Pennsylvania Oddities

It's not every day a chiropractor admits to dismembering the body of one of his patients, but, in January of 1926, that's exactly what occurred in Philadelphia.

There are many strange ways to die, but few are as rare as being sacrificed by a group of religious fanatics. Yet, this is exactly the tragic fate which befell one five-year-old girl from Northampton County in April of 1908.

On Monday, December 10, 1923, 38-year-old Harvey Willow left his home near Selinsgrove to go hunting. When Tuesday morning dawned crisp and cold without his return, his wife sent their eleven-year-old son, Glenn, to the home of a neighbor to learn if he knew of Harvey's whereabouts. It was this neighbor, Lewis Gemberling, who located the missing hunter in a clump of woodland on the property of Norman App, with the back of his skull blown off. And so begins the tale of one of the most shocking crimes in the history of Snyder County.

German immigrant Herman Schultz holds the distinction of being the only person hanged in Pike County; he went to his death in 1897 for the murder of his estranged wife. However, another German immigrant nearly beat Schultz to the gallows fourteen years earlier. In 1884, George Jacob Schmidlin confessed to a cowardly murder. Schmidlin cheated the executioner by hanging himself in his cell in the Milford jail. But, if folks around Westfall Township thought they had seen the last of Frank Heitz's killer, they were wrong.

While Solomon Boscov is remembered for founding the chain of department stores bearing his name, he also played a role in a chilling and mysterious Berks County murder. In August of 1941, Boscov opened an icebox door-- and discovered the tragic fate of little Billy Krewson.

In March of 1930, one Harrisburg woman suffered the sort of death typically reserved for horror movies or nightmares.

In 1909, Harry Keener confessed to murder. What makes this case truly remarkable is that it is one of the few instances in which a man who confessed to murder was set free, even

In September of 1930, the peaceful village of Spry was the

Warning: This episode contains graphic depictions which some listeners may find disturbing. On February 14, 1891, Edward McMillan of Exeter Township committed one of the most revolting murders in the history of Luzerne County-- a crime which, according to one newspaper reporter, outshone Jack the Ripper in terms of sheer brutality.

On Friday, June 28, 1929, William Kennedy was building a new fence on his farm near York Springs when the circling of vultures led to shocking discovery on the banks of Bermudian Creek, about a hundred yards from the old Gettysburg-Harrisburg highway. It was the badly-decomposed body of a woman lying face-down in the mud. The victim, a 27-year-old deaf mute and mother of four from Harrisburg named Carrie Shellenberger Weiss, hadn't been seen or heard from since June 22. Though her husband was questioned, he was never arrested-- though evidence seems to point the finger directly at him.