Chapter 1 – A Broken Window
Friday December 24, 1965
Mrs. Ethel Steinmetz looked at the sky as she walked the short block from her home at 22 Poplar Street to the house on the corner of Linden shortly after 11:00 on the morning of December 24. A few clouds were in sight, and the forecast was for a chance of showers by evening. I guess we’re not going to have a white Christmas this year, she thought.
She was on her way to see Carrie Layser who ran an insurance business out of her home. Ethel had a small problem with her policy, but she was certain that Carrie could clear it up in no time. Just routine.
On arriving at Carrie’s house, there was no answer when she rang the doorbell, which was strange. She went around to the back and found one of the back door window panes was broken, completely smashed in, but the door was locked. She tried knocking and called Carrie’s name. Going around to the front again, she leaned on the doorbell. Still no response.
Now she was worried, but she wasn’t sure what to do.
Returning home, she called her neighbor, Mrs. Helen Barry, who lived around the corner on Church Street.
Helen Barry was the second grade teacher at the Richland School, and she knew what to do. She immediately alerted her neighbor, the borough’s mayor, Martin Steiner, who called Richland’s part time policeman, Officer David Sheetz.
Officer Sheetz arrived at the Layser house and began looking around. He rang the doorbell, just in case. He went around to the back and saw the broken window pane in the back door.
While he was doing this, he was joined by Carrie’s neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Keller and Mrs. Helen Getz.
They told him of seeing a car in Carrie’s driveway earlier that morning, and it was definitely not Carrie’s.
Officer Sheetz wanted to enter the residence, but he didn’t want to disturb the back door in case this really was a break-in; there might be fingerprints or other evidence that could lead to the perpetrator. So he began looking for some other way to get inside.
The two women thought Carrie might have kept a spare key to her house hidden on the front porch, but when they couldn’t find one, Office Sheetz found an unlocked window, crawled through, and let them all inside through the front door.
Once inside, Officer Sheetz noticed that the broken glass from the back door had been neatly swept up. Plus, the downstairs hadn’t been ransacked, and the women couldn’t see anything that was missing or out of place.
“This is looking less and less like a break-in,” said the officer. “Perhaps Carrie lost her keys and broke the back window to let herself in. Then she swept up the mess and went to bed. What if she’s just feeling ill? I don’t want to embarrasses her. Why don’t one of you women go up to see if she’s all right?”
This seemed to make sense.
There were plenty of valuables downstairs, if a burglar had broken in, there were lots of things to steal.
The women breathed a sigh of relief.
Mrs. Keller volunteered to run upstairs and check on Carrie.
Going upstairs and into the hallway, she still noticed nothing unusual or out of place. She was sure this was just a false alarm and she’d find Carrie safe and sound in her bed.
When she opened the bedroom door, there was a streak of light focused on the bed.
Carrie Layser was lying there completely nude except for a pair of panties. There was blood, seemingly fresh blood, streaming from her face, from her nose, her face had been battered, badly battered, punched almost beyond recognition.
Carrie Layser was dead.
As Mrs. Keller recalled the scene later: “Oh! It was horrible! I stood at the top of the stairs and started to scream…I don’t think I kept quiet after that.”
| Previous | Next |