clearly. Although there may be no proof that Ted actually attacked a victim in a close up and personal manner, his pistol and his remarks about it show that it was something he considered.

The posts by AKWILKS which I quoted are from the Zodiac serial killer topic and in it he puts forth a theory that Ted Kaczynski might have been Zodiac. A controversial subject to be sure, but he has done some careful study and research into the cases and discusses some interesting similarities and coincidences.

Personally, I tend to see Haefner as a more likely suspect in Betsy's murder, but the possibility that Kaczinski/Zodiac might have done it is also intriguing.
 
One thing that I noted when studying the Zodiac case was that in his letters and writings to the police, Zodiac kept a running "score" or count of his victims.

On 9 November 1969, Zodiac claimed 7 victims and these were clearly the ones he had already claimed publicly; three couples and the lone taxi driver.

Then on 27 December 1969, following a lull in his writing, he wrote again and claimed that the total was now 8 victims. He did not name the 8th victim and California investigators were never able to determine who it might have been.

Betsy Aardsma was killed on 28 November 1969. Could she be the "8th victim" claimed by Zodiac?
 
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