Bloody Ivy: 13 Unsolved Campus Murders

By Chris Bobonich and Harry Bobonich

Inside you will find 13 chilling campus mysteriesunsolved murders that occurred at U.S. and Canadian colleges. Youll get the most recent details of:

the stabbing of a young co-ed in the stacks of the Penn State library,
the gruesome ritualistic murder of a student at midnight in Stanfords Memorial Church,
the controversial death of Suzanne Jovin on a New Haven street which threw Yale into a turmoil, and
the mysterious death of Mrs. Jane Stanford, the co-founder of Stanford University. Was she poisoned, and, if so, why was it covered up?

There are nine other unsolved murders for you to try to help to solve. Maybe one of you out there holds the final piece of the puzzle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481740180

Chris Bobonich

Chris Bobonich is CI Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. He is the author of Plato's Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics (Oxford). He edited and contributed to Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge). He previously taught at the University of Chicago, was a Fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, and Junior Fellow of the National Center for Hellenic Studies. Harry M. Bobonich retired from Shippensburg University as Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research. He previously taught at Pennsylvania State University and Wilson College. He is the author of—Seeing Around Corners, Big Mine Run, World War II, The Great Depression and Pathfinders & Pioneers. The authors are a father-and-son writing team and live in Pennsylvania and California respectively.

Book preview

Bloody Ivy

13 Unsolved Campus Murders

Chris & Harry Bobonich

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© 2013 by Chris & Harry Bobonich. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/23/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4019-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4018-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906926

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

WHAT JEANNE DIDN’T KNOW (LEHIGH UNIVERSITY)

Epilogue Colleges and Universities Are Still Covering Up

Requirements of the Clery Act:

MURDER AT THE VERY HEART OF THE CAMPUS

HOLY MURDER (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

Background

Murder at Memorial Church

The Midnight Killing

Other Suspects

Satan in the Cathedral

The Other Satan in the Cathedral (alternate theory)

Epilogue

MURDER IN THE LIBRARY (PENN STATE)

Background

Stabbing in the Stacks

Stalked and Slain

Theories

Suspects

Comments on the suspect, Rick Haefner:

Pranks

The Student Stalker

The Slaying in The Stacks

More Penn State Mysteries

MURDERED FOUNDERS AND FACULTY

DEATH BY STRYCHNINE (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

Background

It Happened Twice

Who Poisoned Mrs. Stanford?

The Doer and the Deed

STABBING ON THE STREET (HARVARD UNIVERSITY)

Background

The Killing in Cambridge

Was it Random? Or Revenge?

The Parody

The Hand That Held the Knife

Tributes to Mary Joe Frug

GRISLY, GRUESOME AND GROTESQUE (TULANE UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL)

Background

The Eerie Killing

Was Dr. Sherman Targeted?

Blood and Fire

Epilogue

Spontaneous Human Combustion

Spontaneous Combustion in Ireland?

Spontaneous Human Combustion in Oklahoma?

WAS ALLENE MURDERED? (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

What Happened to Allene?

The Trial

The Verdict

The Stormy Protest

The Second Trial

The Third—a Mistrial

And the Fourth Trial

Five and Out

Was It Murder?

The Bloody Bashing in the Bathroom

A Closer Look at Bloodstain Patterns

Epilogue

DEATH AT NOON (UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO)

Background

Killing at the Divinity School

Did Culianu Create a Demonic Enemy’s List?

The Hitman

CO-EDS MOST VULNERABLE

FOUND DEAD (YALE UNIVERSITY)

Background

P.M. Timeline to Death

A Cryptic Crime

Suspects

Litigation Issues

A Cold Case

The Bloody Ivy Killer

Epilogue

A FIERY DEATH (UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA)

Background

Murder and Arson

A Baffling Killing

Suspects

The Fiendish Arsonist

WHAT HAPPENED TO THERESA? (CHAMPLAIN COLLEGE—CANADA)

Background

Theresa Disappears

Searching for Theresa

What Happened to Theresa?

Theories

More on Rossmo

The Killer

Is One of These Two the Serial Killer?

A Haunting Refrain

The Green Scarf and the Poem

Theresa Allore Memorial Fund

Epilogue

TWO THAT VANISHED

MAURA IS MISSING (UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS-AMHERST)

Background

Where was Maura Going?

Timeline of Events

Maura Vanishes

The Fatal Passerby

THE NIGHT YLVA DISAPPEARED (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

Background

What Happened to Ylva?

The Puzzling Disappearance

Murder on His Mind

DID HE OR DIDN’T HE?

THE LIPSTICK KILLER (UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO)

Background

The Three Killings

Hunt for the Killer

Arrest and Conviction

Evidence

Heirens Pleads Guilty

Heirens in Prison

Correspondence with Dolores Kennedy

The Two Black Hair Follicles

What Would You Do?

Guilty or Not Guilty?

Epilogue

13 MORE MYSTIFYING KILLINGS

THE BURNING OF THE GOLD KING

Oakes Seeks his Fortune

Murder in the Night

The Duke of Windsor

The Investigation and the Trial

A Cast of Murderers

Harold Christie

The Mob

Axel Wenner-Gren

The Duke

Seven Decades Later

Epilogue

A Short History of Fingerprints Chronology of Events

Fingerprints Are Unique

HOLLYWOOD’S GREATEST MYSTERY

The Birth of Hollywood

Taylor’s Wandering Life and Career

The Murder Scene

A Fog of Witnesses

Body of Evidence

I Wonder Who Killed Poor Bill Taylor?

The Three District Attorneys

People do Confess—Even When Innocent

So Who was Margaret Gibson Anyhow?

A Deathbed Confession

Keys to the Case

DEATHBED CONFESSIONS

But Make Sure That You Are Really Going to Die

Epilogue

The Medical Miracle that Backfired

Don’t Guess, But Be Sure

It Is Never too Late

Friendly Fire

THE SILENT KILLERS

Socrates’ Death

Robert Johnson: I don’t Care Where You Bury My Body When I’m Dead and Gone.

A Jealous Man

A Delphian Life

Epilogue

Alan Turing: The Machine and the Apple

Epitaph

Herbert Armstrong: Excuse Fingers.

Background

The Poisoning: Tea, Cakes and Buttered Scones

The Arrest: Holes in the Chocolate

The Trial

The Verdict

Epilogue

Another Anonymous Box of Chocolates

Alexander Litvinenko: I Hear the Beating of Wings of the Angel of Death.

The Glowing Death

Who Killed Litvinenko?

Epilogue

Yasser Arafat’s Mysterious Death—Polonium Again?

Arafat’s Last Days and Death

Theories Abound

Was Arafat the Second Victim of a Polonium-210 Poisoning?

What Will They Find?

Was the Milquetoast Husband a Murderer?: Dr. Crippen and the Mysterious Body in the Basement.

Background

Crippen’s Wife Disappears

Almost Nothing Left

History’s First Transatlantic Arrest

Trial and Hanging

Was Crippen Innocent After All?

What Happened to Ethel LeNeve?

TWISTED STRANDS OF DNA

Familial DNA Testing

A Car Break-in Makes History

The Grim Sleeper

Coffee Shop Rape

Indicting DNA

Identical Twins

A Perfect Crime?

Double Trouble

Tradition Over DNA

You Play—You Pay

A Twin Conviction

Man’s Best Friend Knows

Solving Cold Cases

Linda Yalem

Martha Moxley

Maria Ridulph

Marcia Lynn Davis

The Obscure Serial Killer

By Gum—A Salivating Story

400-Year-Old Mystery Solved

Supreme Court Takes on a Big DNA Case

CATCH ME WHEN YOU CAN

Will the Ripper ever be found?

Epilogue

BIBLE JOHN: I DON’T DRINK AT HOGMANAY, I PRAY.

The Barrowland Ballroom—The Den of Iniquity

The Three Killings—Dancing With Satan

Looking for Bible John

Prime Suspects John Irvine McInnes

Peter Tobin

Who was Satan at the Barrowland?

MADISON MURDERS (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN)

Christine Rothschild

Students Tackle Serial Killer Cases

Debra Bennett

Julie Ann Hall

Susan LeMahieu

Julie Speerschneider

Shirley Stewart

Donna Mraz

Conclusion

A MIDDAY KILLING (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN—MADISON)

Background

The Desperate 911 Call

A Break-in Intruder

The Homeless Killer

MURDER & SUICIDE (HARVARD UNIVERSITY)

Background

A Matter of Murder

HORROR IN THE FOREST (SHIPPENSBURG UNIVERSITY)

The News Breaks

The Fiery Death in the Forest

A Conspiracy of Three

Fourth Arrest

The Cabal Convicted for Life

Epilogue

Postscript

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

For Gloria

Introduction

WHAT JEANNE DIDN’T KNOW

 (LEHIGH UNIVERSITY)

Jeanne Ann Clery graduated from Agnes Irwin School, a private all-girls school (K-12) located in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, about ten miles west of Philadelphia. After graduating, Clery applied and was accepted at Tulane University in New Orleans, where her two older brothers had studied. When Jeanne’s parents learned that a female Tulane student had been murdered off campus, they decided to consider other universities for their daughter.

The main campus at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was built into the northern slope of South Mountain, which is why it is often referred to as the campus on the mountain. When the Clery family visited the university, they found a scenic, peaceful looking campus with the usual ivy covered buildings common of many American universities. The people they met were friendly and most importantly the university appeared to be a safe place for Jeanne to study. The Clerys decided that Jeanne would enroll at Lehigh University, which was only 60 miles from the family’s home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

During the spring break of April 1986, when her freshman year was almost over, Jeanne went home for a short visit. When her parents took her back to campus and dropped her off, it was the last time they saw their daughter alive.

"Five days later, Jeanne Ann Clery, 19, was found dead in her third-floor dorm, murdered by a fellow student. She had been raped, sodomized, beaten, bitten, strangled with a metal coil and mutilated with a broken bottle during the attack, according to Ken Gross and Andrea Fine, After Their Daughter Is Murdered at College, Her Grieving Parents Mount a Crusade for Campus Safety."

In their article, Gross and Fine wrote that Jeanne’s killer was Joseph M. Henry, 20, a Lehigh University student who lived off campus. He somehow was able to enter Stoughton Hall, the girls’ dorm, and then goes through three propped open doors to gain access to Jeanne’s room. The doors had automatic locking devices and should have been closed but were propped open by students that. Henry, who had been drinking heavily that night after losing a student election to head the Black Student Union, was boasting to his friends about the killing. When the police picked him up, they found some of Jeanne’s belongings in his possession.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Joseph F. Kocevar and Lehigh University Police Lt. Edward K. Shupp were honored by Captain Robert G. Werts, commander of state police Troop M at Bethlehem for their skill and professionalism in solving the murder.

Henry, who university administrators said had a record of disciplinary problems, was sentenced to death in the electric chair on April 28, 1987 after a jury deliberated for two hours and 15 minutes.

There were endless post-trial appeals by attorneys fighting for Joseph M. Henry’s life after he was sentenced to death in 1987. He is serving a life term after a U.S. district court judge vacated his death sentence, reasoning that the trial judge gave unclear jury instructions to jurors. In 2012, when I called, I was told that Joseph M. Henry, who is 46 years old, is still housed at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, Pennsylvania,

The Clery family then filed a $25 million suit against Lehigh University for negligence. The suit was settled out of court and Lehigh University agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the Clery family.

The aftermath of their daughter’s murder proved to be a learning experience that changed their lives. The Clerys learned that educational institutions could treat tragedies, such as murder, with callousness, cover-ups and stonewalling. The Clerys said, Our daughter died because of what she didn’t know, and they became determined to show that crime awareness on campus could prevent victimization. The Clerys then started Security on Campus, Inc., a nonprofit organization for information and advice.

The Clery family worked tirelessly to help make college and university campuses safer. They secured the passage of more than 30 state and federal laws, including the landmark federal Jeanne Clery Act, which is named in memory of their daughter, and requires colleges to report crime information and protect victims’ rights. The Clery Act was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990.

Just as the Clery family took initiative made a difference in the lives of college and university students, so can others. Colleges and universities need to be more pro-active regarding the safety of their students. Parents also have a responsibility to ask institutions of higher learning about their safety record regarding students. Perhaps the best way for students to protect themselves is to be more aware of their vulnerability.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

Mohandas Gandhi

Recommended Reading

Clery, Howard and Connie Clery, What Jeanne Didn’t Know—Written by Gregory Shaeffer, September 2008.

Gross, Ken and Andrea Fine. After Their Daughter is Murdered at College, Her Grieving Parents Mount a Crusade for Campus Safety, Archive, February 10, 1990. Volume 33, No.7.

EPILOGUE

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ARE STILL COVERING UP

In 2006, administrators at Eastern Michigan University covered up the brutal rape and murder of 22-year-old student, Laura Dickinson. Laura’s body was found in her dormitory room with a pillow over her head, naked from the waist down and evidence of semen on one of her legs. The killer took her keys, then locked her door and then sneaked away.

Tragically, Laura’s family was not informed of the horrible crime for several months, when the authorities arrested 20-year-old Orange Taylor III who was a student that had many university violations. Taylor is currently serving a life sentence without parole.

Susan Donaldson James wrote:

But the college hid the grim details and the fact that police were investigating Dickinson’s death as a homicide instead issuing a release to students saying she had unexpectedly died and telling her parents no foul play was suspected.

An investigation initiated by EMU’s Board of Regents concluded that school officials had endangered students to protect the university’s image—the same allegations that are being made today at Penn State.

EMU was fined $350,000 by the Department of Education, the same federal agency that is investigating Penn State, alleging officials did nothing when they learned former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has allegedly raped a 10-year-old boy in a locker room shower, among the 40 counts involving eight boys.

EMU paid dearly for the cover-up and the Dickinsons eventually won a $2.5 million civil lawsuit against the college (Lessons for Penn State: Cover-Ups Cost Money, Student Lives, November 18, 2011. Online article, ABC NEWS).

Kayla Webley wrote:

The Department [of Education] had created a team dedicated to compliance, monitoring and enforcement of the Clery Act. So far this year [2011], six institutions have been found at fault and are facing fines—Oregon State University, Lincoln University in Missouri, The University of Northern Iowa, the University of Vermont, Washington State University and Yale University (Crime on Campus: Penn State Raises Question, Do Colleges Have Too Much Power? November 14, 2011. Online article, TIME U.S.)

Prior to the child abuse scandal that broke in 2011, Pennsylvania State University was considered to be one of the premier athletic programs in the country. The sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at the university, however, were shameful and shocking.

In October 2012 Jerry Sandusky , was found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky, age 68, who was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison, is effectively serving a life sentence. He will not be released on parole before the 30-year minimum term has expired.

Furthermore, the alleged action of a number of university officials to cover-up the child molestation case has stunned the institution. Most notably, university president Gordon Spanier was forced to resign and Joe Paterno, head football coach, and athletic director Tim Curley were fired. The child abuse scandal is not only a dishonor and major setback, but has far-reaching outcomes for the university.

Over the last two decades, many institutions of higher learning have been cited by the Department of Education for violating the Clery Act. Furthermore, these colleges and universities also tend to discourage publicity in reporting sexual crimes or other wrongdoings since they do not want to tarnish their image. Colleges and universities must do more in addressing issues of sexual violence on their campuses. These violations cannot be simply handled in the same way as a parking violation or an overdue book at the library. As you will see in a number of cases that we go on to discuss, colleges and universities don’t do enough to protect the safety of their students.

REQUIREMENTS OF THE CLERY ACT:

Annual Security Report—By October l of each year, institutions must publish and distribute their Annual Campus Security Report to current and prospective students and employees.

Crime Log—The institution’s police department or security departments are required to maintain a public log of all crimes reported to them, or, of which they are made aware.

Timely Warnings—The Clery Act requires institutions to give timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of students or employees.

Crime Statistics—An institution must keep the most recent three years of crime statistics for events that occurred on campus, in institution residential facilities, in noncampus buildings, or on public property.

The Clerys took action on behalf of their daughter, Jeanne, because they felt they had to do something. Connie and Howard Clery had the courage and fortitude to believe they could make a difference—and they did. The Clery Act will save the lives of many young college and university students.

MURDER AT THE VERY HEART

OF THE CAMPUS

HOLY MURDER

 (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

Imagine soaring over Stanford University and looking down at the red terra cotta roofs on many of the buildings. As you glide down toward Palm Drive, you approach the grand entrance to the campus.

Palm Drive, one-mile long and straight as an arrow, is lined with Canary Island Date and Mexican Fan Palms. The shapely palm fronds rustling in the soft breeze symbolize warmness and extend a welcome greeting. The towering jungle masses frame Memorial Church in the distance with the foothills just beyond. The mountain range still farther away appears to reach to the cloudless, bright blue sky.

Descending slowly, you note that the campus is filled with palm and eucalyptus trees and not ivy. You continue on skimming over the treetops, across the Oval area, and down onto the ground in the Main Quad.

Memorial Church the architectural jewel at the center of campus, is just ahead. No one ever says Memorial Church at Stanford; it’s always called MemChu on campus. The church, which is Romanesque in form and Byzantine in detail, is built from buff sandstone. The glimmering mosaics on the façade, in various tones of green and gold, depict Christ Blessing the People.

You open the massive bronze doors, walk through the vestibule, and step inside. The interior , whose great size is hard to appreciate from the outside, is vividly decorated in scarlet and gold. The walls are covered with vibrant mosaic murals that are based on the Hebrew Scriptures. Red and purple velvet tapestries and montages also adorn the walls. The glowing stained glass windows are Byzantine in style and are based on paintings of New Testament stories.

The church is a cruciform structure, with rounded alcoves on either side of the nave. The altar alcove, which includes the chancel, is in the center and front of the church. A golden soaring, domical ceiling tops the structure.

Around midnight the dimly lit interior, though somber and gloomy, provides solace and quiet for any distressed person who chooses to visit there. One October at midnight, however, something horrible happened in MemChu and everything went beyond wrong.

A pretty, petite young bride was brutally murdered around midnight in the church itself. She was found in MemChu naked from the waist down and violated sexually, though she was not raped. The innocent 19-year-old girl was finally stabbed to death. Her body was left in what should have been the safest place on campus.

The killing of Arlis Perry sounds like a Stephen King novel, but it actually happened at Stanford University on the night of October 12, 1974. Perry and her husband Bruce went walking on campus around 11:30 that Saturday night, and a minor argument between the two ensued. Perry, a devout Evangelical Christian, went to MemChu, a non-sectarian place to worship and pray. Bruce returned to their apartment. Arlis never came home.

A campus security guard found her body around 5:40 the next morning partially hidden under a front pew in the east transept, which is forward and off to the left as you enter the church. Perry’s body was violated in a hideous manner. The killer used two-foot candles in an apparent ritualistic torture to sexually abuse her. Perry was left spread-eagled on her back and naked from the waist down. She had been killed by an ice pick rammed deep into her brain. Most investigators think she was killed shortly after midnight. The murderer then fled the locked church by breaking out through a side door at the west or opposite side of the church from where her body was found.

How could such a horrible murder occur in MemChu at the very heart of the campus? Was a satanic cult responsible for Perry’s death? Was it a serial killer or a random sex crime? Or was the killer someone closer to home? The police had very little evidence to study and there were no suspects. The mystery has lingered for over 36 years.

BACKGROUND

Arlis Dykema was a studious young girl who also was a cheerleader at Bismarck High School in Bismarck, North Dakota. She was a committed practicing Christian who was not shy about expressing the Message of the Bible to anyone. While in high school, she joined several Christian organizations. Arlis belonged to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Young Life; the latter was a student evangelical society. Religion played a major role in her life.

Arlis was petite and pretty with a pleasant smile. She had wavy blond hair, which she wore down to her shoulders. She had poor eyesight and always wore contact lenses or glasses. Although Arlis was somewhat frail, she was energetic and had a decidedly curious and inquisitive nature.

She met Bruce Perry, who was also a devout Christian, in high school where they became close friends. It was their Evangelical faith that brought them together. After graduating from high school in 1973, Arlis attended Bismarck Junior College. Bruce, on the other hand, began his freshman year as a pre-med student at Stanford University.

On August 17, 1974, Arlis and Bruce Perry were married in the Bismarck Reformed Church. After a brief honeymoon, they settled into their new apartment at Stanford in early September. (We will refer to Arlis as Perry for the rest of the story.)

Perry, the 19-year-old bride, apparently found it a little difficult to adjust to the life at Stanford. At the time, college and university students across the country were listening to the British rock band, Led Zeppelin, whose iconic song, Stairway to Heaven, was immensely popular. Perry was probably singing Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art.

It was also a time when the Watergate scandal forced President Richard Nixon to resign and Gerald Ford became the 38th President of the United States.

Perry had many friends back home, but at Stanford she didn’t know anyone. She would often walk and at times jog around on campus while her husband was busy with his studies. It wasn’t unusual for her to stop in at the MemChu to pray.

About this time, a strange thing occurred that could not easily be explained. When the Perrys moved to the Stanford campus, the telephone company already had a listing for Bruce D. Perry. When Arlis Perry learned about the duplication of names, she commented on the oddity of it in correspondence with some of her friends. Much later, when the incident of the phone listing of a nonexistent Bruce D. Perry was looked into, the telephone company was unable to trace the other Bruce Perry. If he existed, he seemed to have disappeared. Terry wrote that the Bruce Perry who vanished might have been Perry’s killer. In our view, there is little credible evidence to think he murdered Perry.

On the first of October Perry was hired as a receptionist at a Palo Alto law firm. She and her husband were pleased since the position not only provided additional income, but helped Perry acclimate to her new location.

Less than two weeks later, Perry came face-to-face with her killer.

MURDER AT MEMORIAL CHURCH

It was around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, when Perry decided to take a walk on campus to drop off a letter at a nearby mailbox. On this night, Bruce decided to take a break from his studies and join his wife.

As they continued their walk on campus, they got involved in a minor argument about whose responsibility it was to make sure a slowly leaking tire on their car got filled with air. One thing led to another and Perry became annoyed with her husband. She told him that she wanted to go to MemChu alone to pray and that she would see him later at their apartment. Bruce, who also was in a huff, strode off to their living quarters, which was about a half mile away.

It was about 11:50 p.m. when Perry entered MemChu. The ornate but gloomy atmosphere and quiet of the church at that late hour very likely comforted Perry. (I can personally attest to the grandeur of MemChu. While I live in the east, I always stop by the inter-denominational church on Sunday when I visit Stanford University.)

There were just several people in the church when Perry entered but all left shortly before midnight. She then walked down the left aisle close to a front pew near the east transept to pray. It’s quite likely that she always walked to the front and near the altar of any church she entered to meditate. Perry remained in the church alone. Around this time, a witness reported seeing a man of medium build with light brown hair on his way into the church.

Stephen Crawford, a campus security guard normally locked the doors of the church about midnight. On this particular night Crawford came by around 12:10 a.m. and walked into the rear of the church. He didn’t see anybody; nevertheless he called out informing anyone who might be in the church that he was going to close the doors for the night. When Crawford casually closed the church doors, he inadvertently locked Perry in with Satan—but only one was praying.

The time between when the last of the people in the church left and when Crawford entered—about 10 minutes—seems too short for Perry to have suffered all the injuries that she did, so it is likely that she was still alive when Crawford entered and that sexual assault has not yet begun. Since she did not call out, the killer probably forced her down between the pews or into the east transept and had drawn his ice pick. The attack must have begun either just as the others in the church left (if she was preparing to leave with them) or shortly after they left (if she had decided to stay in the church until the guard came to close it). In either case, the killer would have realized that people might be near enough to the church to hear screams and that someone could walk in at any moment since the doors were open; he also might have realized that it was possible that someone was in some other room in the vast building even after the others left the main part of the church. Her killer, whoever he was or whatever his motive, was carrying out a foolhardy, incredibly high-risk crime. Perhaps he only made the decision to sexually assault Perry and kill her after the guard closed the doors and he realized that he was less likely to be interrupted. Nevertheless, he confronted Perry and had her under his control before the doors were closed and this act was an extremely high-risk. Any theory of the crime should take this into account. (It is, as we shall see, one of the reasons to reject Maury Terry’s proposed solution.)

One possibility is that the killer seated himself close to Perry in the front pew and around closing time forced her down between the pews so that Crawford was unable to see her while he was standing at the rear of the church. While the killer too, was hunched down, he was holding an icepick against Perry’s body to prevent her from calling out for help.

Meanwhile Bruce became anxious when his wife didn’t come home. He walked quickly back to the church to look for her. When he got to the church about 12:15 a. m., he found all the church doors locked. He then proceeded to walk around on campus looking for her.

At 2:00 a.m., Crawford stated that he found all the church doors locked on his routine check of the building. When questioned later, he maintained that he also walked through the church, which he was required to do. In his book, The Ultimate Evil, Maury Terry said Crawford never entered the church on his 2:00 a.m. round of duty. We think Maury is right about this point.

By 3:00 a.m., Bruce decided to call the Stanford security police. He told the dispatcher that his wife had not returned home from her late night visit to MemChu. He went on to say that his wife might have fallen asleep and was inadvertently locked inside at midnight. It was strange and somewhat suspicious that Bruce was already suggesting to the police that his wife might be found sleeping in the church. Why would he say that? After all, Arlis, who was a devout Christian, would never fall asleep in church.

When the police arrived at the church, they found the doors locked. Unfortunately, they did not enter the church to investigate whether anyone was inside. It is likely the police thought it was just one of those domestic disputes and did not take the matter too seriously at that point.

At around 5:40 a.m., as Crawford was making another routine check of the church, he noticed that the side door on the west side was partially open. He went through the door carefully and began to look around to see if there was evidence of a robbery. After looking into one pew after another, Crawford discovered Perry’s body in the east transept partially hidden under one of the pews. He quickly reported to his supervisor who in turn notified the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department.

When the Santa Clara detectives arrived, they found Perry lying spread-eagled on her back and naked from the waist down. She was wearing a dark brown jacket and a tan sweater that was pushed up toward her chest. Her blue jeans were draped over her body with the legs facing her head. From an overhead view, Perry’s body was staged to roughly resemble the shape of a diamond. The killer laid out Perry’s body on the church floor in a symbolic nature resembling a ritualistic killing. There was no sign that a struggle had occurred; however, Perry had been hit repeatedly and choked. The killer also violated her sexually using candles from the church altar.

The killer did not leave any weapon behind when he fled. There were no known suspects and very little evidence left for the police to study.

How could such a horrible crime take place at Stanford and in such a sacrosanct place as MemChu in the heart of the campus?

THE MIDNIGHT KILLING

The autopsy revealed that the pointed portion of the ice pick was still embedded deep in Perry’s brain. The killer took the handle of the weapon with him when he left. Perry had not been raped, but semen was found on a kneeling pillow close to her body. [Autopsy comes from the Ancient Greek autopsia, to see for oneself. It’s derived from autos, oneself and opsis, eye or sight. As early as 3000 B.C.E. the Egyptians performed autopsies, but they were associated with the religious practice of mummification. During the third century B.C.E., Greek physicians Erasistratus and Herophilus performed the first autopsies to gain medical knowledge. By 150 B.C.E., however, Roman legal practice had instituted guidelines and regulations for performing autopsies. Surprisingly, autopsy rates in the United States declined from 17% in 1980 to 11.5% in 1989.]

While Perry had poor eyesight and typically wore glasses, they were nowhere to be found at the crime scene. Her glasses—unlike cash or jewelry—would have no monetary value and it thus seems very likely that the killer took them as a souvenir. Taking souvenirs or trophies is a behavior more typical of serial than non-serial offenders. But as we shall see, one of the things that make the Perry case so difficult to solve is that this crime displays conflicting characteristics.

The church was temporarily closed shortly after the police arrived; it was now a crime scene. As the investigators did, let us begin by considering some of the most obvious suspects. Several police then went to the Perry’s apartment to question her husband. When Bruce opened the door, they immediately noticed bloodstains on his shirt. He was horrified to learn that his young wife had been murdered. When questioned, Perry’s husband admitted that he was upset over his wife’s disappearance and then explained that he had a tendency to have nosebleeds when he became anxious. Bruce also admitted that he had an argument with his wife, before she left for the church. And remember that when Bruce went to MemChu earlier that evening, he made the very odd—and in light of the fact that she was lying dead in the church—suggestion that Arlis might be sleeping in the church.

Nevertheless, the evidence quickly showed that Bruce was innocent. The blood on his shirt was analyzed and turned out not to belong to his wife according to Maury Perry.

Later, Bruce passed a polygraph test, further validating his claims of innocence. In addition, he was not a match with the handprint found on one of the candles the killer used to violate Perry. The police involved in the investigation were convinced of Bruce’s innocence and cleared him of his wife’s murder. We think that this is clearly right.

Bruce went on to become a psychiatrist whose work specializes in the area of children who have experienced emotional shock. He is the Senior Fellow of The Child’s Trauma in Houston, Texas and an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences a the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. He has been recognized for his work with young victims of the Branch Davidian Siege in Waco, Texas.

Stephen Crawford, the campus security guard, was also a possible suspect, simply because he was present at the crime scene more than once. He maintained that not long after midnight he entered the church on his rounds and did not see anyone. Crawford also stated that he called out while inside of the church, advising anyone inside that he would soon lock the doors. Crawford claimed to have followed the same checking procedure at 2:00 a.m. Maury Terry suggests that if the security guard had carried out his routine inspection procedures as he said and had entered the church at 2:00 a.m., he would have encountered the killer. On both of these occasions the only people we know were in the church were Arlis (whether or not she was alive at 2:00 a.m.), her killer and Stephen Crawford. Might the latter two be one and the same?

The answer to this question, however, is clearly No. While Crawford might have been negligent in not carrying out his duties more thoroughly, and may have been running somewhat late (and perhaps even somewhat later than he said) in making his rounds, he was nevertheless cleared after taking a polygraph test and when it was confirmed that his handprint was not a match to that found on the altar candle.

The police also questioned Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Dean of the Stanford Chapel, in regards to Perry’s death. As Dean of the Chapel, Hamerton-Kelly would have had access to Memorial Church at any time.

From 1972-86, Hamerton-Kelly served as Dean of the Chapel, Senior Minister of MemChu and as Consulting Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Following this, he was a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Arms control at Stanford from 1986 until 1997 when he retired from the university.

After Hamerton-Kelly retired as Senior Minister of the Woodside Village Church in 2004, he hosted a biweekly seminar with Rene Girard, a French historian, literary critic and philosopher of social science, titled Religion and Violence at Stanford. In 2007, Hamerton-Kelly became President of Imitatio, Inc., a foundation, which supports the research of Rene Girard’s mimetic theory.

Girard’s Mimetic Theory [MT]:

MT is a Theory of Human Violence. Violence is spontaneous and reciprocal in the human (social) world. Its characteristic form is vengeance because all human relations are reciprocal and all are therefore rivalrous. Thus, MT explains where violence comes from and how violence works (From Reason and Violence in Girard’s Mimetic Theory: The Anthropology of the Cross, by Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Online article, May 4, 2009). The rivalry is resolved by the sacrifice of a human scapegoat who, in being sacrificed, attains a sacred status.

Girard’s theory of violence has been enormously influential, but is also highly controversial in both the religious and secular communities. The