THE 1)11L1 COLLEGIAN He came from the front. No one heard her scream. By Kevin Cirilli Lt_ lAN STAFF WRITER HEii death became their lite. For decades, Penn State graduate student Betsy Aardsma's murder has captured the lives of her friends, her family and the authorities who have investigated her death. Althoti2.ll labeled a cold case, it's far from inactive. Authorities work daily to uncover the truth. WIT Ilt they're waiting for DNA test results of Betsy's red dress the same dress she wore the after noon she was idlled. Unanswered questions, unproven theories and unusual memories linger, haunting their thoughts. All are fueled by the same question: Who killed Betsy Aardsma? This November, the obsession turns 40. Leaving Hope I never considered her a saint." said Andrea Marchand, her Universiy of Michigan roommate. - She didn't carry herself that way.. Flets. was the new girl at the UniveNity of Michigan in the late Mos. She left Hope College, in Holland. Mich., after her second rear. - Fin not sure if I ever knew why she transferred, isn't that odd?" Andrea said. Hope is right near where she grew up. I guess she wanted a bigger place." Andrea and Betsy went to movies. playfully smoked ciga rettes and giggled about boys together in their dorm room. The college boys always fell hard for Bets: Andrea said. She wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, but she was pretty enough and educated. Ever - guy that met her was crazy about her, - Andrea said. - Sometimes I just wonder if maybe she had met somebody at Penn State and they were totally crazy about her --- it's just so Betsy was quite the cook, too. She could walk into a college kitchen and whip up a gourmet meal. :\nclrea said. She was never :,hy in offering her opinions, politi cally or socially I met this guy from Holland, "1 he waiter came, I ordered and I burst out oying. I said, My best friend was killed"' and he waS. Dutch. - Andrea said lauhini4. She said 'Don't get together with a Dutchman.' - Foliowimx, her junior year, Betsy returned home to Holland, Mich. Andrea came to visit and the friends traveled out to Lake Michigan. where Betsy proudly accepted a campaign button from a supporter of Democratic presi dential candidate Eugene McCarthy. She supported NlcCartby. who challenged then Democratic President Lyndon B. ,Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. At the start of their senior year, Andrea and Betsy rented an apartment and moved in with two other girls. A few Alpha Delta Phi fraternity boys lived above. one of whom dated a girl living with Betsy. David Wright. another boy who lived upstairs. fell for Betsy, and ior the first time, Betsy fell for the boy. - Sht' was just crazy about David. Andrea said. Betsy in love David said he invited Betsy to a fraternity party then to dinner dates and later to Detroit for romantic evenings. Another place they'd frequent was the campus library The son of a psychiatrist said he never felt this way about anyone be tore -- We were together all the time," he said..As I look back on it. it was my first real long-term relation- On his 21st birthday, they went to a popular Ann Arbor bar where the employees rang a pretzel bell, and she watched him chug his first legal beer. he said. They discussed plans to spend the rest of their lives together after graduation. But while Betsy and David crew closer. Betsy kept the intimate details of her rela tionship from Andrea. - I knew she was seeing David, but I didn't know she felt that strongly about him." Andrea said. To some extent, neither did David. Wright had plans he wanted medical school, a mar riage and a career. He applied to medical school at the University of Michigan. but an uncle told him about Penn State's Milton S. Hershey Medical School. It was in its first few years of exis tence and offered smaller classes. One night, David drove Betsy back to her apartment. She told him she had something to tell him. She stared ahead out the wind shield and told him she got accept ed into the Peace Corps. She'd be leaving for Africa in the fall. "She asked if I would wait for her," he said. "You could meet somebody down there," Wright said he told her. "I could meet somebody here." Years later, David said he heard that Betsy told her friends she was never sure she wanted to be a doc tor's wife. She wanted to travel. Betsy wanted Africa. Betsy had a choice. David told her he didn't want her to leave, but ultimately it was her choice. Ultimately, Betsy chose the boy. She got accepted to Penn State's graduate school program for English just 100 miles from the new Hershey Medical School; 100 miles from David. "You feel guilty that might have changed it might have changed things," he said. "She chose to turn that down and instead go to Penn State." At the end of the summer, David received a letter from Hershey: Orientation had started and he wasn't there. Panicked, he called Betsy. "This started today and I'm not even there," he said he told her. "She said, 'Let's get ready and go."' Dear 01' State It was the last Andrea saw of her friend. Andrea returned to the University of Michigan to earn her masters degree. Although they wrote letters, Andrea said Betsy never mentioned much about life at Penn State. "Maybe that one English pro fessor but I don't know," Andrea said. Professor Nicholas Joukovsky flew from Oxford, England, to begin teaching at Penn State in the summer of 1969. Fbrty years later, he's still here. Just a few feet separate his Courtesy of Andrea Marchand and Collegian archi,, Left: Aardsma in a period photograph. Center: A police sketch of a suspect Right: Authorities sealed off the murder scene after Aardsma's stabbing. Burrowes Building office from the library. His desk window overlooks the brick building. In the summer of '69 he was nervous, particularly about being "thrown into" teaching a challeng ing English 501 course. "We really put them through their paces and a lot of them didn't survive," he said. He was Betsy's professor, whom she would report to while writing her research paper evaluating the works of John Arbuthnot. She became friends with Linda Marsa, who lived near Waupelani Drive and was in Betsy's English 501 class. The new friends went to the Ye Olde College Diner down town and ate grilled stickies together, she said. "She was thinking about the whole marriage thing. It was 1969, just the crust of the women's movement," Linda said. "We all went into it thinking we'd get mar ried and have kids. By that time we were all thinking about maybe possibly having careers. She was wondering if that was what she really wanted." But Betsy's studies were inter rupted with frequent weekend trips to be with David. Week after week, she'd pack her bags and leave State College, heading 100 miles to see him. "Everyone says we were engaged we were not engaged," David said. "We were looking at rings, the idea was that we would be engaged by Christmas. But no, I hadn't given her a ring at that point." She mentioned permanently leaving State College, about want ing to continue her studies at Penn State Harrisburg. She never mentioned any of her classmates. sometimes wonder if she was LOCAL BETSY RUTH AARDSMA: 40 YEARS LATER concerned about someone bug ging her up there," he said. "I just have no idea. She kept saying how ridiculous it was to be apart." David invited her to have Thanksgiving at Hershey with his new friends. She accepted, but upon her arrival began thinking about the pile of schoolwork that awaited her back at Penn State. Betsy had a choice return home early or spend the rest of the weekend with David. Betsy chose to leave. He drove her to the bus station for what would be the last time he ever saw her, told her he loved her and watched her head back to Penn State. David paused and cleared his throat before speaking again. "I honestly don't know who killed her I just have absolutely no idea. That's the honest-to-God truth," he said. "I'm sure [the police] know a lot more about it than anyone else does." A cold case State Trooper Leigh Barrows opened the file cabinet in her Pennsylvania State Police at Rockview office. Nearly a dozen blue three-inch binders line the shelf, part of the thousands of pages she inherited last February when she was assigned Betsy's case. The 1969 edition of La Vie, the Penn State yearbook, rests on a shelf, above a photograph of Betsy tacked to the bulletin board. "I'm not going to comment much," Barrows said. "This case is still under investigation. Several leads are still being followed up on." She didn't specify which ones. But what police can confirm are the same details that have been rehashed, reiterated and relived for the last four decades. Betsy wrote David a letter the day she died. "The eeriest thing about this was Saturday morning, the day after she died, I had a letter from her in my mailbox," David said. She went to Joukovsky's office. Joukovsky wanted her to bring him a book, G. A. Aiken's "The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot," which she had used for another assignment. "I was evaluating that previous project and I wanted to see that key book," Joukovsky said. asked her if she still had it out of the library. She said, 'No, I've taken it back, but I'm going up there right after I'm done here and I'll bring it back to you.' - She left his office just after 4 p.m. She went to Professor Harrison Meserole's office before leaving her roommate and talking to a few other friends. Betsy headed for the stacks. She bumped into another girl, who asked her for a pen. Betsy walked down the stairs and into the stacks. Betsy was stabbed once in her heart. He came from the front. No one heard her scream. But the silence in the stacks was interrupted by the sound of falling books, as Betsy clutched the shelf in the final seconds of her life. Five minutes later. Betsy was dead. "Somebody better help that girl," a man told the other stu dents studying in the stacks as he ran out of the library. Police never identified him. It's been reported that two men were in the stacks with her, but police are skeptical. Some believe there may have only been one. "It wasn't a whole lot of people that went down to the stacks," Linda said. "I think it was some kind of stalker or something. What else could it be?" Tuning out The news swept the nation. Betsy's death would ultimately lead to the creation of the Penn State Police. But for Linda, Andrea and David, the news was personal. f ~~ a' :~ • t y•. .g. :•t y _ s 11. ceri •- hin P.t-• !sr. y "In those days, we didn't kriov, about grief," Linda said. It took me several months to come out ot this funk it wasa pretty bad experience and I blocked it out." Back in Michigan. Andrea heard the news on the radii) During Thanksgiving break. sh walked into her parent's kitchen while her father's transistor ra,!i played on the table. "I said to my mom, That radio said that Betsy had been killed.' " she recalled. "I called the I•cl]) station, and sure enough. that the case.- She went to a restaurant. tryin?, her best to remain composed. "The waiter came, I order d and I burst out crying, - she saii . 1 said, 'My best friend was killed. At 2 a.m. on Nov. 29, 1969, Da \ id awoke in his Hershey apartment to a banging at the door. Tv. o detectives dressed in dark suit took him into the kitchen. For 20 minutes, they questioned him without explaining w 1:. Before they left, they told him t h news. "They said, 'Betsy was 11 - 11.:r dered in the Penn State librar, today,' " David said. "Obviously. I was the main suspect.- He said he wanted to scream the shock paralyzed him. he sat at the wooden tab!_ . silence. The fear. the terror. tH questions began formulating. He walked to the hallway tele phone and called his father \l.llc, would then call Betsy's pareni:- Carole Aardsma. Betsy's sister. declined to comment for this stop.. David met weekly with doer tives at a local hamburger shop fur the next few months. His father psychiatrist, flew out to llershe to be with him and drive him back to Michigan for Christmas so he wouldn't be alone. Upon his arrival, he vent straight to the police station look ing for answers, answers to the same question he's been askiirg for 40 years who killed Betsy? The authorities later cleared him, as well as Joukovsky and Meserole, but David said he still wanted the latest details of the investigation. The funeral was packed with friends and family Andrea and David both said. It was an open casket, a single rose resting in her hands. David's father had brought a dozen red roses to the vick ,, d services. Back in State College. Penn State librarian Wayne Baumgardner reported to work the following Monday with the same fear and paranoia as the re of the campus. Pornography and bodily fluids were later found in the same are, of the stacks where she was found. but police don't believe that had FRID 11, Nov. 20, 2009 I 7 to do with the incident - INahody knew anything," he .‹;)(t. -- Is this person still hanging .a.;)and? What's going on here? I was much more aware of surroundings. You go to work everyday and you sort of take everything tor granted, and then - , ornething like that happens." F.irty years later, the pain ryl - n, Just last year, David told hiL;rown-up children about the girl he dated before marrying their mother. He gave an inter ,v to a newspaper and sent the aiti:!le to his four children. Not one of them would read it," They said, 'Why didn't ni LT tell us?' But by the time the:: would have been old enough understand it. it was fifteen What's the use in Lrer•~in it up in my mind —in Da, id saif', ! . le and his children have ‘( , coneiled. although he has for whomever killed the w I he was certain would have ;11( ;IN wile I , Id hope that whoever did 1 to said. , :!iizollng hope 'ars later, new technolo- polite techniques offer • FBI works closely with lilt- iiiisylvania State Police and are now waiting for the results of Betsy's cloth technolou that wasn't ,40 years ago, Barrows not leaving here 'til I solve iirl'OWS said. "I look at this if I was searching for who did this to a family I treat her like she was , Inv own.- MEM out'ide of the police been captivated by like Penn State Prote, , or Sascha Skucek. : ;lc vas drawn to the case de,o. on the 30th anniver- find whatever answers you're willing to seek 1:, enough. - Skucek said. -oltietimes. life just gets in Ili , has his own theory that I;: stabbed from behind. He s,i(l rows of books are too I ,, 2(,:ther for anyone to have ~.la h ij r -d her from the front, !lot interested in writing a book the case has just become hohh•.c for him. He keeps Betsy's picture in his wallet. .The killer will have a tie to Bet in some manner—she saw :-(:rreliang. - he predicted. "The iii!er is >tiL alive. - He and Barrows both believe Hct in some way knew her killer. If I thought it was random, I v,()lildn't waste my time and I'd iyave it to God.' Skucek said. The lure of an unsolved mystery captures Skucek but it's become , rsona I for Barrows. For her, it's not about the Betsy's death it's abuu her life. It's about the girl ',;ho wanted to go join the Peace Cotps. the girl who wrote innocent letters. the girl who left Hope. - She came into our county lint, our slue -- in that short pen- A 1 i time and loses her life. To me per.“Jnal Barrows said. tsy not forgotten." ~ onrter kncso63@psu.edu
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers