Arthur Burton Schirmer
Claims to fame: Former pastor, Reeders United Methodist Church, Reeders, Pennsylvania; adulterer; suspected wife-killer (or wives-killer)
Moral apex: Arrested September 13, 2010, and charged with murdering his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer, in 2008, and staging a car wreck to make her death look like an accident.
Details? Cops say he beat his wife about the head (she had a hella lotta head injuries for a slo-mo accident), then “crashed” their car, with her in it, into a guardrail.
Why’d you put the word “crash” in quotation marks? Because the police established that the car was going a mere 25 miles per hour when it hit the guardrail, and not 50mph like Schirmer said it was.
How’d they get him? Well, a couple of years ago, a guy by the name of Joseph Musante killed himself inside Schirmer’s church. Turns out, cops say, Schirmer was having an affair with Musante’s wife, Cynthia. This made the cops rethink Betty’s death, so they went back and re-opened her case — and did some DNA testing, which turned up what they think is Betty’s blood on the floor of Schirmer’s garage.
Wow. OK, so this was Schirmer’s second wife, you said? Right.
What happened to his first wife? Glad you asked, so we can say…
But, wait! There’s more! In 1999, when Schirmer was pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church, Jewel Schirmer, the Good Reverend’s first wife, died after reportedly falling down a flight of stairs. The circumstances of her death have never been fully resolved, and the case is still open.
You mean he killed both his wives? Only Schirmer knows the answer to that question. But we figure if the cops are suspicious, they’ve got to have a pretty good reason. It was Musante’s suicide that led the fuzz to look more closely at Betty’s death, and Betty’s death that led them to look more closely at Jewel’s death — which, by the way, it sounds like the cops currently working Betty’s case didn’t even know about until fairly recently. (The deaths took place in different counties.)
Anything else? Not really, although we’ll be following this story with great interest, so stay tuned. Oh, that, and the Pocono Record has a very helpful timeline of events. And here’s an interesting news video:
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schirmer:
If a man strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.— Numbers 35:16
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