#544 - Moronic Murderers - Washington Boro, Pennsylvania
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Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you about one of my favorite things in the world, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. Oh, I give that app a workout. Let me tell you something. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. You can listen to anything. There's so many genres on there. There's more to imagine when you listen. And let me tell you something that makes my imagination soar in a terrible way. I've been listening to Secrets in the Cellar. Oh, boy.

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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

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Choo-choo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder Express. You know by now this is way more murder than we can fit in an hour. We're going to cram it in there. And it's 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag. Let's get it on here all aboard the murder train. Pulling away from the station, just have to say before we start, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com.

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Let's all sit back. What do you say here? Deep breath. Let's clear the lungs. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. We're going to Pennsylvania this week. There we go. We're coming. We've been in the south a little bit. Now we're going to head up north, go to Pennsylvania. This is Washington Borough, Pennsylvania.

Those are two separate words. That's why I said that like that. Washington space borrow B O R. How do you really? Yes. It makes no sense at all here. So, uh, Washington borough, it's in Southeastern Pennsylvania, about two hours from Philly, about two hours West of Philly is how it is. So kind of towards central Pennsylvania, I guess about an hour 25 to Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, our last Pennsylvania episode, the serial killing nerd, which had the, yeah,

They thought that Dungeons and Dragons was a big part of the murder and all that kind of thing. And it was kind of a wild episode here. This town, very small population, 729. OK. Tiny town under a thousand median household income here is high. I mean, real high. It's about sixty nine thousand the rest of the country here. One hundred eight thousand four hundred thirty eight dollars is the median household income. Not sure. Median home price here is low, too. That's the other thing.

Crazy high salaries. We are breaking the news. I don't know what's going on here. $241,200 is the median home price, which is very low. So it's great. None of this makes any sense is what I'm finding here. Drop a history here. This place was started or the kind of, you know, first inhabited by a French Canadian fur trader named Martin Chartier and his son, Peter established a trading post here in 1718.

And a monument was erected on the spot in 1925.

So there's a monument of these fur trappers. I don't know what they're doing, trapping fur. Trapping some fur, yeah. I don't know how you put that in brass or whatever, but they're copper. They did it. It's also called the Borough of Washington or Washington Borough in the past. Then they, for some reason, said, let's put a space between Washington and Borough. That makes sense. It's the most bizarre idea. Really weird. It was incorporated in 1827. There was a lot of river. It's right on the river, the Susquehanna, I think. So you're getting a lot of...

river stuff jobs on the river and you know things going in and out back in the day here it was the site of the first colonial era era animal powered ferry i don't know what that means how do you do that how do you force i don't know if they tied whales to it and made them swim a couple of dolphins i'm not sure if there's they they have cows that only go one trip back and forth like

Because they're drowned. They'll get you to the middle, then you've got to cut the rope and coast to the other side. Use your oars for the rest of it? I'm not sure how it works here. But due to the decline in river trade and jobs, the borough of Washington was dissolved politically and became a part, politically, of Manor Township. So if you call the cops the Manor Township, cops show up or whatever. But they're still their own town in address form. So the reviews of this town, a few of those...

Here's five stars. They're all good reviews, too. Oh, great. Here's five stars. It is a nice place to live. The location is close to other towns, cities, and the highway. We can get to other places quickly and easily. Well, that's helpful. The best part of your town is that you can get other places faster. That's not saying it's not a whole. That's not five stars for your town. Pretty good place.

Pretty good place. You don't have to stay here is a weird thing to say. It's like living in a cave and being like, there's a ladder. Yeah, there's a ladder and it's cool. So four stars. Good, clean, healthy. Wow. Okay. This is a community that is perfect for young and growing families to live and play.

There's only 700. Oh, that's it. Not many people have found it. Four stars. Although Washington Borough is a very small town, it is connected with a very close community. The neighbors are very friendly and are always willing to help out. The scenery is amazing and sits upon the Susquehanna River. So there you go. That's the town. You can see it. It's a little tiny town.

It feels like Amish people in their buggies would be passing by. And there's a river. And there's a big river next door there. We love rivers. We like rivers. Things to do in this town. The Washington Borough Tomato Festival.

This is tomato country here. That's the thing. Pennsylvania. I've said this before. My grandmother used to go once a year to Pennsylvania and her and all of her sisters would go together and fill their cars with tomatoes to the point where they had tomatoes like around them. It was just a face. It was the car inside of the car was just a tomato with a face. That's all it was. But that's how they drive home. Hmm. Then you make sauce for the whole year.

Oh, okay. So you make it all up and then can it, I guess? You jar it. Yeah. She'd put it in these big jars. But I mean, there was like a four-day thing where all the daughters would be there and it'll be peeling and boiling and fucking doing this and making lots of sauce. Good lord.

Oh, yeah, every year. But then after that, you could just reach in and grab a thing of sauce. It was nice after that. That's helpful. Yeah. So the annual Washington Borough Tomato Festival is held every year on the second and third Saturday of July, and it benefits a fire rescue organization and also celebrates the area's tomato growing heritage.

There is food, games, music, and plenty of fun for the whole family. In all of the summer's delights, few things compare to a fresh tomato sandwich or a BLT.

A tomato sandwich? Yeah, tomatoes. Yeah, if you're not, I don't know if every ethnicity, but you'll eat tomatoes. Just tomato? You can eat just tomato or like my grandmother used to just slice a tomato and put a little salt on it and that was a snack. You know what I mean? You'd sit there with that and a little bread. You know what I mean? So just kind of a tomato thing. The festival kicks off here. They said, naturally, there will be plenty of plentiful tomatoes and tomato sandwiches for sale. There'll also be live music from Borderline.

Yeah. Madonna covers. Have we heard of them before? Borderline? Yeah. Possibly. I don't know. I feel like we have. And then there's another. This one I think we have heard of. There's another one here, another performance after that from Three Hour Tour is the name. We have. We just had that. We have absolutely heard of Three Hour Tour before. 100%. That's crazy. There's a circuit.

We found the circuit. Okay. The bigger county fairs that go on that have some population centers in them, that's ludicrous. He's there for every one of those. Nelly, if he's not available. Yeah. Then for the smaller festivals in tiny towns, it's three-hour tour. Strawberry festivals. They're going to get all of those gigs. That's amazing. They're trying to work their way up to opening for ludicrous. Okay.

There are a bunch of bands that listen to our show because they love- They travel. Yeah. Yeah, and they recognize some of these towns as they're traveling. I bet. And they love, I've heard it from a bunch of them, they adore when we just bash these shit small town towns.

Well, yeah, they don't want to go there. They're going there because they need $700. They're not going there because they really want to play to the people of Washington Borough fucking Pennsylvania. Yeah, can't wait for the tomato sandwiches. Well, we're headed to Amish country anyway, so on the way, we might as well stop here, pick up a few bucks. And get a tomato sandwich. Jesus Christ. Tomato sandwich?

Let's talk about some murder. What do you say, everybody? Here we go. Tomato sandwiches for all. Let's do this. We'll give the murderer a nice big tomato sandwich this week. We'll send him one. Is it like tomato slices with shit between them, or is it tomato slices on bread? Tomato slices on bread. That's it? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's, you know.

seasonings or herbs or basil or something or whatever the fuck you want to put on it. I had a tomato sandwich today. Yeah, I did. It had turkey and cheddar and there was also tomato. That's not bad. It's a tomato sandwich. They're trying to showcase the taste of their locally grown tomatoes. So if you put turkey and bacon in it, then you fuck it all up. It's so good. Oh, it's going to be delicious, but you don't taste it in what they're doing. Best tomato I've ever had. Yeah.

So murder here. Let's talk about this. We got to talk about a couple. First of all, here, Rod and Barbara here. Okay.

Rod and Barbara. Roderick Herman Fry is the husband. He's born in 1937, this guy. His parents, by the way, this is how old he is. His parents, his dad's name is Cyrus. Not a lot of that going on nowadays. Cyrus Strickler Fry is his dad's name. And his mother's name is Helen Mary Fry. So I find that hilarious. And by the way, Herman is his mom's maiden name. That's why it's his middle name.

Okay. Old school shit there. He marries Barbara Jean Schenck, and she becomes Barbara Jean Fry after that. F-R-E-Y, by the way. She is born November 15th, 1938. So, you know, same deal there. She's from Manor Township, which is the town right next door, and technically this town now. And her parents are Benjamin and Ada Dombach.

Now, Benjamin, I have to say about this guy because he sounds like a fucking like a cool old guy. He was the 1985 Valley Manor golf champion. And from 78 to 80, he was the Pennsylvania State Bowling Association senior champion.

Is that right? Yeah, so dad is really good at, you know, non-games that don't involve running. Yeah, well, bowling isn't rich guy shit. That's what's different. You don't find guys who are great at golf and bowling. Those are two things. Golfers don't bowl. Bowlers don't golf usually.

My dad's a bowler. If I gave him a bag of golf clubs, he would not even know what club to hit what with. He wouldn't fucking care because he's never played his life. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. And my stepfather is a golfer, and I don't think he can fucking bowl a 50 if you gave him 10 frames. How's his pinball? I'll bet he can do that, too. Ah, it's probably good, yeah. So in October 1956, they get married. Okay. I mean, she's 18 years old, and he's 19 years old. They get married. They're going to have some kids here.

In the late 50s, they have a son named Kevin. Then in 1960, they have twin boys named Wendell, Lee, and Wesley. So they go with the Ws. Wendell and Wesley. Wendell and Wes here in 1960. Yeah.

Now, in 1969, they both get involved with the Turkey Hill Company. And Turkey Hill does ice cream, dairy, all that kind of shit. East Coast, Turkey Hill is in every grocery store for ice cream. Really? Yeah, they have good ice cream. It's not bad at all. So that's the – it's kind of like the Tillamook of the East, I would say. Yeah.

turkey hill doesn't come out come out east i don't know i don't i don't think i see it much out here no is that right no but they do have turkey bunny and shit like that i don't think so i'm not sure well i'm not sure i buy my all my ice cream from stewart's because that's that's my favorite ice cream here so i never buy it from the grocery store you didn't get turkey creek turkey what turkey hill no i like stewart's the best because it's also fresher and they ship it right to the stores right there that's good yeah and it's down the street from my house i like that

So she gets a job. She is the Turkey Hill Minute Market Manager. Oh, okay. Minute Market. Minute with no E, by the way. It's so fast in and out, they don't even have time to spell it all the way. Because it's so fast. It's a convenience store. We've got time for seven letters. No time. Let's go. Six? How many is it? Six. She is twice selected as Turkey Hill Manager of the Year, by the way. Manager of the Year? Of the Year. Of all their corporate shit. Of 100 stores. She's the Manager of the Year. Back to back. No, no. 74 and 78. Oh.

Okay. 74, I give it to her as a clean win. 78, I feel like they might have felt bad for her, as we'll talk about here. I feel like maybe they were like, man, she's still showing up to work and she's had a tough year. So, yeah, she won in 78 while working at the Wrightsville location. They say they select about four managers of the year from among 100 stores. Wow. Yeah. They're given awards for cleanliness, inventory, sales, labor relations, and manager attitude.

Okay. There you go. Now, Rod, her husband, is a Turkey Hill delivery man.

He delivers shit to the stores. Yeah, he's a four-day-a-week guy who delivers milk to the Turkey Hill stores from the Turkey Hill dairies. So that's what he does. So yeah, they're all tied up in Turkey Hill. They have a house at 40 Mill Street in Washington Borough. It's a four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,532-square-foot house that still stands today and is built in 1900, so it's old.

Old little house. And with the picture of it on Zillow is just woods with an RV parked in front of it. Somewhere behind that RV. Move that RV. Move that. Is this fucking van or is this house?

1977, Wendell, their son, is killed at 20. Oh, no. It's just Wes now. Or at 17. Yeah, it's just Wes. He's killed in a car crash on Route 441 in Conway Township. Shit. So, yeah, he was driving a truck at a high rate of speed and crashed it in a single car crash. So he did it to himself on that one. Wow.

So they give her the manager of the year in 78. That's why I said I feel like maybe it's just they feel bad for her. Like she's been through a ton. Jesus Christ. Truly. So by 1978, too, the couple's having problems. They're having marital problems, which after the death of a child is very common.

Yeah. Extremely common here. Also, this is less common, but Rod is also fucking whoever he can on the side, too. Yeah, that doesn't help. That's not going to help. Yeah. The child dying is less common, but, you know, when a child dies, that's a less common reason to fight. You're also fucking everybody also, so that's gross. Losing a twin is even more uncommon. Yeah. And then...

depending on how you two grieve over it, it may drive the other into the arms of seven or eight different ladies. He grieves with his penis and other people. That's how he grieves.

His penis is crying. It's crying out for help. That's the problem. Gently, my penis weeps. It weeps. So in 1978, while this is going on, they decide she files for divorce anyway. She's had enough, yeah. But then the proceeding is dropped at some point in 78. So they decide to get a divorce, and they decide not to get a divorce. Uh-huh.

Who knows what's happening? But Rod, he keeps having affairs. It doesn't matter. He's not going to stop that at all. By 1979, they're having even more problems. November 4th, 1979, they separate, meaning he moves out of the house completely. He goes and moves into a trailer a few miles away. And she remains in the marital home here with the 17-year-old.

remaining live twin base, or I think he's 19 at this point, but they live together. So yeah, they're, they're doing that. He moves out. Um, and, uh, that's how that goes. Now, November 7th, 1979, Barbara is, uh, Wesley sees her at about 11 PM on November 7th, 1979 before they go to bed. And she's got to get up early in the morning for work.

Her job sounds rough. She leaves for work at about 4.30 in the morning and gets there at 5, which sounds like a fucking nightmare. That gal is up at 3.30. That's a nightmare. She might as well go milk cows. You know what I mean? She might as well be at that part of the operation because she's up anyway. Be early on the end of this if you're going to be up that early. Yeah, why not? Yeah, at least when you're done, you're done. So November 8th, the next morning, she leaves for work at about 4.30 a.m.,

And to go to the Turkey Hill Minute Market in Wrightsville where she's working. She's usually at work by 5. But that's like when she starts her shift. But she gets there before 5 usually because she's a conscientious manager that wins awards.

You got to beat every. If you can't, as the manager, be there early, then you don't have you have a leg to stand on. You got to be there with cow milk and gloves on 15 minutes early. Yeah. 15 minutes before start a shift. If you're not early or late, that's how she works. So about 6 a.m., Wesley gets a call from people at the store wondering where she is.

She's never late. I mean, that doesn't happen. So they're like an hour late. Yeah. So it's, you know, a 15 minute ride. So she's definitely shouldn't take an hour and a half. So he then called all the hospitals in the county to see if maybe because she looked out the window, her car's gone. So it doesn't take her an hour and a half to get to work. So he figures she must have gotten a car accident. She's probably in the hospital.

Starts calling around to all the hospitals. So by the time he's done, it's 8.52 a.m., and he reports his mother missing to the Manor Township Police at that point. Took him two and a half hours to make those calls? Yep. That's what I'm saying. Two and a half hours to call. I don't know how. I guess at first, I don't know. I don't know how long it takes to call. How many hospitals can there be in this county? You know what I mean? I guess a lot. There's small ones. There's...

What do they do? They take the name and then just go walk door to door and see if that person is in that room. Yeah.

I don't know if also he sat there for a while going, well, I don't want to get the cops on it. If she like stopped somewhere, you know, something, she's not in the hospital, then it's her choice to not be at work. I don't know. But he ends up calling at eight 52 and there's a lady named Mrs. Wakefield. She is at the store that she works at. She's the one who called the son. And she said she figured something must have happened to Barbara. And she asked Wesley to quote, to come up to route four, four, one, to see if there was an accident. Yeah.

So then she said, I'll check police departments. You call the hospitals and we'll get back with each other. Mrs. Wakefield said, quote, I was almost certain she was dead, which is crazy. A person is an hour late for work and you're like, I'm pretty sure she's dead. I'm already making funeral arrangements, picking out a dress. This is insane. Like,

You are really skipping ahead of the line here, lady. Yeah. I was almost certain she was dead. She was gone a week, I can see. Okay, I'm pretty sure she's dead, but fuck. Hour and a half. Hour and a half. She must be dead. I don't know. Yeah. So they said, where the hell is she? The cops are looking for her. They said she's 5'7", 220 pounds, and wearing brown leather shoes, red slacks, a heavy black pullover sweater, and a dark blue windbreaker.

It's November in Pennsylvania, so it's cold but not freezing. She's wearing nice stuff. So then at 4.20 p.m., there is a guy here named Roy R. Nisley.

And he is he has a farmer who's got a cornfield and all this shit out here. Right. There's this guy. So it's 420 after he sparks up his afternoon dube here. He he heads out to the cornfields here and he he's just looking around. And then he ends up coming upon a car in his cornfield.

He found a car that looked like it had been driven into the cornfield. It's just sitting there. And, yeah, he's working on his cornfield. He started to work the west side of Franklin Road and had gone across the highway to the east side to check on a field of standing corn there. He came upon a car about 100 yards off the roadway in the cornfield. The vehicle had been driven about a car length into the standing corn. So just enough to be inside of it. Just enough to hide. The hood was up.

And it appeared the motor had been left running, although it was not running when it was found. It was in the on position, the key and all that kind of shit. So there was a circle of charred and burned corn and other viscera around there directly beneath the engine as well. All sorts of burned shit there. Like it was on fire. And he looks in the car and sees a woman inside the car.

Oh, no. And Nestle said, I was shocked to see that woman laying there, which, you know, you go out to you go out to inspect a cornfield. You don't expect to find cars and ladies. So he said that she was slumped against the door inside the car on the driver's side. And there is blood in the car that he can see.

Yeah. So he goes, hey, I'm out of here. Nestle says he said some of his neighbors had reported seeing headlights in the cornfield during the early morning hours and hearing a motor running in the cornfield. They told him that later. Nestle said he woke up between four and five a.m. and heard a car apparently speeding along Central Manor Road not far from this.

So he reported this to the Manor Police Township, our Manor Township Police at 420. And they came and they confirmed that not only was this woman dead, but it's Barbara Fry. So no gun is found at the scene, although she is bloody and appears to have bullet wounds in her.

Along with other multiple situations. Oh, yeah. She's been through the ringer here. So they said they went there. They took a helicopter out and made several passes over the area where the body was found, seeking some evidence that another car may have been parked in the cornfield area. That's what they're looking for, to see if they can see that. Because they said whoever did this to her must have had transportation to and from the scene. Because her car's here, so...

Unless this Roy Nistley guy did it, which they highly doubt. It's his cornfield, but yeah. So wounds. Okay. The autopsy says that she died from a single gunshot wound that entered her left arm, then went into her chest and severed a major blood vessel from her heart. But there's other injuries as well. Shot through the chest, severely beaten about the face and head, and has big nasty bite marks on her left arm.

Big. Yeah. Like someone was trying like Ted Bundy shit here. Like someone was trying to bite her, which is, you know, that's not it's not expected. Usually in a shooting, you don't see a shooting in a car and expect the person to be bitten up, too. So they said that the fatal bullet passed through her left lung, pulmonary artery, heart, right lung and exited from the chest.

It's a large caliber weapon, by the way. He said that the woman died in a matter of seconds from massive bleeding. He said the murder weapon was certainly not a 22. I would say 30 caliber or larger.

Yeah. So besides the bullet wound, though, they said an extensive amount of injuries to the body, nearly all of them blunt injuries as well, including multiple large lacerations of the scalp. They said there were five lacerations on the front and another on the left side, small to medium bruises and abrasions of the forehead, face, nose, left forearm and both hands.

So there was a fight here. She in the driver's seat. Yes. Yeah. Driver's seat leaned up against the door. Fuck bruises and abrasions of the left arm, including a human bite mark. They made sure to say that they said this woman was bitten by a human. This animal didn't come and open her car door and fucking bite her. They said the bite mark was from then. It was recent. It wasn't an old bite mark or anything. Later on, he's asked, did you make a comparison of the marks to see if she bit herself?

And he said, no, who the fuck would do that? Why? It's on her shoulder. Doesn't make any sense. They indicated 5 to 10 a.m. was the time of death, which is they never know what the fuck, when the hell the time of death is. And it's wild here. They said the windbreaker had one bullet hole and the sweater she wore underneath had three bullet holes.

Mostly in the area of the left sleeve and left chest, but there was only one bullet track through the body.

And they said they learned that a bullet dropped from the woman's clothing during removal of the body. So there was more than one shot fired. The other one just didn't. Her sweater stopped it. Yeah, somehow. The other one went all the way through her body, arm, chest, lungs, hearts, and out the other side. And this one didn't penetrate her and fucking fell out of her clothing. Low powder velocity or something? Very, very weird here.

So now the first person they want to talk to is Rod, of course, because that's he just moved out. He said he was home at the time of the murder at his trailer. He said he had not didn't hear about his wife's death until eight or eight thirty that evening, four hours after she was found. And that was when other close relatives were told by police and then they called him. So, yeah, he lives on Donnerville Road in a mobile home about three miles from the scene.

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And he said, they said, do you know anybody who would want to hurt your wife? And he said, I can't think of a motive that anyone would have to kill her. She's a fucking Turkey Hill store manager. Who's after her? You know what I mean? Yeah. Somebody bought bad milk or shitty ice cream or something. They're upset. So the cop said there was no signs of robbery, no signs that she'd been sexually molested in any way, shape or form. Really? The lieutenant said it's really a mystery.

Total mystery. Beaten and shot. And bitten. Beaten, bitten, and shot. Yeah. It's very fucking weird. And then parked in a cornfield ever so gently. Ever so nicely here. And the lieutenant also said that the husband lives about three miles away, and there's no evidence that he was anywhere near here. He said, quote, you can't classify him as a suspect.

No. So you take him out of there. Cheating husband who just is in the middle of a divorce and he's not even a suspect. Now you really have a mystery. What the fuck? Gotcha. So one of the her friends said, I don't know anybody who didn't think she was an awfully, awfully nice person. We're still in shock over Barbara. We all we hope all who we all hope whoever did this is discovered and apprehended.

Right. So at this point, they believe that she was murdered prior to daylight. That's the the inclination here and elsewhere. Right. Well, that's what they're trying to figure out. They said they didn't feel that she'd been killed by a complete outsider.

So they said, well, it's not a serial killer because people started to panic. Oh, God, is this somebody doing this? And they said, no, no, no. We don't think this was an outsider that's going to kill other people randomly. They said, we think we are pretty personal. Yeah, we think we are having success. We think we are focusing in the right direction. The cop said, but that means nothing because they don't have any evidence at this point. They said the chance that two people were involved in the murder is a possibility.

The body was found in her own car and it appears the killer would have needed a getaway vehicle. If he acted alone, he would have had to halt her vehicle on foot and driven the woman to the cornfield where he had a second vehicle waiting. So that wouldn't make much sense. Right. It would make more sense for two people to be doing this.

And they said, quote, it had to be someone who knew the area, knew her schedule and the way she went to work. I hope to God, I hope God forgives us for feeling the way we do. But we're very suspicious is what her family says. The police say they have some good leads, quote, some leads, some good leads, but not positive leads.

What the fuck does that mean? Nothing. Yeah, that doesn't mean anything at all. It means we talk to people, we got nothing, get back to you later. We have a lot of questions is what that means. More questions than answers here. Yes. And this was, by the way, less than a mile from her home this happened. Oh, my. So, I mean, five fucking minutes here. That's almost fucking hunted, right? And her car windows are shattered also. Not the windshield, the back window, only the door windows are shattered as well. Wow.

So they talked to Roderick, the press does, and he said that he's uneasy over the fact that nobody has been arrested yet. He said it makes you half wonder if you want to ever go out, stay inside your house. Could be some maniac out there. He said that he was home at the time. They said, where were you? And he said, I was home at the time. Other people told me. And they said, how did you feel? And he said, quote, I was all broken up.

Which is the way... Why does it keep coming up? I don't know. You're laughing about it. We laugh about this because that's Kuklinski, the Iceman, when he's found out about Roy DeMeo being killed. He said, how'd you feel about it? He goes, I was all broken up about it with a big smile on his face. It's a very Italian sarcastic thing to say when you don't give a shit. My grandfather said it all the time. I'm all broken up about it. It's just the way it is. But they said, well, do you know who could have done this? And he said, quote, she keeps things to herself. She never told me much.

So he said, I don't know who she was hanging out with, what she was doing. They talked to their pastor now.

Apparently, she attended the Grace Evangelical Congregational Church on Creedy Avenue in Millersville. And the pastor, Philip Ghostwhite, whatever, he said the entire Fry family were members of the church. He said that he often said hello to Barbara after Sunday services and paid one visit to the home after he learned there were marital difficulties. Mind your business. Fuck off. I hear you guys are having problems.

Okay. Let's worry about you. Let's talk to your wife and see if everything's perfect. Talking about. Yeah. He said, I don't didn't know the family situation that well. To me, she was a melancholy person. She seemed always to be pretty distraught and concerned about her marital situation, which also she's still recovering from her son being killed also. So if you add that into the fold. Yeah.

You can understand why she'd be a bit of a downer, you know. Plenty of reason to be melancholy. A little melancholy. This guy estimated there were more than 100 people at her funeral, which was held at the Kraft Funeral Home. Mac and cheese for all, everybody. Yeah. He said that Roderick, the woman's husband, was present and seemed very distraught. He said, I think he was crushed by the whole thing. It was a complete shock to him, the pastor said.

They said, who do you think might be responsible? Because no one solves crimes better than pastors. Who do you think could have done this? And he said, it sounds like she knew something about someone they didn't want her to know. Someone didn't want her to have that information and they killed her. I don't have any concrete facts except that she was indeed killed. We all have theories.

I'm really wildly speculating right now. Just wildly throwing fucking bullshit at the wall. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Wildly casting aspersions all around. I think she maybe found all the messages in Da Vinci's paintings. Oh, my God. And they couldn't let it out. I think she found the NSA's secrets. I think that the CIA is involved in this. She's heard of some JFK stuff. Wow. We left her in a cornfield.

And that's the pastor. So imagine what people are sitting around coming up with. You know what I mean? Boy, is he fun. Fuck. Because December 5th comes up and there's no progress. So that's almost a month. Wow. So people are really going wild with their own theories now. No. You need to do a pastor to believe anything at all. That's anything. Anything.

I just think that she had info. She's a fucking Turkey Hill convenience store manager. What information could she possibly have gleaned from anybody that would make her murder worthy? She knows how the milk is stored. That's what it is. She's seen the microfilm. She knows how the ice cream is made and you got to take her the fuck out.

So it remains unsolved. Relatives and close friends said they're scared by the knowledge that the killer or killers are still at large. They also say they're in a state of shock over the death. And they said, we think the cops said, we think we're having success. We think we're focusing in the right direction. Yeah. Which is not making me feel better. He said, we have to check a couple things this week. There's a lot of false rumors going around.

This week, we're going to run them down. Yeah, there's a lot of false rumors, apparently. He said that people he has talked to concerning the murder have been cooperative but scared. Her work friends said that they're surprised that there's been no arrest yet. Here's Edna Wakefield, the lady who was sure she was dead after an hour.

She's mean as shit. Edna area, she's a manager here, was a close friend of Mrs. Fry and also Peggy Rhodes, an employee at the store. They're both surprised the case is still open. Edna and Peggy are both surprised. Somewhere there's high schools with secretaries missing. You know what I mean? Those are high school secretary names. And they think that all cases are solved lickety split. Lickety split. And then they call Ferris Bueller's house and see why he's absent. Yeah.

This wasn't her name, Edna, I think. Was it? I think it was. Maybe Peggy. It was one of the two. I'll tell you that much. He said, I think they just had to pick up. I thought they just had to pick up the person is what Peggy said. I don't get it. She thought we see a dead body and we just go get people. We go grab somebody and pick them up. Peggy also said she didn't seem to think she was in any imminent danger. She said she saw her. They worked together on the 7th and Barbara told her, see you tomorrow. She didn't say anything.

Not going to see you tomorrow. Have a good night, but I'll be long dead by the time you get here.

Well, Edna Wakefield recalled having a phone conversation with Barbara the evening prior to when she was killed. And she said most of it was business, a few personal things. And, you know, she described her as a quiet type person and said that she she said that. Yeah, she described him as a rod, as a quiet type person and said that Mrs. Fry was outgoing. So at work, she's outgoing at church. She's melancholy. There's no who knows.

So her kids. And everybody that's 10 minutes out of Edna's life is dead. Dead. Fucking dead. Oh, my husband, he must be dead. He's like, I stopped at the store for a six pack. What the fuck? I was cutting the lawn. Didn't you hear the mower? Good Lord, man. Jesus Christ. I fell asleep in the den. What do you want? The hell's going on here? I took a nap. I called the coroner. I took a nap. Next thing you know, there's a goddamn fucking slab in my room here. They're going to wheel me out on a gurney.

She's got a fucking headstone in the living room. She's polishing. I wake up to two guys putting me in a bag for fuck's sake. Calm down, Edna. Jesus Christ. The zipper woke me up. Hey, what are you doing? Leave me alone. So he said they talked to her son, Kevin, and he expressed concern for the safety of his family, saying it might be somebody after his family and they could all be next. And he asked the newspaper that nothing be printed about the phone conversation he has with them.

Okay. He's scared. Then Wesley said no comment. He didn't want to comment on it at all. Yeah, can you imagine? She's been murdered seven different ways, sitting in a car. Sitting in a car, hit men. That's crazy. Mafia guys. She's a fucking convenience store manager. This is wild. They're acting like she's got international secrets somewhere. What an aggressive way to murder somebody when they have very little to do with much. No. And Rod said that he only talked to his wife for about five minutes the whole week.

There, he said, because they've been, you know, separated. He said she didn't seem too scared or anything. And he said that he's been trying to contact Rod said this, trying to contact the trooper and in charge of the investigation for the past few days, but can't get a hold of him.

And so he said, I don't know. They just said that the police told you any progress. He goes, this guy won't call me back. He said, I got the impression they were on to a lead. So maybe they're busy. Yeah, they're out there running around. They don't have time for the phone. Yeah. He said that, you know, he thinks that the police are doing all they can to solve the murder. He said he's still in shock over the murder. And they said, do you think the killer will strike again? And he said, it's hard to say. It's late 70s. Who knows? He said, maybe they'll do this again. I don't know. I mean, it's everybody be careful.

Two days later, he's arrested, Rod is, by the police. Oh, is that right? For murder. Yes, for murdering his wife. Boy, that was bad. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. You think there'll be more murders? I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to go look over my address book and see if anybody's pissed me off. Hold on a minute.

As soon as I get enough money to buy more ammo, maybe. Maybe. Well, no, he's not arrested alone. It's also Charles D. Ziering, Z-E-H-R-I-N-G, who's 22 years old, 20 years younger than Rod. He's arrested as well. And a third man is also arrested here that we'll talk about. They're all charged with murder and conspiracy. What?

So let's talk about this. What the fuck? What the fuck happened? Because we end up finding out what happened because everybody everybody spills the beans here, which is also hilarious. We didn't we didn't get this far. Let's tell on each other, everybody. Yeah. So going back to May of 1979, months before the murder, six months before Rod meets a guy, Charles David Ziering, who's 22 years old. Ziering installs alarm systems and used to be the manager of a Turkey Hill store in Kleona.

And he also, Ziering is also a private investigator. So he installs alarms. He's a private investigator. He also slings ice cream. He's a busy guy. So they met through their employment and had a series of conversations about...

His marital difficulties. That's what he taught. Hey, how's it going? I have a fucking wife and they talk and we're fighting. So they talk about that. Ziering, who is described as a, quote, paranoid schizophrenic who collects exotic weaponry and anarchist slash survivalist literature. So those are actual problems. Those are three separate problems rolled into one.

Any one of those three things, I'm going, fucking, I'm worried about this guy. Paranoid schizophrenic. It's a dangerous fella. Exotic weaponry collectors. Yeah. And anarchist slash survivalist literature collectors. All crazy. He's all three. Horrible that he could own weaponry when he has that. Exotic weaponry, Jimmy. Not even fucking, not a pocket knife. No, he wants a fucking grenade launcher. A Japanese samurai sword and a, yeah. Yeah.

I got me a 17th century Japanese sword and a rocket launcher from Vietnam. Two things I got. And a bazooka. An anarchist fucking catapult. I learned in the anarchist cookbook how to make the anarchist catapult.

My favorite thing about the whole thing is the anarchist soup because it was delicious. I never thought to put the spices they use, but man, I'll tell you, that cookbook is something. It's also flammable. Yeah.

You can make napalm in the most delicious spring soup all in one book. You put it in a super soaker and spray it in your enemy's eyes. Oh, it's the best, man. Never would have thought about it. So apparently this lunatic, Zaring, suggested to Rod about three months before the murder that maybe the solution to your wife problem is to, quote, waste her. Maybe you just waste her. Waste her?

Just waste her. So Barbara apparently had refiled for divorce during this, like right before the separation. And at that point is when he said, okay, fuck this. Yeah, let's kill her. Okay. Let's get rid of her. Yeah. So now what, how does he says that? What does it cost? What will you take to kill her? You know, obviously you're not going to do it as a favor. Right. I'd like to be paid an exotic weaponry, please. No, no.

He said...

He said five grand is my price. Wow. Incredibly affordable. In 1979, that's way more money than that is now. Yeah, that's two cars. That's a lot back then. That's actually like not a cop price back then. Right. Nowadays, that'd be a cop price. It's two cars. It's probably 30 grand, 25 grand, probably five, six times. Yeah, but you can't buy two cars for that much anymore. No, no, no. But those were also awful cars. Yeah.

They were terrible pieces of shit, too. Terrible pieces of shit now still cost 30 grand. Yes, but no car is a piece of shit now, that was the thing. I see what you're saying. They're all new cars. It's reliable. It'll get you 100,000 miles. Yeah, they all have computer systems and all this crazy shit. Back then, it was like, here's your piece of shit Pinto. The Justy does not equate to a Nissan Maxima today. Exactly. A Pinto was 2,800 bucks, and it was because it exploded if you ran into it. Yeah.

So he, how's he going to get five grand? Cause he doesn't have five grand, but he has to pay him. So what he does is he calls Barbara up, Rod does and convinces her that he should get some money as an advance from the upcoming divorce property settlement. He's getting, he had her pay for her own murder.

Get the fuck out of my life. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. He said, give me money. She did. And he said, here, go kill that bitch. Oh, my God. That's the craziest thing ever. The fact that they're in the middle of a divorce because he's cheating on her and she's still willing to give him an advance on the money and not tell her to fuck off, not tell him to fuck off, tells me that she's not murder worthy. This is not a candidate for murder here. She's a decent person. And she's not the problem. You are, man. Yeah. Yeah.

So he said it was expenses for moving out and all that. I could use five grand. So she issued him a check for $5,000 drawn from the Colonial Savings and Loan Association. Oh, my God. He paid $3,000 up front to Ziering. Didn't even give it all up? He does. It's a before and after. Upon completion. Can't just give him the whole five grand. Yeah, but... He'll run off into the hills. Well.

So he gives him an upfront, which is normal. I mean, that's fine. He gave him that about three days before the murder, three or four days.

Now, on the evening of November 7th, Zaring met with Rod at Rod's residence, the trailer, and Rod told Zaring, this is how Barbara goes to work. This is what time she leaves. This is the route she takes. And it was his understanding, Rod's, that at the time, Zaring would be accompanied by another person, and they were going to – the whole point was to rig the car so it looks like she got in a car accident and died. Okay. That's the point. But look how it ended up. Nowhere near that. Yeah.

shooting, biting, beating. Not even close. This car really turned on her. And the car's in fine shape, too. That's the other thing. No accident at all. She ran into a cornfield and the car fired a bullet into her chest and then beat her over the head and bit her with its human teeth. And bit her.

So it was the intention. Here's what it was. They were going to knock her unconscious, take her elsewhere, run her car into a tree and put her in there and put her head up against the steering wheel like she bashed her head into the fucking steering wheel and killed herself. That's the plan. I suppose.

Yeah, some 1979 forensics. That could work. Maybe. So Rod asked his wife, Barbara, to meet him early in the morning at the convenience store that she managed so that she could deliver some lunch meat that she was to slice for him.

I don't know. I got a chunk of cubed beef. Apparently she gave him five grand and he gave her a ham to slice for him. Like, I don't.

This is a very strange, separated relationship going on here. I'll be around to pick up my chipped ham. Weird. So that same night, Rod spent the night with his girlfriend, the night before the murder. Now on November 8th, the other person involved is Richard Helberlig. I'm sorry, Heberlig. H-E-B-E-R-L-I-G. He's 33 years old. So we've got a 22-year-old, a 33-year-old, and a 42-year-old. None of these people should be hanging out with each other, and they're all in the same murder plot.

Right. So what they did is they intercepted Barbara on her way to work and

to kill her they acted as police officers they put a fucking side they put a lights they had a light they put it on their car and they put the light on and pulled her over that's how they did it like a fucking mob hit like uh carrick happened the other guy the mob guys that did that the mob cops that would just arrest mobsters and then go murder them they were gone they pull them over take them away and kill them they killed like 50 people for the mob and

Is that right?

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Probably, well, at first, not at all, because there were detectives pulling them over. Right. Handcuffed and thrown in the back of a car. After a while, everybody knew what they were doing, and they were like, oh, shit, if you got pulled over and then those two showed up, you knew you were fucking dead at that point. It was over, yeah. You knew you were fucked, yeah. And one of the guys was in Goodfellas, too. Really? Yeah, he was one of the guys in the bar scene in Goodfellas. They used him for that. Interesting, right? What the fuck?

So because he knew a bunch of mob guys. So they pulled her car over. They intended to beat her unconscious and staged a car accident, but they couldn't knock her out. These two guys beat the living shit out of her and she kept fighting back. That's why they bit her. They bitter because she was attacking them.

She was no fucking shrinking fucking violet here. She weighs 220 and she's not fucking around. She will kick your goddamn ass. They couldn't knock her out. She was fighting off two grown men on her own. It's funny how if you've never knocked anybody out, how fucking hard it is. Oh, it's real hard. It's an actual argument. It's like Funny Farm when they're beating a guy who goes, you're not knocking him out. You're just beating the piss out of him. That's the same thing. It's so hard. You just keep punching him.

You can't knock somebody out by hitting them in the shoulder blades. No. So that's what happened here. They couldn't do it. So apparently what happened is Heberlig panicked and just took his gun out and shot her in the chest because she was winning. She was fighting him and winning. They literally resorted to biting her.

Like that's how much she was winning. So that fucked up the whole accident thing here. When they pulled her over, apparently, we'll get to that in a second. But they then they moved it into a cornfield and tried to set the car on fire. That's why everything's burned under it. Right. They tried to burn it. The fire went out and didn't destroy any of the evidence. It was just.

It's terrible. It's just a lady laying there beat up, bitten with a massive gunshot wound in her fucking chest. Would you just crumble and hit your knees and just start crying about how terrible you are at this? I'm so bad at murder. I would go, I'm never doing this again, obviously. I couldn't even knock out the Turkey Hill convenience store manager lady. Very Sarah Boone of you going, I'll never drink again. I'll never drink again. I swear to God. I'll tell you guys one thing. I'll never drink alcohol again. Oh, all right.

Well, she's punished herself. Everybody, let's let her worry about the moratorium on the giant bottles of Woodbridge. Jesus Christ. So during the course of their investigation, the police came across the five thousand dollar payment from Barbara to Rod. That's what got this all going. She gave you five grand. At first, Rod told authorities, they said, where's the money now? Because he said, I don't have it. And they go, well, where is it? And he goes, I gambled it away.

And they were like, no, you didn't. We checked around. You haven't been anywhere. So then he said, fine. I paid it to Ziering not to kill my wife, though. See, it was an extortion payment to prevent him from killing her. That's what it was.

So they get Ziering in there, and he says that, by the way, he wasn't certain that she was dead when they left her in the car. Oh, that's fucked up, man. She was dead, though, we found out. He shot her in the fucking heart. She was dead. He didn't know, but we find out later that she died very quickly. I guess that Ziering told the trooper here that he was scared to death after Mrs. Fry was shot. He said her vehicle was taken to the cornfield.

he said that he didn't know for sure she was dead. He said that they waited for her to travel north on Route 441, and they pulled out in front of her to stop her vehicle using the red police-type lights that they installed on his vehicle. He bought it at U-Haul, by the way. Is that right? You can just buy that at U-Haul? Apparently in the 70s you could buy that, like a bong, whatever. They had all sorts of shit there. At the U-Haul, we picked up flashing lights and some handcuffs. Yeah, some uppers, they got it all.

So Ziering told the cop that he got out of the car and asked her for her driver's license. She refused to roll down the window and give completely. She did a sovereign citizen thing. She rolled it down a crack and said, I'm not giving you my driver's license.

This is far enough. She knew it was a bullshit stop. She had to have. She had to. That's why she had to have been scared because they're not in police uniforms. They didn't go that far to rent cop uniforms. If they did that, she would have went with the ruse probably. So she refused to roll it down. So then he broke her window out and started to hit her.

And she was nothing was happening. She knew for sure that this was a bullshit. Not normal here. So he said that Rich Halberle got excited and shot her with a 44 caliber revolver. Golly. Big old gun.

So then he said that he got into her vehicle and drove to the Manor Township cornfield. Then they returned in his vehicle, the two of them back away from the scene here. He said two days after the shooting, he paid Heberlig $300 for assistance in the murder. He got five grand. He paid his boy $300. Talk about subcontracting. Fucking cheap. Good Lord. They threw away the .44 gun in the Weaver Town quarry.

They could never find it, by the way. Yeah. He also said that Zering explained details about the murder in a ledger book that was in a desk drawer located in his bedroom in a trailer. Of course, he diaried this. He diaried it. Yep. They said a second search discovered the ledger book referred to by him. He uncovered the book containing the inscription, not for anyone's eyes. Failure to adhere will cause death.

I'm sure the police will go ahead and adhere to that. In there, there's also two newspaper articles concerning Barbara's murder case contained in there. In there, also figure notations under the name, under fucking...

Is that his name? No, under his name. What's his name? Fucking Fry. Rod. Rod Fry. What are the figure numbers? Well, they indicate the following payments. $1,000 October 29th, 2000 November 2nd, 2000 November 9th. Also indicated the last $2,000 was made for the attempt to kill, obviously. He said this is for murder. Like, he put a memo on it.

Other writings. Don't worry, nobody will read this. Showed that he had hocked a ring given to him by Rod Fry here. He also indicated in the book that he reported his .44 caliber revolver stolen to the Bethel Township Police Chief on November 15th. So an earlier search at the residence found various weapons and ammunitions. They said they found a box of .44 caliber cartridges, some of which had an X scratched on the top of the projectile.

Oh, he's trying to get them to break up. Yes. Yes. Trying to make them more deadly. They said that the bullet that killed Fry had an X cut into it. So they connect those. He also said that he examined the box of 40 bullets. 35 had an X cut into the head.

He really put some time into this. He also had a 12-gauge shotgun found in his bedroom, a box of shotgun shells that was similar to a shotgun shell that they found in the cornfield because they just found one on the ground. So he must have had it in his pocket or something and dropped it. And another shotgun shell found on the berm of Route 441 about a mile away from here. They also found a pistol grip box for a grip that would be used for a .44 caliber weapon.

And he said, Zering said he had apparently purchased the .44 caliber weapon from Martin Levin's Sporting Goods in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. And he said that he purchased the bullets as well. And the red lights from U-Haul. He's given his whole fashion outfit here. Oh, my, this from there. Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing? Well, U-Haul and Smith & Wesson. They make a very nice thing together.

Yeah, an Oshman sporting goods. They're all denied bail, obviously, here. All three are arrested. Roderick's trial. All right. Seven women, five men on the jury. And they said the prosecutor said that he was anxious to kill his wife if he thought he could get away with it. He said that his wife has been talking about divorce and filing for it. And he was upset that most of the family estate would be turned over to his wife.

And so that he said that he wanted they say he wanted to kill his wife so she couldn't enjoy her money. His money. Yeah. So the defense argued that he acted under duress. You can't plan a murder and a hit and pay people under duress. That's crazy. Man, that guy is really good under pressure. Well, they said that Zering kept pressuring him for the money for money and that he eventually paid him five thousand dollars to leave his wife alone.

is what he said, which is fucking amazing. Now, Zering is going to testify. That's a bad witness for Rod here. There's evidence also brought in by Rod that Zering is a scary, domineering person, while Fry was susceptible to domination. And they said that several witnesses testified that Zering was, quote, a strange man who had a fetish for weapons and often made threats. A problem. Or a great hitman.

Also, they brought in a ton of inmates that testified that since he's been in jail, he scares the whole jail is scared of this fucking guy. Even though he can't knock out a 40 year old convenience store manager. They said they don't know what he's going to do. They said he's crazed and he boasts in jail that he's extorting money from Rod Fry and intended to kill Rod Fry when this is all over with. Oh, is that right?

Now, Rod testifies. They said, did you meet on the evening of November 7th, the day before the crime with Zaring? And he said, yes, he came to my residence. Do you recall what time it was? Around 11 o'clock. Did Mr. Zaring threaten you in any way? And he said, yes. He said, how was that? Rod said, he told me that if I would even talk to the police about this, I would get the same thing my wife got.

Right.

For 300 bucks. 300. Yeah, this guy's a cheap fucking date, too. He said, do you believe this to be true? Yes. Do you have a fear of Charles Zaring? Yes. And would you explain to me why you fear him? And he said, because he might have me killed now. Because I paid him to murder my mom. You know how that goes. I mean, shit.

So in the closing for the prosecution, they call him a cold-blooded contract killing. They said the thing was purely for money, not for hate or passion. I have a hard time thinking of a contract that could be worse, they said to the jury. Sure. The defense said, hey, come on. You know? Who are you on?

He said, Mr. Ziering is not a nice guy. Mr. Ziering, through the Commonwealth's own witnesses and through witnesses we produced, was proven to you to be a man who always had guns, always had weapons, armed bombs, had books on anarchy, etc., made threats. People consider him a little crazy.

Did Mr. Ziering coerce Mr. Fry in any way or Fry? He said in this situation where there was a sequence of events, you heard about the hiring and following of Mrs. Fry for two months. Was Mr. Fry suckered? Was Mr. Fry convinced maybe this was a good idea? Did it go along that kind of scenario? Is that what happened here? He said, I can't believe that Mr. Fry just suddenly decided to have his wife killed and went to Mr. Ziering and said, here's some money. Kill my wife.

It seems that's exactly what happened, actually. Yeah.

I can believe that. He said, I don't believe that at all. I think there was duress in this case. I think when Mr. Fry tells you that he was threatened, he was threatened. Whether he was threatened before or after he paid the money or for what purpose he paid it, he was threatened. He was threatened before Mrs. Fry was killed. When he tells you that one morning at the Turkey Hill parking lot, Mr. Ziering appeared with black all over his face and a sweatshirt and held a gun and flashlight in his eyes, that is a threat. That is coercion. That's duress.

He said, the psychologist told you about Mr. Fry and what kind of man he is. He has a 91 IQ. He's not a super intelligent person. Oh, he's a dum-dum? That's average, by the way. 90 to 110 is right in the average range. They call him a dum-dum, low average. They're saying he's obviously a fucking idiot, and he's very average. They said he's not someone who I don't think could coldly and calculatingly do this kind of thing without some pressure from another source. Yeah.

I suggest to you again the pressure for Mr. Ziering and that this thing took a sequence of events. It wasn't as if Mr. Fry went over to Mr. Ziering and said, here's $5,000, kill my wife. That's not what happened. The payments were sporadic payments, and the Commonwealth cannot refute that. This thing took a course of action. It went along. It got more serious, more aggravating as it went along. But there was duress.

And that's all that's required in this proceeding. If you believe that Mr. Zaring coerced, threatened, placed Mr. Fry under duress prior to the death of Barbara Jean Fry, that's enough. He's entitled to be in prison for the rest of his life, but that's it if you believe that. If you believe he didn't do it at all, then do that. So, okay. The verdict comes in. They deliberate for six hours on this, and they find him guilty of first-degree murder. First-degree murder. Yeah.

He got five grand from a lady and then paid it to a man to kill her. To kill her. It made her pay for her own death. That's crazy. You cheap fuck.

So the sentencing comes around and his mother, father, brother, they all testify that his personality is not cold blooded. He couldn't have done this unless they were he was under duress or was coerced. His father said he's never been in trouble before. And, you know, he gets on the stand himself, Rod, and he asserts that his guilt phase testimony that Ziering had threatened him and his family was true. And he stated that he had never told anyone that he would kill his wife if he could get away with it.

Someone testified to that. The death penalty can only be imposed if the jury feels aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigators, as we talked about all the time. Aggravators are only aggravating circumstance presented to the jury is that the defendant paid or was paid by another person or had contracted to pay or be paid by another person who has conspired to pay or be paid by another person for the victim of the killing.

You hired somebody, which is cold, cold shit. The mitigators are no significant history of criminal convictions. They say he's under the duress, under the influence of extreme or mental or emotional disturbance. The capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform to his conduct to the requirements of the law was substantially impaired.

They said that he has a 91 IQ. And his attorney said that the psychologist said that his low IQ makes him susceptible to pressure. Okay. So the judge asked him before sentencing.

Anything you want to say for yourself? And he said, nope, I'm good. You didn't even say life's like a box of chocolates or anything? Not a fucking thing. Nothing. No dumb shit thing you could think of at all. All right. He didn't call the guy Jenny or anything. He said then the attorney asked the judge to reconsider...

The whole thing here. Yeah. And – Let's do a do-over. The judge said, Yeah.

Oh, wow.

An application of such current to be continued until you are dead. You, sir, may fuck off. Death in the electric chair. Electric electric chair. Jesus. That's what he said. So he would be, I believe, the ninth person contend to the electric chair here. But an electric chair, a death sentence hasn't been carried out in Pennsylvania in 19 years before that. Yeah.

The last man to die in the electric chair was Elmo Smith, convicted of the rape murder of a 16-year-old in 1960, which is much worse than what happened here, I feel like. Yeah, yeah.

Zering and Heberling, they have their trial. They don't have a trial. They have a non-jury proceeding where they both plead guilty because they're fucked. And then they also had to testify. But they have a deal here in place to not get the death penalty. You, sirs, may fuck off. Life in prison for both of them. Okay. Okay. But he got the death penalty. Yeah. And they did killings and beatings. It's just strange to me. Yeah, but he...

bummed five grand to murder. That's wild. That's unbelievable. That's wild. But that's what I mean. Usually it's the person who does the hiring gets more time than the people who do the killings, unless your name is gypsy Rose. And then it's the opposite. Then you get, then you get to go have babies. Then you get to fucking be an Instagram presence.

Yeah, and be a mom. While your mentally challenged boyfriend sits in prison. And I'm not saying he should be out. I'm saying they both should be in was my point. For sure, yeah. If she admitted it, we've gone over this before. Yeah.

I'm on her side right up until murder. And then I'm like, hey, calm down, lady. Take it easy. Take it easy. So then Zaring tries to pull back his guilty plea because, you know, why not? Because that sucks. It's like this sucks. And they say, you can't do that. Get in there. 1984, Rod is going to appeal this whole thing. And he is turned down.

And by that, they said this was on the basis of his death sentence being excessive or disproportionate as opposed to the penalties imposed on the co-defendants. There's that. There's does the death penalty procedure violate the 8th and 14th amendments of the Constitution?

All this different things here. So the stress factors is death is death penalty. Pennsylvania death penalty statute unconstitutional in itself. The whole thing is going over. Yeah. In 84, they tell him, no, you're dying. You're done.

1988 comes around. Lawyer petitions the state again. And an attorney has vowed to take extraordinary steps to prevent an executioner from carrying out the state's first electrocution in 26 years. He is on the chopping block.

So they file a petition. He's basically five days away from execution and he gets a stay. Really? For another appeal. Yeah. Doesn't mean they didn't, you know, lower it, but it's for another. Consider it. Sure. They're going to consider it. They said that the petition said that Fry under the Post-Conviction Hearing Act, which requires petition contain not contain issues not previously raised in court.

And some of these were things about they had the jury. Had these facts been presented to the jury, Roderick Herman Fry most likely would have been found innocent in the penalty stage and sentenced to life in prison. Because they said that they're so stupid what they're saying to the whole thing. They're saying that the jury didn't know that the other two weren't going to get the death penalty basically is how that works.

So if they found out the other two didn't get the death penalty, they may not have imposed the death penalty on him. They would have given him life to June 12th, 1988. There's a big editorial about how we should just fucking electrocute the shit out of him. The whole thing is really into their 1992. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacates the order that remanded the case for further consideration. So basically told him to fuck off.

1997, the Third Circuit, this time based on different reasons, disagreed and said that Fry did deserve a writ and in 1997 granted it. And they vacate the death sentence and commute his punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Is that right? His family's thrilled. And his family says this from Zaring for them, Zaring and Helberlig to get one thing. And they actually did it. And for Roderick to get this, anyone who calls that right isn't right in the head. I don't care who thinks that. That's what I tell them, meaning he shouldn't he shouldn't get the death penalty while they get one. Yeah.

Which sort of makes sense, I guess. It's their family. They're going to say that. His dad died the day before his sentence was commuted, by the way. Is that right? Cyrus died the day before. Cyrus died thinking his son was going to ride the lightning. Then 2015 comes around and Roderick Fry, 78 years old, at the State Correctional Institution at Greene, dies of natural causes.

Okay. After 35 years in prison. Barbara is buried at the Masonville Mennonite Cemetery. I didn't know she was a Mennonite, but okay. Yeah, she was only 40 when she died. That's rough. She was a week. Her birthday was seven days away when she got killed, by the way. That sucks, too. So there you go, everybody. That is Washington Space Borough, Pennsylvania.

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