She saw the soles of his sneakers and the stitching of his jeans and knew what he was wearing. He imagined what it must have been like for her and led her back into the world. And I now understand why they were the way they were in raising children. "It was a long time ago . But they still grieve each time they do. I had no idea it was murder. It was who I was. I was over it. He knew Todd better than anyone; knew, he says, that "Todd was out there by then. "The next thing you know," Betsy says, "I had a hand around my mouth and a knife at my neck, and a voice said, 'I'll kill you if you say a word.'". The killer across the table : unlocking the secrets of serial killers and predators with the FBI's original Mindhunter / John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. She wrote about the memory in an email. He was retired NYPD, and once she got home, he took her back to the scene of the crime in order to find evidence and get the story straight. Its title was "We're Number One," and it offered Paterno as a rumpled antidote to a nation obsessed with winning at any cost "a man who is maybe less neurotic about being No. To Karen, Paterno's call "was kind of an admission that his football player did it, and he was expecting me to move forward." The young man at the door said that he worked for the Police Boys Club and was soliciting local men to be volunteer coaches. What are you gonna do?. Hodne tried to rob him, but Hirsch struggled, and they fought, Hirsch in the front of the vehicle and Hodne in the back. His girlfriend held his hand. I think I need to see a psychiatrist. "It was buried," she says. Betsy remained one person, because although Karen, Susan and Adrienne Reissman all wanted to bring charges against Hodne, none were deemed to have enough evidence to do so. Ann Sailor lived near Pittsburgh when Hodne raped her daughter, Betsy, and she was accustomed to regular front-page stories about Penn State football and even, occasionally, the off-the-field peccadilloes of its players. The store was closed on a Sunday morning, but Hodne wanted to go in. Im so excited for this post because I have not yet researched a female serial killer. Sarratt was convicted of violent crimes in Florida and murder in South Carolina. In 2002, he died in a Las Vegas hospital at the age of 58. Hodnes crimes, which began in 1978, were enough for a prosecutor to once say Hodne was among the three most dangerous, physically imposing and ruthless excuses for a human being I ever faced in court, according to the publication. She did not know what her father had done until after he died, when the prison handed her the few bags containing his belongings and personal effects. He was the roommate of Hodne's friend Kip Vernaglia. Web"I have prosecuted serial killers and capital cases. Smith's father contacted Hodne's local precinct, which investigated. And so he became . Penn State Departments. In excruciating detail, the ESPN story recounts how Hodne broke into womens apartments in State College and raped them at knifepoint. Penn State faced scrutiny when retired football coach Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. Mitinger had returned to State College after he retired and helped players headed for the pros with their contracts. Her grandmother was wearing a robe not her own. Of course, Joe Paterno could not have foreseen that Todd Hodne would go back to Long Island nor what he would do when he got there. He attacked with a knife to the throat, and when he attacked women, he made sure they couldn't see him, but he also liked to suggest they knew him. So it was the magic of the moment and just seeing him and being able to hug him. "If we're covering this because he's a football player, why aren't we reminding people that he's a football player?" WebESPN has branded the story as that of a sexual predator who lurked in Penn States football program before Jerry Sandusky, the once-acclaimed assistant coach who was arrested in It was different when dealing with specific cases, she says. The names of Ragucci and of the women other than Betsy Sailor had been redacted, but the document raised the possibility that the Hodne investigation in State College included multiple sexual assaults in addition to the rape of Betsy Sailor. And he'd be up there going at it for hours at a time. Baker also has taught a media relations course at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. They weren't at fault, but I just felt bad. Nobody even remembers what was said. He had lost most of his hair. But the only local print coverage of the conviction came in a story two days after the verdict in the Centre Daily Times, written by staff writer Molly Bliss and reporter Jane Musala. She remembered a woman named Betsy as "the only one who could actually pin [Hodne] down" at the time. Susans father, who worked for the phone company, traced the calls to Hodnes Hamilton Hall address. The Utes and Nittany Lions will meet for the first time in the 109th edition of the Granddaddy of Them All on Jan. 2. It was one of my kitchen knives. In her ad she wrote: "Female roommate needed to share quiet apt. If they resisted too much I would run away. Simmers told Dateline that he remembers following campus security into the library, back to the dimly lit stacks where several books were scattered on the floor stained just a little with an unknown liquid. When she discovered that photos she kept of herself were missing, she knew they had been taken but couldn't be sure by whom. The football was everything, my self-worth. But now I could hug him and look at him and hug him again.". "But I thought, why didn't he ever pick up the phone and call parents? WebSerial killer documentaries are a modern version of this, with a true crime mystery twist. Caitlin Griffin, a Penn State University alumna, never thought about being an attorney until Nonetheless, when Hodne was charged with raping Betsy Sailor, one of Hodnes former teammates, Tony Capozzoli, recalled that Paterno told him not to testify on Hodnes behalf and implies he was kicked off the team for disobeying. I only vaguely remember [Todd Hodne's] name," he replied in a handwritten note. . She was 22 years old, without a job and estranged from part of her family. They are gone or resolutely silent now, the men who might be able to shed light on how Hodne could be apprehended without his spree being stopped. She had heard some of the other women had received phone calls after their assault, possibly from the assailant. On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the universitys main campus in State College. I do believe my mother responded back to her. One was a student who dressed up either as a female or as a police officer and fondled and battered women at gunpoint. You will need a police escort wherever you go." He dragged her back to the porch and said, "Maybe I'll f--- you. Then, on opening day of fall practice I had to bounce three players off the squad for losing their playing eligibility for academic reasons. She was prepared to go to court and press charges against whoever had done this to her. He remembered the "arrogance" of the Penn State lawyer, Bob Mitinger. Hodne arrived in State College in 1977 as a prized recruit from New York's Long Island, and in 1978, he was the Penn State Rapist. It was a deep connection that was, I guess, ever-present but never realized. "I'm sick of this s---," he finally said. As the son of a coach himself, Capozzoli often bridled at Paterno's authority, and he says he "wasn't afraid of him." Gary Ridgway from 1982 to 1984, managed to kill over seventy teenage girls in the city of Tacoma, Washington making him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Hodne had been convicted on March 3. However, the part of the question that I found that it was somewhat hard to answer revolved mainly around recognizing the signs of a serial killer and what the average serial killer would look like. F--- you, Joe Paterno". Now, as Jeffrey Hirsch lay brain dead in a hospital, Hodne was in his own bed in Wantagh and his parole officer, Lenny Smith, came by for a visit. Hodne was indicted on four counts of first-degree rape, three counts of first-degree sodomy, three counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of second-degree burglary and one count of first-degree attempted rape in Nassau County Criminal Court. The Aug. 19 crime is the first of a series of sexual assaults for which Todd Hodne would be investigated. We have 25 people in there, and he's charging at the door for beer that he stole from Fiji House. When the phone rang, the call came through a line that a few weeks before had been cut by the blade of a knife. Further records from their investigations have since been lost or purged. The mother is 84. ", Betsy liked taking the calls. Also in those files is a report in which Musser questioned Hodne, and later his parents, on the day he was arrested in State College. But making a choice had given her a strong sense of freedom and relief, and she celebrated by "doing those silly things you do when you're living alone"singing to herself and "dancing with the refrigerator door." The books had been reshelved and the floors had been mopped. The Pirkl family remembers Capozzoli also calling Georgette Pirkl's husband to tell him that the player he coached couldn't have done what Georgette had accused him of doing. She went back outside and was allowed to see her mother and grandmother for a minute before she went to stay with a neighbor. Betsy called every few weeks. The wound, which was one inch wide and three inches deep, hit her pulmonary artery. He played in at least seven games in the 1977 season, including the Fiesta Bowl. '", After the interview, Musser wrote a brief report, dated Oct. 19, 1978. WebFor the latest COVID-19 news and information, visit Penn State's Coronavirus Information website. Washington State is home to one of Americas most notorious serial killers: Ted Theodore Bundy. Even former players said openly, for quotation, 'He should have won that one. 'No,' Joe said. "You got the wrong guy," Capozzoli said of Hodne, even though a few months earlier his own son Tony had testified in Hodne's rape trial in Pennsylvania. She lived with her roommate, Jean, in an apartment building on Beaver Avenue and Jean had gone away for the weekend, something she never did. But of course, they also remember, and the most consequential witness is offered by the women who survived the ravages not just of time but of Hodne himselfwho survived their hours in the dark with a 240-pound Division I football player with a knife in his hand and no particular interest in their survival. Simmers immediately called the state police barracks located about eight miles away from campus and they went back to the library. WebSome say her killer was serial killer Ted Bundy, as it was discovered he was at Temple University around the time of the incident. I testified and went home for a few days, and when I get back, my room key doesnt work. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. They just looked at me.' In March, Surratt finally confessed to Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) from behind bars in Florida, where hes serving out two life sentences. "And that was not something that could be corrected by making an example of him. I kept screaming it, and he kept telling me not to scream. I learned through my research that serial killers are able to kill their victims without remorse or guilt by looking at their victims as objects instead of human beings. And you don't have the decency to at least write a note? Hodne could hit. All my s--- is gone; somebody moved it. His relationship with his long-term girlfriend "started to fall apart" and "at that time I felt that it was because I was no longer playing football and I was unable to deal with that rejection. He went on to say that he has no idea what happened to Hodne or where he went and that Hodne's conviction "got substantial press," was "dealt with at the time," was "one incident 42 years ago" and was "an anomaly at Penn State." Aisle 51 lit up. According to a police report, he first said his name was "Tom Harris." ", There were other memories. She reached back and grabbed the knife, but he threatened to cut her if she didn't let go. IE 11 is not supported. "And for him to show up was our first realization that the accusations could be true.". And, you will never have to be afraid, or be alone again. After Tuesday practices, a bunch of them used to go to the Train Station, a downtown restaurant and bar with a caboose out front. It was part of what made the summer special. ", Betsy had heard what happened to women who accused men of raping them in open court"the horror stories" of what awaited them when they took the stand. They wound up staying in the house in Oyster Bay Cove because Kathleen's father was a lawyer who had deep ties to the community and political ambitions. "He was still our boy," as Pankey says. Then he began to sense that Hodne was also different from everyone else. "The monotony of putting that shuttle back and forth in the loom, it was cathartic for me," she says. She studied for a while, relishing her time alone, and then, near 10 p.m. went upstairs to tell her landlord she was going to the store for some cat food. He was found not guilty of Possessing Offensive Weapons. Nothing had gone untouched. But she made Hodne run, and the people who knew her story were, she says, in awe of her. He said, 'But I don't want him treated any differently than any other student,' and that was the agreement we had in those years. If you have the time, Id recommend a show on Netflix called Mindhunter. Burning it felt like voodoo. And when she realized who it was, she wondered immediately how he knew her name: "Karen, this is Joe Paterno," the man said. Georgette Pirkl, as one of the five, made her daughter proud. "And he didn't try anything. Sorry!Jerry.". She would hear about it in school, through whispers and rumorswhat her mother had to do. From the manner in which Ridgway killed his victims, which was through strangulation with a ligature, one would expect Ridgway to be a social outcast and stand out amongst the rest when it came to what society deems as normal behavior for the average individual. The researchers used the mass media method to gather data for the study. Todd is manipulative and will likely take advantage of those who are physically and emotionally weaker than himself.". I knew from a really young age that my father was killed but not the specifics. There are so many people who worked this case, doing everything they can do, Simmers said. On the night of Aug. 18, 1978, Karenone of the five State College womencame home to an empty apartment. I dont think I revealed much of anything., Karen later recalled that Paternos phone call was kind of an admission that his football player did it, and he was expecting me to move forward., He was trying to ascertain if I was going to go to [the Betsy Sailor hearing] and if the police had discovered anything concrete, Karen added. ", On the last day of 1978, "60 Minutes" profiled Joe Paterno. I only recently learned the extent of my father's crimes in July of 2021. But her car was small, a Mazda RX-3, and he was big. "And that brought things to lightwhat the situation really was. He bound her wrists and then blindfolded her with athletic tape and pushed her inside. The love from your father is the first true love you know, and I don't have that. They went together to visit the county clerk at the courthouse in Bellefonte. Evolution doesnt mean youre predetermined to do certain things or act a certain way, Harrison said. She told her father. My recollection is that he came out and asked me if I was going to testifyif I was planning to go to court." They have also discussed five to seven other cases outside of the state polices jurisdiction, The Associated Press said. He explains the attempted rapes on his record by saying he stopped if they resisted. But according to a report detailing a conversation between Ptak and Duane Musser, Ptak responded to a request for an interview "by stating that Coach Paterno had made a statement to the football players that no one speak to anyone in regards to this case without his permission." With the national championship on the line midway through the fourth quarter, Paterno called a conservative run play on fourth-and-goal from inside the 1-yard line. The area was being cleaned up. There was no question in my mind that Joe was doing the right thing. She had just turned 22. "There were shrieks of horror. . She was a baby when Hodne killed her father; her oldest sister was 7, her youngest sister was six months old. Baker never used the word "rape." "I think he might have. "The knife used in this incident was shown to Ragucci," the report reads. "I have a picture of when she first got to Florida, and I've never seen her smile a smile like that," Kathleen says. Your email address will not be published. It was a rather shallow conversation. She's going to be home any minute.' she heard him open the back door (outside exit) and then he came back in. Days earlier, Sandusky had been accused of sexually abusing young boys for more than a decade. At each stop, Karen not only came away with nothing, she was told that her files didn't exist. He climbs out of the car one long limb at a time. At the time of the Sandusky revelationsat the time a 2012 report determined that Paterno failed to respond appropriately when made aware of the accusations against his assistant coachthe general public's understanding was that this was the first time this program had been faced with the prospect of a serial sexual predator in its midst. Ralph Willard, who was the athletic director at the time and went on to coach basketball with Rick Pitino at Louisville, says, "I don't remember there being any problems with Todd, to be honest. You know boys like these: someone had to prove himself, someone had to dominate. We obtained a copy of Musser's report from the Centre County district attorney's office last fall. "And that's when I learned everything," Kathleen says. It's not normal for someone to want to do this, and I want to try to straighten out, you know.". When police arrested Ridgway in 2001, they were alarmed to discover how well he was able hold a friendly conversation, how intelligently he spoke, and how well he dressed and groomed himself. 'Oh, my Godit's one of Joe Paterno's football players? "When I think back on him doing what he did, I'm amazed that he even thought strongly about it. "Police were authoritative and, presumably, they were doing the right thing. WebIn the piece, former Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno is accused of turning a blind eye while Hodne violently attacked his victims, ransacking the lives of women in the dark.. Hirsch had been a successful salesman in Maryland and was about to start his own business when his mother contracted cancer and he came back home to Long Island to take care of her. In hearing after hearing, Hodne tells the parole board that he did what he didthat he became what he becamebecause he wanted to feel the way he did when he played football. She didn't know the football players who came into the Train Station because she didn't particularly care about them: "I was not boom-boom rah-rah. "So I said, 'Look, Joe'I laughed at him. Georgette's two children were in school. It took child sexual assault for the public to become outraged.". She had taken on the institution of Penn State football and, alone among Hodne's victims, had brought her case to court. ", The next morning, June 18, 1978, there was something else Hodne wanted. I considered going to Joe [Paterno] and asking him for a room change. He was big and strong, entitled and enabled. The police dispatched a K-9 unit as Hodne fled through the backyards of Huntington. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. That fall, Hodne went on to attack 24-year-old Adrienne Reissman as she was getting into her vehicle in a dark alley after work. Capozzoli's conversation was different, as was his relationship with Paterno. ", A few years ago, Kristen says, she was contacted by the parole board. It's frustrating, Keibler said in an interview with Lancaster Online back in 2010. Sunday marks 52 years and her killer has never been caught. . It was just stupid stuff, circa 1979. The trial had been held over spring break when the campus newspaper wasn't published. But maybe we judged her wrong, looking at the events of the following years.". Adam Jordan Gott, Penn State Harrisburg, and Susan M. Hughes, professor of psychology at Albright College, also participated in this work. Required fields are marked *. Mitinger died in 2004 and Miller in 2007. And I'm like, 'Fine.'" Todd Hodne died of cancer in a New York prison in 2020 while serving time for Hirschs murder. Karen won't go into detail about what happened that night when her attacker found a way in and found her alone. The actor talked to The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Galloway as part of Loyola Marymount University School of Film & Television's 'The Hollywood Masters' series. But later, Ragucci will always remember one thing about his new roommate: his knife. A part of me wanted to grab it, but a part of me said, it's time. Smith was headed for the door when he saw one of Todd's brothers sitting in the living room. It's possible I made some attempt to help him. Miller's son, John Miller III, still works at Miller, Kistler & Campbell. These he suspended unilaterally. He weighed about 250 pounds. There is no logic or reason to it.". When she returned, she noticed some potted plants that had been on the windowsill were on the floor. And from then on, he knew me. And then he had his way.. Now Todd had been arrested and was free on what the brother calls "a $25 station house bond." And yet, just as there is a cost to keeping silence, there is cost to breaking it. It was a quiet Thanksgiving week on campus in the fall of 1969 when 22-year-old Betsy was stabbed to death in the stacks of the Pattee Library. Yeah. "It's, 'Bail is revoked; see the sheriff, please.' I love the man. As an evolutionary psychologist, I wondered if something left over from these old roles could be affecting how male and female serial killers choose their victims.. Karen lived near Pittsburgh. The athletic department decided to bring in players who would help the Capozzolis win a championship before Tom retired. Hodne had not shown up for therapy in months. All my s*** is gone; somebody moved it, Capozzoli said. But she had not seen him during the attack because he covered her eyes with a scarf and then her head with a pillowcase. Kudos to her for not being buffaloed.". She had never seen Donald Pirkl cry. Georgette Pirkl answered. The reporter who wrote it admits now that she had never heard of him. "Is this going to be some kind of exposé about Penn State?" "He was kind of scaring me I think a little bit," she says. And she started putting cracks in stories. WebJune 3, 2021 10:13pm. She kept her car parked close by, in the alley behind the restaurant. It just wasn't normal. But he believes it was someone who was close to her. Authorities called Paterno about to ask about the players whereabouts and Hodne surrendered to authorities days later. But what I was after was each time I had sex with a woman it was like a reaffirmation of who I was of my self-worth. WebMale and female serial killers tend to choose their victims and commit their crimes in different ways, which may be due to thousands of years of psychological evolution, Really: Who the f- are you? I don't remember too much about what I revealed or didn't reveal. Jeffrey Dahmer is probably one of the most well known serial killers and convicted sex offenders. According to wide receiver Jimmy Cefalo, who later wrote a series of articles for The New York Times detailing his experiences playing a big-time college sport, "Coach Paterno called the seven Fijis on the football team into his office on the afternoon of the protest and told us to stay away from the house during the demonstration. We circled back to Paterno. As punishment, the Trump Organization could be fined up to $1.6 million. Maybe the fault is with us." District Attorney David Grine had prepared Betsy Sailor for the trial, instructing her to dress conservatively and to refrain from being too emotional on the stand. She was driving in her car at night. I learned through my research that serial killers are able to kill their victims without remorse or guilt by looking at their victims as objects instead of human beings. His wife, Mary Beth, was at his side. It was magical. However, in State College, Pennsylvania, two things happened on Aug. 19, 1978: Karen was sexually assaulted at knifepoint in her apartment in the early morning hours, and that same afternoon, Joe Paterno told reporters after practice that Hodne's name had been deleted from the Nittany Lions' roster. He had been excommunicated. They took the records to the police department. After countless hours of watching crime documentaries and looking through multiple cases and trials pertaining to serial killers, I still found parts of this answer to very unclear. Ragucci could figure out easily enough why he wound up in this unlikely pairing: "I was a pretty good student. Hodne was convicted on three very serious charges, and the cops thought these convictions would be enough. The student newspaper ran an editorial that year counting 35 rapes and sexual assaults in and around Penn State as of September. When Hirsch stopped on the dark street, Hodne threatened him with a knife. He did not stop Hodne. ", The protests wound up on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer's metro section and catalyzed investigations by the State College police, Penn State's student affairs department and its interfraternity council. The first victim was found on August 26th 1985. Students were milling about.. Paterno, in those days, was famous for doing the right thing. He was squeamish about it in the best of circumstances and doubly so in the worst, for he clearly viewed sexual violence in terms of sex rather than of violence, his usual righteousness giving way to awkward befuddlement. He insisted on innocence as well as power. My recollection is that he came out and asked me if I was going to testify if I was planning to go to court.. And it was there she saw the other women; it was there she realized the differences between them. His face was bruised and cut. The State College Police had Hodne's fingerprints on file ever since the Record Ranch burglary, along with his photograph. A question often arises about the revelations in this story, a retrospective question about the responsibility and culpability of the coaches, players and university officials, as well as of the cops, lawyers and judges, who found out about Todd Hodne in real time, without the benefit of hindsight: The story of Todd Hodne is so full of pain that to recount it is also to hope that someone steps in and stops him. Its one that sticks to me to this day. Paterno sometimes called him a "wise guy from Long Island." Jean was dating Penn State defensive end Clyde Corbin, and Karen often accompanied them when they went to downtown bars like The Saloon for pitchers of beer. A sketch was created from a description given by one of the witnesses who said they saw a man running away, but a suspect has never been named, Simmers said. A Penn State football player had raped a Penn State student, and Grine had won a conviction. She was a 52-year-old woman at home with her mother, Caroline, who lived with Georgette and her family. They kept that quiet. But she also believed back then in Joe Paterno, and she expected something of him: "The decency and humanity to acknowledge the pain that the women [Hodne] hurt suffer. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! But they did. The rest follow, wondering if they should tell one of the coaches what they just saw. She was an artist and a self-described hippie. David DeKok, author of Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away, told Dateline that the answer to him is clear Richard Haefner, another Penn State graduate student, murdered Betsy. The former Patriot-News reporter decided to write a book about the case which focuses on Betsy and the investigation of the murder. He said, "If you tell the police, I'll kill you or someone you love. Hodne put Hirsch in a chokehold, breaking his neck before driving away with the victim still in the taxi. One day at school, a classmate told her, "They got him." This theory, however, was later disproved as They were going to have a cookout in the backyard, and so they went to the supermarket. They didn't think he did it because they didn't think he needed to do itbecause he already had two girlfriends, one from home and one from the Penn State swim team; because he seemed to have his pick of any girl he wanted. And I'm like, 'I'm not going to make it through my freshman year.' He answered the call at the White Castle, and Hodne gave him the address on a side street behind the Walt Whitman Mall. Simmers told Dateline there are many theories floating around about what could have happened to Betsy. Hodne came to Penn State in 1977. He crushed her. ", Once, Karen had pushed her memories aside. She is not surprised this time, and when the door opens, she embraces him, then clings to him, as if steadying herself after losing her footing. When he returned to State College, he was arrested, and on June 21, he, along with his friend from the neighborhood, were charged and later convicted with felonies. Historically, men hunted animals as prey and women gathered nearby resources, like grains and plants, for food, Harrison said. The next day, she called back, asking how we had gotten her name. And that's what freaks me out. He could have closed ranks, and said, 'We don't talk to her; she's done something against one of our brothers.' She does not in any way minimize the extreme brutality of the attack; when it was over, she felt certain that he would kill her, and she saw "the white lights." He walked past her and went to Hodne's room. She spoke of the rape as she always had, forthrightly and with nearly forensic precision. Kristen Hirsch is close in age to Hodne's daughter. Now go try and take care of yourself.'". We would go to study hall, sign in the front and slip out the back and have someone sign our names. Instead, she wrote a statement addressed directly to his victims: "There is nothing easy about this for any party involved. Dont put anything inside me. After countless hours of watching crime documentaries and looking through multiple cases and trials pertaining to serial killers, I still found parts of this answer to very unclear. But the football coach, Tom Capozzoli, had been at St. Dom's for about a dozen years, and now he had a star playerhis son Tony, who had won the national Punt, Pass & Kick championship two years in a row. On Sept. 13, 1978, 21-year-old Betsy Sailor who had placed a classified ad in the school newspaper in search of a female roommate met with Hodne when he responded on behalf of his "girlfriend," a ruse he devised to meet Sailor. WebThat includes serial killers. But there was never enough evidence to make any arrests.. Later, the police asked about his hands. State College police, receiving this lead, sent fingerprints from the scene at Sailors apartment to the FBI, who traced the prints to Hodne, which were on file from the record store robbery. He had been hiding in her room for as long as she had been home and had used that time to make preparations. He brought his knife to school and, according to Poggioli, "definitely" kept the quarters in his fists when he, as a freshman, battered a senior who challenged him. She had heard some of the other women had received phone calls after their assault, possibly from the assailant." "It may have been that I just trusted myself to get out of a bind," she says. It was not that way in State College, where only one of the women whom Hodne was suspected of attacking went to court, and where the rest had to grieve privately for, among other things, their loss of faith in the place they were supposed to love the rest of their lives. In July, he was questioned about a rape that occurred on his block in Wantagh but was told he wasn't a suspect. What did she mean she knew he was involved? As Paterno put it in the 1980 Sports Illustrated profile, published one year and 14 days after Hodne was convicted in Centre County Court for the rape of Betsy Sailor, "We have never covered up things around here. ", The story of a Penn State football player convicted of the rape of a Penn State student did not include the words "Penn State football player." His teammates listened, and they had to decide whether to believe him and what to do if they did. The Hodne family gathered around Todd. I would use the necessary force to make them have sex with me. I can't actually say to you that that was an institutional response as much as it was the response of individuals in leadership who were trying to assist the football team or the athletic department.". When she opened the door, a man pushed her inside and showed her his knife. Along with one other Nittany Lion teammate plus one of his friends from growing up, Hodne was convicted of burglarizing a record store, in which the trio stole about $800 worth of merchandise. Miller asked whether she had opportunities to leave during the two hours Hodne was in her apartment. Finally, Samuel Little was convicted in 2012 of having killed three women between 1970 and 2005. ", Paterno's longtime offensive line coach Dick Anderson remembers Capozzoli's dismissal differently, saying: "I think he's making excuses for the fact that he was never good enough to play at this level." I'm sorry you haven't been able to tell your stories; I'm thankful you can now. When she heard it, she felt herself split in two, so that she also heard herself, her own voice saying, "Oh no.". Hodne served three years for Sailors rape and four years for his Long Island attacks, a total of seven years of a 21-year sentence. Both Georgette Pirkl and her mother died at 81, Caroline two years after the attack. In October 1978, Hodne was finally caught on the strength of three fingerprints and a traced phone call. Her mother, Georgette, and her grandmother, Caroline O'Neill, were in the driveway next door. "But when he asked for her razor, she told herself, "No way I'm giving this guy my razor," and decided to gamble. She was an arts education major. "So right off the bat, he says, 'Todd Hodne is guilty, and if you testify for him, you're off the team,'" Capozzoli says. He moves with the unmistakable gait of a man who played football for a living, a 63-year-old man in a Hawaiian shirt and a ball cap who doesn't hurry, even in the rain. It means that it may be possible to make predictions about behavior based on our evolutionary past. In his announcement, Paterno said that Hodne will be able to return to the team "if he has a good academic year and if he proves to us that [the robbery] was a mistake." That's how Hodne got his nickname: "Shemp. She had grown up there but had moved away with her family; she had come back to work as a nurse's aide and was staying with some old friends. Several months after the burglary, a then-21-year-old Penn State student named Betsy Sailor was interviewing prospective roommates. But justice had still been done. And now here they are, reunited in 2021 over something that happened in 1978, Irv eating snickerdoodle cookies in the kitchen of a State College rental and Betsy immediately angled against his shoulder. Having a daughter changed my father in more ways than I can express, but that doesn't change what he did before my birth. 1, maybe he should be.". We requested reports of her case but were told by State College Police that they no longer existed. The only universal response to trauma is grief for what came before. He had begun to violate his parole requirements and by the start of summer, he had not seen his therapist in months, and his uncle had fired him from his job with the family business. I felt that prison was not going to be the answer for him and was only going to make him harder. "Do you recognize my voice?" '", It was not easy for her. The Golden State Killer was a serial rapist turned serial killer who terrorized Californians in the 1970s and '80s. Everyone either wanted to be her friend or wanted to date her, Simmers said. She was not easily embarrassed, and she did not shy away from describing anatomical details if they helped her case. "I realized at this one moment that this is not a matter of my knowing this is right. His lawyer, Martin Silberg, notified the prosecution that he intended to file an insanity defense. The harsh reality is that in most cases there are no signs and the person you may have just opened the door for or had a friendly and engaging conversation with could this form of murderous killer. I agree whole heatedly that, for whatever reason, serial killers have become a fascination of American culture. He never did. He remembered Betsy Sailor and Susan and where they lived. Bob Mitinger was a fixture around Penn State's athletic department. It took a few hours for the police to produce a warrant for his arrest. ", Seven years after Todd Hodne went to prisonthree years in Pennsylvania for the rape of Betsy Sailor and four in New York for the serial crimes on Long IslandFrancis Quigley wrote a letter. "It was front-loaded with football players." The one thing Betsy didn't say, wouldn't say, was that she had been raped. I think he might have,'" she said. He was checking in with his parole officer each week and seeing a therapist about his drug use and sexual compulsions. And that is exactly what Betsy saw when she looked at the courtroom in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 25, 1978. He was hiding in the closet. Betsy Sailor lived in New Hampshire. We went back over to the library, he said. It was a close-knit brotherhood, so to speak, kind of like an army platoon." How did a football player know she was home alone? And, until this day, in the summer of 2021, they each had to do it alone. At Hamilton Hall, they lived between the two "jock house" fraternities, Phi Delta Theta and Phi Gamma Delta, otherwise known as "Fiji House." She tried to pull away from Hodne after that, but he wouldn't let her. You brought that rapist on to this campus, and you gave him money to come. But the impression I got was he knew it was that guy [Hodne] but he wanted to probe and see if I knew that it was him. Georgette Pirkl made it into her 80s after surviving Hodne's sustained brutalities on April 23, 1979, in Oyster Bay Coveafter surviving being raped and sodomized in the presence of her mother Caroline O'Neill and then watching the lingering aftermath of Hodne flattening Caroline against the sidewalk. Ragucci recalled to ESPN that Hodne was fascinated with his knife. They left, but on their way back to Hamilton, Hodne saw an opportunity. It does not say Hodne's crimes began during the 1978 season, when the team was contending for the national championship. I don't think she ever enjoyed herself again until they got to Florida, and then they were like little kids. They never do. ' Actor then began moving around the room opening dresser drawers. If nothing else, as a parent himself. She remembers surviving the semester by "never going alone, ever, anywhere" from that point forward. He failed to inform his parole officer that he had been questioned by the police. The second was that she would go into "information-gathering mode," and try to remember the details of everything that happened, though her assailant did his best to prevent her from doing so. And that was the break between him and I. "He would say, 'All we have to do is pretend he sprained his ankle yesterday and go on,'" remembers Booker Brooks, one of his longtime assistant coaches. Betsy never met them, and they never met her. It's a reminder of how slowly change has come. A pre-sentence investigation was ordered and the defendant remained free on $25,000 bail. But when news came out about Hodne being arrested for the attack on Betsy, she read the details of his build and felt certain it was him. I know there is nothing I can say to undo the damage and trauma you and your families have endured. Then she spoke to a caller who connected with her over common interests and made her decision. The linebacker, Hodne is his name, gets up and without a word pulls the knife from the wall. "The whole purpose of the trip was to get her away," Ellen's friend Kathy says. "But when she picked up, she did not hear the voice she feared. Kathleen was lucky to be at school when Hodne invaded their home, but the more she learns about what her mother and grandmother survived, the more she understands the generational obligation survivorship entails. He put his hand over her mouth and the point of his knife into her ribs. Beersometimes sold to tables by the casewas so extraordinarily cheap that the players followed weekly specials that let them drink nearly for free. I guess I was kind of shocked that part of the university that I admired would do that.". Had he gone to trial, he could have been sentenced to a minimum of at least eight years up to 25. Bundy began his killing career in the early 1970s in Washington, mainly preying on young college women. State College police sent fingerprints from the scene to the FBI, who traced the prints to Hodne, which were on file from the record store robbery. We have examined hundreds of pages of surviving, often heavily redacted, documents and have done hundreds of interviews with Hodne's friends, girlfriends, family members, teammates and coaches, as well as those who investigated and prosecuted his crimes. People came down on me as though I had committed disrespect to Franco's memory. He didn't even try to kiss me goodbye. I don't want any part. The editor, William Welch, and Ciervo are now deceased. The victims all reported that Hodne was sadistic and based on my investigation into the case and my interviews with the victims, I believe that the victims were lucky to live through their ordeal. But she didn't know everybody else was in danger until she looked behind the passenger seat of his car. Remarkably, Hodnes bail was not rescinded after his guilty conviction. It sounds as though he had problems well beyond what I was capable of helping. she asks now. He bound her with cord he had brought for the purpose and told her to "go down" on him"and if it's not the best I've ever had, I'll kill you." The only thing she found amiss was a telephone book open on the floor, and she wondered to herself how her landlord had been able to hear such a small disturbance. But while working on a previous study, Harrison started to notice a difference between male and female serial-killing patterns that she was interested in exploring. Her father forbade him from coming into the house, so he used to park down the block and wait for her in his yellow Torino. He misses, but not by muchthe knife sticks in the wall, vibrating like a tuning fork, a few inches from Poggioli's head. "On the outside, I was the All-American kid," Hodne says in a 2019 parole hearing, the year before he died. For her family. But I spent my entire freshman year praying I wouldn't be arrested. I had such a hard life with her. There was little press surrounding the assaults at the time. It had been weeks since she had been attacked there, but the apartment still felt to her like a crime scene, a place that had been turned over and rummaged through. Back to what we now know was a crime scene.. He had called them in, wanting to know what each of them was going to say on the stand. Or call in tips to 860-370-4850. It was his voice that had shattered her during the attack, when he had said, "I'm going to rape you" in a way that had destroyed all doubt and all hope. Ridgway targeted prostitutes as they were easy for him to get alone and take advantage of. In Karen's mind, the horror of the attack would always coincide with fond memories of her last summer in State College. It gave us the names of the other womenKaren (who asked to be identified only by her first name), Susan and Adrienne Reissman (as well as of another former Penn State student who did not respond to our calls)and access to their stories and voices. I give my deepest condolences to you all and your families". When she saw Todd Hodne's photo in the local newspaper, she recognized him. WebThe Frankford Slasher was active in the Frankford region of Philadelphia from what is guessed to be 1985 to 1990. In them were many of his crimes. "I have been a prosecutor for nearly 30 years," wrote John B. Collins, who prosecuted one of Hodne's crimes, in a letter to a parole board. It was believed she had fainted, or had a seizure. Jeffrey Hirsch, a cabdriver and father of four, died on Aug. 16, 1987. ", St. Dominic won the state Catholic High School Football League championship in 1975, in Tom Capozzoli's final season as head coach. We succeeded in reaching her once and never again. The coach who recruited both of them remembers Hodne as a good kid: "If he wasn't a good kid, we wouldn't have brought him to Penn State." I never took what he said to heart. We could all relate, so to speak." ", Four months later, on May 2, 1986, Hodne was released from prison after serving the minimum seven years of his 21-year sentence, by unanimous vote of the parole boardor, as John B. Collins later put it, "for some unfathomable reason, the New York State Parole Board saw fit to unleash this monster on the unknowing public after serving only the bare minimum of the sentence imposed by the Nassau County Court." 1. Believe me, it was bad. It comes up in conversations. It was a hole. On April 30, Barbara Johnson went out for a run near her family home in Bethpage, halfway between Wantagh and Oyster Bay. He lies. Joe could just do anything he wanted and nobody was going to question him. ", Hodne was extreme in everything, in particular the activity that so many football players took as a privilege of being on the roster. He knew the police were interviewing me. Next second, the kid takes out a knife and throws it at him. On October 25, 1978, Hodne was arraigned for the rape of Betsy Sailor. The next year, he became The Penn State Rapist, wrote ESPN. She remembers what she was wearing because she has asked herself so many times what she looked like that night, what he might have seen. And yet she was still telling herself that he was there to rob her. But I didn't know the things I'm finding out now.". It was time to get rid of that book that ruined our lives. He would say hello to me on campus if he would see me." It knocked her senseless. '", It was a paradox that turned out to be a tragic flaw. He posted bail and was released the same day. She had heard from the police that there were others who had been attacked recently. She tried to turn on the bedroom light. Surratt, who has been in prison since 1978, implicated himself in the killings of William and Nancy Adams, Guy and Laura Mills, Joel Krueger and John Shelkons, PSP said. He never mentions the Hodne case. Hirsch, a father of four, died five days later after he was taken off life support. Her brother told her to burn it"that it was time to put Mommy's grief to an end. Neither does Dan Riley, the strength coach. But back then, that didn't matter. "And I was never able to really express that fully and say a long overdue thank you. She heard her daughter say, "Please don't hurt my mother." There is nothing easy about this for any party involved. When the police at the precinct received word from the hospital, they accepted Hodne's story, writing in a preliminary report: "double overdose of two gays with one in the hospital and the other under arrest by uniform for unauthorized use of a taxi." These incidents were widely covered in newspapers and magazines, first one at a time and then in an onslaught. They had to poll each of the jurors, and hearing that, 'Guilty, guilty, guilty,' gave me a very unsettling feeling. He talked, you listened, and to be honest with you, it would never have dawned on me to go to the newspaper. ", Despite his best efforts, Todd Hodne did not destroy all of them. They looked at each other. Women were more likely to be given nicknames that denote their gender like 'Jolly Jane' or 'Tiger Woman,' Harrison said. You know what I mean? But for those who have spent years trying to solve her case, they fear her story is becoming a faded memory. At Hodne's trial, which began on March 1, 1979, Mitinger, along with his associate John Miller Jr., from the law firm of Miller, Kistler & Campbell, represented a defendant whose crimes could not be written off as the result of youthful excess. "They got hold of me and asked about him being let out on parole. "And I looked at him. "I don't think it'll ever be over.". She got over the attack, she says, "the day after it happened. I believe it helped me understand a little bit better the damage that I caused. Ferrell has no memory of her. And Hodne's daughter did not know about them, either; she had been told by her family that her father had killed a drug dealer in a drug deal gone wrong. She tried to tell herself it was normal until, she says, he showed up at a club where she was dancing with friends, grabbed her by the ponytail and swung her into a steel post. The result, says retired officer Don Smith, was that Hodne, at 15, was "custodialized" by the juvenile justice department of Nassau County and compelled to return the stereo equipment he had stolen. But she knew that men don't view shaving in terms of the bath; they view it in terms of the mirror. We just assumed that the school, the administration, the football folks and the police were all doing the right thing. And he was my guardian angel. When she began kicking at him, he hit her across the head with his fist or his forearm. The incident generated public protests. "He said, 'You have to do this.' It was "a guy car, sporty but 1970s big," and she sent us a photo that corresponded to what she remembereda photo of a 1971 fastback Pontiac GTO, light green. They did not have to say anything; they simply included her, so that if they went to a party so did she. He goes, 'You still have your scholarship; you can go to school. "He knew how to get away. According to ESPN's "Untold" feature story, Hodne attacked at least 12 women. Additionally, 65.4 percent of male serial killers stalked their victims, compared to 3.6 percent of female serial killers. It is not just a story that hasn't been told; it's a story that doesn't exist, even in obscure corners of the internet. Oh, God.". His father owned the cab. Even Ridgways wife of thirteen years, Judith Lorraine Lynch, also never expected that the person that she had married and had kids with was the Green River Killer. ", She was opening the door of her car when she felt someone behind her and heard him say, "Give me your wrists." Betsy was found beneath a pile of books in aisle 51 of the stacks and a library employee called campus security. His daughter Mary initially said she needed some time to think and then didn't respond when we followed up. He gave chase and arrested Tom Harris at the duck pond where he had parked his yellow Torino. 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