The Burnside Skeletons, Part 2: Shamokin's First Mass Murder

 

Note: This is the second of a three-part series. Click here to read Part 1.

One interesting piece of new information to emerge from the first day of the hearing was the testimony of 30-year-old Robert Reichwein, who had been the anonymous caller who had telephoned the Coal Township police. Robert testified that on September 26, he and Sebastian Yost had been sitting in Yost's car when the conversation turned to the latest rumor about the missing girls.

"At that time I mentioned to Yost something about the rumors concerning three girls being found in the area," said Reichwein. Yost had told him that he had also heard the rumors-- but they weren't true. Reichwein said that Yost offered to take him to the burial site, but he declined the offer because he thought his friend was joking. However, a few days later Reichwein and a friend, Albert Patti, ran into Yost and the talk once again turned toward the mystery of the missing teenagers.

"He told us he and Rocky (Scandle) and Ziemba each killed one," Reichwein stated, adding that Ziemba had killed one of the girls with a tire iron. "When he told me about that we decided to get a flashlight and go to the area," he said. "When we got there, we found bones protruding from under the rocks." 

"Now do you believe me?" Yost reportedly said to his horrified friends. Reichwein said that he was tormented by what he had seen for about a week, and after a night of drinking he finally broke down and told his wife about what had happened. She convinced him to make the call to the police.

At 2:20 in the afternoon District Magistrate Moore issued an order demanding that Yost be returned to jail, without bail, to appear before the grand jury. "I feel that the testimony presented here today is sufficient to bind the defendant over for a hearing in county court," declared Moore. Yost did not take the stand during the preliminary hearing. Scandle's preliminary hearing, which was set for Friday, November 7, would also take place at the Northumberland County Courthouse.

As expected, Joseph Ziemba repeated to the magistrate the same story he had told the previous week. Scandle, who was represented at the hearing by attorneys Roger Weist and Jack Youngkin, showed no emotion during his friend's testimony. When asked by District Magistrate Moore how he wished to plead to the charge, Scandle firmly replied, "Not guilty". A bill of indictment charging the three men with murder was presented to the grand jury, which would convene on January 8, 1975, and Scandle was transported to the Schuylkill County Prison.

On December 17, Roland Scandle was released on $100,000 bail. The conditions set by Judge Michael Kivko were unique; while he was out on bail awaiting trial, Scandle would not be permitted to live, work, or set foot in Northumberland County. This stipulation was made primarily because Scandle's parents lived just a few doors away from the family of one of the murder victims, but also because there were fears of "vigilante justice". Witnesses who testified to Scandle's "good character" during his December bail hearing included an assortment of priests, relatives and former teachers. Father Thomas R. Haney, principal of Lourdes Regional, presented school records showing that Scandle had been a member of the student council for three years, and had been the class vice president during his senior year. Scandle had also been a member of the track and wrestling teams, as well as a member of the Dramatic, Key and Prep clubs. After his release, Scandle returned to his job in Muncy, Lycoming County-- a necessity if he wished to earn money to pay for his defense.

 

 

A Classmate's Shocking Claim

On January 10, 1975, the grand jury reached a verdict, and a total of nine bills of indictment were brought against each of the three defendants. At the formal arraignment on January 23, the defendants would enter their plea and decide whether they wished to have a jury trial or a trial before a judge. During his formal arraignment, Scandle showed considerably more emotion; after District Attorney Ranck had read each of the indictments and asked how he wished to plead, Scandle exclaimed, "Not guilty!" 

But his fervor did little to help his cause; after the arraignment, Scandle's bail was increased to $300,000 after five witnesses for the commonwealth testified that Scandle was a "big dealer" in drugs (an allegation which Scandle and his attorney vehemently denied). This witnesses included a former Lourdes classmate, Gary Gunther, who testified that he and Scandle had been using LSD, speed, marijuana and other drugs since the ninth grade. According to Gunther, they often bought the drugs at Bucknell University in Lewisburg. But Gunther also made a chilling statement; he claimed that in June of 1973, he went to Atlantic City with Scandle and Ziemba, where Scandle met a girl and tried to have sex with her. When she refused, Scandle lashed out in a fashion that was not dissimilar to his purported action in the Burnside woods. "Scandle got mad and wanted to kill the girl and throw her in a lake near the place we were staying," said Gunther. "But we stopped him."

A few weeks later, county judges Michael Kivko and Frank Moser made headlines when they dismissed the motion for a change in venue requested by Scandle's attorneys, claiming the defendant would receive a fair and impartial trial in Northumberland County. Even those who wished to see all three of the accused die in the electric chair balked at this statement; the case of the "Burnside Skeletons" was easily the most followed story in the county's history up to that time, and the three missing teenagers had been the source of daily rumors throughout the region long before the first bones had been uncovered. In an attempt to prove this point, Scandle's attorneys had introduced 92 articles devoted to the crime that had appeared in two county newspapers during the month of October. The judges noted in their ruling, however, that nothing defamatory or prejudicial had appeared in any of those articles.

On April 4, Sebastian Yost was formally arraigned before Judge Moser. Yost requested a trial by jury after pleading not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy. After the arraignment, the district attorney announced that the trial of Sebastian Yost would begin on April 21. Joseph Ziemba's arraignment took place on June 2, as all of Northumberland County waited to see if his defense team could strike up some sort of plea agreement. The former basketball star agreed to plead guilty to three charges of second-degree murder; in exchange, he would testify on behalf of the commonwealth against Yost and Scandle. Judges Moser and Kivko agreed to the deal, and District Attorney Ranck told reporters that Ziemba's sentencing would be deferred until all three defendants had been tried in court.

 

The Murder Trial of Sebastian Yost

 

The first of the three highly-anticipated murder trials began on Monday, June 23, 1975, with the selection of the jury that would vote to convict or acquit Sebastian Yost. By Tuesday, just five of the 21 potential jurors interviewed had been accepted. Under Pennsylvania law, in trials involving a capital felony with one defendant, the prosecution and the defense are permitted twenty peremptory challenges apiece, meaning that each side could "veto" up to twenty potential jurors without cause or reason. By the end of the first day of jury selection, the commonwealth had used one peremptory challenge, the defense used five. The twelfth and final juror, a truck driver from Sunbury named Barry Mutschler, was selected on Thursday. In total, 76 prospective jurors were rejected by both sides-- some the result of peremptory challenges, others dismissed with cause.

The "anonymous tipster", Robert Reichwein, was among the first witnesses called by the commonwealth and his testimony gave a punch in the gut to the defense, who, on cross-examination, contended that Reichwein might have been either on drugs or intoxicated when Yost had told him about the location of the gravesite. Reichwein admitted that he had been drinking that night, though he was not a "regular user" of drugs. The parents of the slain girls were also called as witnesses, though the only new piece of information to come of their testimony was the identity of the fourth girl who had been with Carol Ann Taylor and the Long sisters. This girl, who had made the potentially life-saving decision not to get into Roland Scandle's green Chevelle, was identified as seventeen-year-old Sharon Johns, who was later called to the witness stand.

According to Miss Johns, she had dated Roland Scandle in January of 1973 and thus became acquainted with Yost and Ziemba. On the night of the murders, Miss Johns had met the three girls in front of the J.J. Newberry store and was talking to them when Scandle drove up with Yost and Ziemba in the car. Scandle called out to Sherran Long and asked if she'd like to go for a ride. She consented after her sister and Carol Ann Taylor agreed to come along. Miss Johns declined the invitation, and watched as the six of them drove away. By her estimation, it was around 6:45 in the evening. When cross-examined by Roger Haddon, Miss Johns said she never went to the police after the disappearance of her friends because her mother had warned her to "stay out of it".

 

 

Interestingly, when Ziemba took the stand to testify against Yost, there were several discrepancies in his account of what had transpired on the night of July 19, 1973. For instance, he had initially told District Magistrate Moore that it had been Roland Scandle who first made the suggestion of killing the girls. But during the Yost trial, he claimed that it had been Sebastian Yost's idea. He also stated that he had struck Carol Ann Taylor over the head with a wrench at Scandle's urging-- a detail that he had apparently "overlooked" at his preliminary hearing, before he had made a deal with the commonwealth that prevented him for facing first-degree murder charges. Surprisingly, Judge Moser refused to allow the defense to cross-examine Ziemba. If they had, there's a very good chance they would've picked apart his testimony piece by piece.

On Monday, June 30, Judge Moser allowed an early recess because Dr. Halbert Fillinger, the last witness for the prosecution, was delayed in arriving from Philadelphia. Several defense witnesses had taken the stand that morning, including Sebastian Yost's mother, Marian, who claimed that her son had been at his trailer home on West Wood Street the night of the murders. Sebastian's infant daughter, she claimed, had been taken to the hospital on July 17 and treated for chest congestion and an eye infection, and Yost had picked her up at the hospital on July 19, the day of the murders. Marian Yost said that when she went to the trailer to check on her grand-daughter on the evening of July 19, she found Sebastian in the living room holding the baby. 

In a rare move, Yost took the stand in his own defense, and insisted that he did not leave his home on the night of July 19, 1975. He then went into incredible detail about his activities that week. According to Yost, the week had been filled with wild parties, beer, cocaine, heroin and marijuana. But, on the night of July 19, Sebastian and his wife, Pat, had received a call from Shamokin State General Hospital to pick up their baby-- a claim that was later verified by Donna Gessner, the director of records at the Shamokin Hospital. They brought the child home around noon, and Yost had spent the afternoon shooting pool in a billiard hall by his home until his sister, Helen, called him home for supper. He even recalled that his sister made pork and sauerkraut that evening, and they were joined by his mother, Marian. Yost admitted that it was not how he would've preferred to spend his evening, but that was what had happened.

 

 

Yost also testified that he had first learned of the murders in March of 1974, while he was at a drinking party in Burnside. Yost claimed that Joseph Ziemba was at the party and had shown him the gravesite, though he was not aware of the identity of the killers. When questioned about his dealings with Robert Reichwein, Yost admitted that, on the night of September 24, 1974, he was riding with Reichwein in Albert Patti's car when Reichwein brought up the subject of the missing teenagers.

"I told Reichwein that I had heard some rumors that the bodies were found in a coal hole, but I said I didn't believe that was right because the bodies would have been found before that time," he said. Yost said the following night he, Patti and Reichwein decided to take a ride and "get high" on heroin and marijuana, and on September 27 they, along with three other friends, went out on the mountain behind the vo-tech high school and got high on cocaine.

It was a risky move for Yost to take the stand, but it was a calculated risk; by having the luxury of being the first of the three defendants to go on trial, Yost could afford to play fast and loose with the truth in order to sow seeds of doubt in the mind of the jurors. If acquitted, the rule of double jeopardy would prevent him from being tried again-- even if evidence presented at the Scandle and Ziemba trials proved beyond a doubt that Yost had taken part in the slaughter.

But District Attorney Ranck had his doubts about Yost's marvelous powers of memory. During cross-examination, he asked Yost if he remembered what he had eaten for breakfast on July 19, 1973. Yost admitted that he did not. "Do you recall what you had for lunch that day?" pressed Ranck. Yost could not remember. Ranck then asked why he didn't go to the police after being shown the gravesite.

"I didn't want to get involved," replied Yost. "Besides, I have a resentment toward cops." Yost then explained that his occupation was that of a "gambler and a hustler", and that he made a comfortable living selling drugs.

"I hustle all kinds of drugs," he explained. "I don't consider myself a pusher. I sell only to known addicts, but never to children."

But perhaps the witness who best planted seeds of doubt in the mind of the jurors was Robert Jones, vice president of Jones Hardware Store. Jones had examined the sales receipts from July 20, and discovered that he sold two quarts of a solvent that evening between 6:00 and 7:00. This stuck in his mind because he had read a newspaper article alleging that a strong acid had been poured over the corpses to hasten their decomposition. Jones testified that it was Joseph Ziemba and Roland Scandle who had made the purchase. He did not recall seeing Yost inside the store, but he recognized Ziemba. It was Ziemba who had asked Jones for some "powerful cleaning fluid". This detail contradicted Ziemba's earlier claim that it was Scandle who had purchased the acid.

In rebuttal, the prosecution recalled Robert Reichwein, who declared that he couldn't have possibly been with Yost on September 24, 1974, because Yost was in the hospital at that time. Barbara Reed, supervisor of records at Geisinger Medical Center, confirmed Reichwein's testimony by providing records showing that Yost had been admitted for a drug overdose on September 20. He wasn't discharged until September 25.

When Dr. Fillinger arrived, he took the stand and  provided gruesome details about the horrific final moments of the three teenagers' lives. He believed that Sherran Long's death had been caused to a blow to the face with a blunt instrument, and testified that one of the bones in her arms had been fractured. As for the fate of Carol Ann Taylor, Dr. Fillinger testified that the blow that killed her had been so forceful that "the lower half of the face was broken away from the rest of the head", indicating an extremely forceful and vicious blow. Only the skeleton of Margaret Long failed to show signs of blunt force trauma.

NEXT WEEK: (Part 3) The Jury Renders a Verdict

The jury of nine men and three women began deliberations at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 1 to decide the fate of Sebastian Yost. After eight hours and seventeen minutes of deliberation, they returned to the courtroom to render the verdict. Find out next week what became of the three men who played a role in one of the most heinous crimes in Northumberland County's history.