PA PA - Betsy Aardsma, 22, murdered in Pattee Library, Penn State, 29 Nov 1969

[Kiki]

It may be someone who Betsy never knew but nonetheless believed he had a realtionship with her. A stalker may not necessarily follow her but hang around in common student areas hoping for a glimpse of her. Someone who watched her from afar would never be suspected. Betsy may have committed an unforgivable sin in his eyes by smiling or looking at another guy or something like that and he killed her in a jealous rage. Alternatively he could have killed her so no one else can have her. The two men who found her may have subscribed to the philosophy of "don't get involved." Unfortunately, a lot of people feel like that.

 

[MaryLiz]

That's a very interesting scenario shadowangel brought up...one that I never thought of. It would be easier for a girl to get away with this because investigators have probably always been looking for a guy as the perp. I wonder if they even considered the female student who reportedly found Betsy?

I'm still torn by the 3 following possibilities:

1) That it wasn't a student who committed the crime and it had something to do with her past. The perp was possibly someone from Michigan where Betsy was from rather than someone from PA.

2) It could all boil down to just a random act by someone who wanted to see what it was like to kill someone and poor Betsy just happened to be the unfortunate victim.

3) I also feel, like Kiki mentioned above, that she was being watched. For a long time I believed she had been followed by someone very discreetly but it's also a very interesting possibility that Kiki presented, that someone could have been watching her from a distance and not "following her" per se. I still feel this could have been done by someone who was infatuated with her, and Betsy either knew it and had rejected his advances or else it was someone who was secretly hung up on her that she didn't even know about.

As we have discussed before, there is just so much about this that doesn't make sense, but virtually every scenario someone puts forth is a very real possibility.

 

[shadowangel]

My primary train of thought on this case was this....In most of the cases I've read about where a stalker/jilted ex-lover/wannabe boyfriend commit murder, there appears to be a pattern to the crime. First, they confront the victim, professing their love and devotion. Second, they seek (and even expect) their feelings to be returned. If they are spurned, its at that point that they kill, and most usually in an explosion of anger---multiple stabs, etc. Some times they also injure themselves afterward. Of course, this isn't the case in all murders, and probably not in most, but its' the scenario I had in mind.
The person who did this wanted the victim dead. No confrontation, no discussion, they did not want Betsy to live another day. It has been suggested that the fiance, being a med student, would have the knowledge of anatomy to injure Betsy in the way she was killed. To me, one of his fellow students would have that same knowledge. That's when the idea of a rival for his affection came to me.
Consider Amy Fisher, the infamous "Long Island Lolita". When she could no longer stand the fact that her much-older "boyfriend" refused to leave his wife, she showed up on the wife's doorstep, rang the bell, and shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco point-blank in the face.
Just sleuthing food for thought.

 

[littlehorn]

Where do you get that magazine? Never heard of it.

I have a link to it from the front page of the website now...

 

[littlehorn]

Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate...And throwing a few different ideas out there...
Now...As I've read most of the posts, a common idea is that this was committed by a jealous wannabe-boyfriend, upset at her recent engagement, or a thrill-kill. However, there is another possiblity, with the scenario arranged in the news article.
What if this were not committed by someone jealous of the soon-to-husband, but someone jealous of Betsy? The student hears screams which As she would problably feel if the killer were a female. I have to wonder if the boyfriend left any women scorned when he became engaged to Betsy.

Again, I'm sure most of this is contradicted by other information. Just posting some random thoughts to get the brain cells working.

I clipped your post down a little bit in my reply, trying to get all the salient facts in without making my reply too long to be readable.

Interesting thought. The police obviously assumed the killer was male and I don't know how much attention was paid to the females involved in the case. The female who found her requested that her name not be released and so she has gone down in history as one of many possibles -- because her name exists only in the police file, so a couple of people have since claimed to be first. Additionally complicating things are the fact that several of the women who claimed to have been first have since passed away. So we haven't been able to independently contact them and verify stories.

Expanding on the jealously idea, someone of either sex could have been jealous of Betsy simply from the general "goodness" of her life. Being engaged, working on her Master's degree, and I've even read (only in one article) that she was "up for an assistant professorship," which could mean some professional/academic jealously came into play.

We feel that the killer was definitely left-handed due to the angle of the blade penetration -- something which is fairly new thought, as the coroner wrote in his report that he felt the killer was right-handed and approached from the front. So we've been working from the assumption that (s)he was left-handed.
The thing that gets me is the desperation -- as someone stated to me in an email, the killer almost had to assume that he would be caught. So does that mean the killer *had* to kill Betsy, or just that (s)he *had* to kill and Betsy was there?

 

[littlehorn]

It may be someone who Betsy never knew but nonetheless believed he had a realtionship with her. A stalker may not necessarily follow her but hang around in common student areas hoping for a glimpse of her. Someone who watched her from afar would never be suspected. Betsy may have committed an unforgivable sin in his eyes by smiling or looking at another guy or something like that and he killed her in a jealous rage. Alternatively he could have killed her so no one else can have her. The two men who found her may have subscribed to the philosophy of "don't get involved." Unfortunately, a lot of people feel like that.

The new information we have found may or may not support Kline's theory that one or both of the men who offered assistance chose, for personal reasons, not to get involved. It's tough in that it makes the case that much more messy because those same two men would have been there and the killer may or may not have known that they were there while the act was happening...

 

[littlehorn]

That's a very interesting scenario shadowangel brought up...one that I never thought of. It would be easier for a girl to get away with this because investigators have probably always been looking for a guy as the perp. I wonder if they even considered the female student who reportedly found Betsy?

I'm still torn by the 3 following possibilities:

1) That it wasn't a student who committed the crime and it had something to do with her past. The perp was possibly someone from Michigan where Betsy was from rather than someone from PA.

2) It could all boil down to just a random act by someone who wanted to see what it was like to kill someone and poor Betsy just happened to be the unfortunate victim.

3) I also feel, like Kiki mentioned above, that she was being watched. For a long time I believed she had been followed by someone very discreetly but it's also a very interesting possibility that Kiki presented, that someone could have been watching her from a distance and not "following her" per se. I still feel this could have been done by someone who was infatuated with her, and Betsy either knew it and had rejected his advances or else it was someone who was secretly hung up on her that she didn't even know about.

As we have discussed before, there is just so much about this that doesn't make sense, but virtually every scenario someone puts forth is a very real possibility.

That's the problem with this case...It's ambiguous enough that any idea could be a great idea, and without the information the police may have (even WITH it, if it could be had) we may never know the truth. I think this is part of the reason that police are so reluctant to take new information -- they've likely heard EVERY theory in 39 years and without some information to back it up, every citizen contact becomes another wild goose chase.

Like the Zodiac case (re-read both of Graysmith's books while in Africa) it eats at you and worms its way into your consciousness.

I just hope we can find out the truth or at least more of it from our contacts with people involved.

 

[littlehorn]

That's another thing that makes this so interesting...Did the killer *KNOW* that single stab wound would be fatal? If so, how? Obviously the killer did not wait around to find out given the time frame (although because of all reports, even the time frame is in question). One former investigator told me: "1/2 inch in either direction and we'd be talking to her today."

Having just come back from safari, I can say that shot placement is huge in how fast or slowly something dies. I shot a baboon (largely regarded as vermin in Africa because they eat and destroy the babies and small animals around the country) and despite making a "perfect" shot with a 400-grain solid bullet, the baboon was able to run @ 30 yards and expire under some brush almost four minutes later. The body has an innate will to live which transcends most human-made attempts to destroy it.

Sorry for the disturbing image, but it may relate in the sense of not knowing that a single stab would with a 3 1/2" knife would be fatal...

 

[shadowangel]

The person may not have been certain that the wound would kill, but that to me seems the intent---not just to injure or frighten. Stabbing to where one believes the heart is can only be intended to cause death. Its entirely possible that the killer got lucky with where the blade actually entered, but the intent seems clear to me. From what I've read, there were no signs of hesitation wounds or defensive wounds.

Welcome back, by the way.

 

[kline]

That's another thing that makes this so interesting...Did the killer *KNOW* that single stab wound would be fatal? If so, how? Obviously the killer did not wait around to find out given the time frame (although because of all reports, even the time frame is in question). One former investigator told me: "1/2 inch in either direction and we'd be talking to her today."

Having just come back from safari, I can say that shot placement is huge in how fast or slowly something dies. I shot a baboon (largely regarded as vermin in Africa because they eat and destroy the babies and small animals around the country) and despite making a "perfect" shot with a 400-grain solid bullet, the baboon was able to run @ 30 yards and expire under some brush almost four minutes later. The body has an innate will to live which transcends most human-made attempts to destroy it.

Sorry for the disturbing image, but it may relate in the sense of not knowing that a single stab would with a 3 1/2" knife would be fatal...

When I used to hunt Ive had to track a deer a half mile that recieved a through and through lung shot from a 30.06 .
Your observation is right on.
Like weve already mentioned the killer had no reason whatsoever to not think that Betsy wouldnt scream and cause a tremendous ruckus that would have drawn everyone in a 500 yard radius right to them.
But the killer choose to do it anyway.
Which as we both know can be interpeted so many different ways it probably makes your head hurt as much as it does mine
Safari! How cool is that ??Did you take the oportunity to introduce the North American snapping turtle to the dark continent?
You didnt need to go to Africa to find a Babboon though I know dozens of them.

 

[kline]

Oh,by the way...the deer I mentioned was a buck so anybody who's thinking of turning me in as a POI to the 'Who Killed Bambi's Mother ?' thread can just forget it:crazy:

 

[littlehorn]

The person may not have been certain that the wound would kill, but that to me seems the intent---not just to injure or frighten. Stabbing to where one believes the heart is can only be intended to cause death. Its entirely possible that the killer got lucky with where the blade actually entered, but the intent seems clear to me. From what I've read, there were no signs of hesitation wounds or defensive wounds.

Welcome back, by the way.

Thanks. I definitely agree that causing death was the intent. However, by not knowing that it would be as perfectly fatal as it was, raises a bunch of questions:

1. Did the killer know her, or was he a stranger and unafraid of being identified in case his attempt was unsuccessful?

2. Did she know him or was she speaking with him since she did not try to defend herself?

Interesting points to ponder...

 

[littlehorn]

When I used to hunt Ive had to track a deer a half mile that recieved a through and through lung shot from a 30.06 .
Your observation is right on.
Like weve already mentioned the killer had no reason whatsoever to not think that Betsy wouldnt scream and cause a tremendous ruckus that would have drawn everyone in a 500 yard radius right to them.
But the killer choose to do it anyway.
Which as we both know can be interpeted so many different ways it probably makes your head hurt as much as it does mine
Safari! How cool is that ??Did you take the oportunity to introduce the North American snapping turtle to the dark continent?
You didnt need to go to Africa to find a Babboon though I know dozens of them.

This is my thing, like you say, the killer had every expectation that an ugly confrontation would occur...But he did it anyway.

I'm waiting to hear from my partner as to whether he uncovered anything new while I was gone.

While I didn't take any snapping turtle over, I did see a lot of amazing animals and stuff. Shooting the baboon was merely a favor for the ranch owners -- the baboon troops eat the babies of other animals, destroy stuff, etc. Dad was the one hunting, I just went along to observe. ;

 

[littlehorn]

Oh,by the way...the deer I mentioned was a buck so anybody who's thinking of turning me in as a POI to the 'Who Killed Bambi's Mother ?' thread can just forget it:crazy:

LOL, I like this one a lot.

 

[MaryLiz]

Oh,by the way...the deer I mentioned was a buck so anybody who's thinking of turning me in as a POI to the 'Who Killed Bambi's Mother ?' thread can just forget it:crazy:

LOL!!! Good one...I also like your line in the previous post where you said littlehorn didn't have to go to Africa to shoot a baboon!


Welcome back, littlehorn. Sounds like you had an exciting vacation!

:woohoo:

 

[littlehorn]

LOL!!! Good one...I also like your line in the previous post where you said littlehorn didn't have to go to Africa to shoot a baboon!


Welcome back, littlehorn. Sounds like you had an exciting vacation!

:woohoo:

Marybeth,

Yes, it was fun. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

That said, I'd love to go back.

 

[kline]

Marybeth,

Yes, it was fun. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

That said, I'd love to go back.

'Livingston,the drums have stopped...it's quiet...TOO quiet..'

 

[littlehorn]

'Livingston,the drums have stopped...it's quiet...TOO quiet..'

Oddly enough, we were in Zimbabwe, which is where Livingston was years ago.

 

[Talisman]

littlehorn,

I am so glad your vacation was so much fun! Wow, and you are ready to go back again!

 

[kline]

Oddly enough, we were in Zimbabwe, which is where Livingston was years ago.

That would be so cool to travel like that,ive never been out of the country.
Actually Ive hardly been out of the Pacific Northwest except on a few occasions.
After all the work youve been dedicating to this case a change of scenery must have been just the ticket.
By the way I sent your a private message check it out when you get a chance.