Elsie Mae Schoffstall, a 62-year-old-widow living with her bed-ridden mother in Lykens, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, was found dead on her living room floor on the morning of 1 November 1979. The police investigation and autopsy concluded that she had a head wound and multiple scull fractures – and had been strangled and sexually assaulted. There was no evidence of robbery.
This was the fourth such murder in the Lykens Valley area in a three-year period, the first occurring in early April 1977 in Tremont, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. In the four investigations, a similar pattern emerged: (1) All four victims were elderly widows. (2) All four victims were beaten about the head and strangled. (3) All four victims were found naked or partially naked and sexually assaulted. (4) Robbery or burglary was not found to be a motive. (5) In two of the four crimes, an alleged perpetrator was arrested and brought to trial – but acquitted. (6) None of the crimes were solved.
This post is one of 9 chronicling the discovery of the Mrs. Schoffstall’s body and the police investigation. The story is told through articles that appeared in a Pottsville newspaper.
From the Pottsville Republican, 12 February 1980:
Lykens won’t install more lights
LYKENS – Additional street lights for the borough ere are out for the time being. The town cannot afford to install any more.
Requests from various residents to put up street lights in darkened areas was met with some chagrin by council after it voted unanimously in December to install street lights in the 900 block of Main Street and the 700 block of Park Road, not far from where Elsie Mae Schoffstall was murdered in Novermber.
“What you do for one, you must do for all,” borough secretary Harold Shambaugh told council in quoting the spirit of the state code governing boroughs.
In that light, council members said they may be setting, or may have already set, an expensive precedent. Members decided not to install a street light on Oak Street, the site of the latest formal request for a light.
The last street lights cost the borough $385 each….
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For all other parts of this story, see: Who Killed Elsie Mae Schoffstall?
News clipping/article from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.