Pennsylvania State University

Upon graduation from the University of Michigan, Aardsma initially intended to join the Peace Corps and travel to Africa, although she opted to enroll at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) when she discovered that Wright, her boyfriend, intended to study there and that he could not guarantee he would remain loyal to her if she traveled abroad for any significant length of time.^[12]

Aardsma enrolled at Penn State in early October 1969. She resided on campus in Atherton Hall, and shared her residence with a student named Sharon Brandt, who would later recall that Aardsma seldom pursued extracurricular activities and spent much of her free time either studying or—at weekends—traveling to Penn State Hershey^[13] to be in the company of Wright.^{[14][n 3]}

By Thanksgiving, Aardsma is known to have exhibited symptoms of stress due to the fact she had fallen behind on an English assignment. She spent the day prior to Thanksgiving in the company of her boyfriend, his roommates and their girlfriends before returning to her dormitory the following day, with intentions to meet her professors for advice on a research paper she needed to complete for her assignment. Wright drove Aardsma to a nearby bus stop in Harrisburg on the afternoon of November 27.^[14]

At the time of her death, Aardsma had been in a relationship with Wright for approximately one year, and the two had discussed plans to become engaged by Christmas.^[15] She had been a student at Penn State for just eight weeks when she was murdered.^[16][17]

Murder

At some point between 4:45 and 4:55 p.m.,^[22] Aardsma was stabbed a single time through the left breast with a knife while standing between rows 50 and 51 in the dimly lit Stack Building of the Pattee Library.^[23] This wound severed her pulmonary artery and pierced the right ventricle of her heart. Following the stabbing, Aardsma slumped to the ground close to the end of the aisle, pulling several books off adjacent shelves as she fell onto her back. Two students—Joao Uafinda and Marilee Erdley—then observed a man running from the direction of the commotion, concealing his right hand, exclaiming, "That girl needs help!" Erdley described this man as being dressed in khaki washable slacks, a tie, and a sports jacket. He had well-kept brown hair, was approximately 6 ft in height, about 185 lbs, and may have been wearing glasses. This individual led Uafinda and Erdley into the Core, where he pointed toward the prone body of Aardsma lying between scattered books and metal shelves which had also been knocked loose. As Erdley began to check for signs of a pulse, Uafinda observed this individual leaving the library; he discreetly followed the man upstairs, where the individual ran out of the library. Uafinda attempted to chase this man, but was outpaced. This individual was last seen running in the direction of the Recreation Hall.^[24]

Subsequent police appeals for the man or men who spoke these words to Uafinda and Erdley before fleeing from the library to come forward were unsuccessful, and the individual has never been identified.^[25]

Medical efforts

As Uafinda attempted to pursue the individual fleeing the library, Erdley attempted to render first aid to Aardsma, including mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and was soon joined by a group of bystanders, including a librarian.^{[n 6]} A call was placed to the campus hospital, the Ritenour Health Center, at 5:01 p.m., with responders initially informed a "girl had fainted" in the Pattee Library. Two student paramedics were dispatched to the scene, arriving minutes later. Aardsma was quickly placed on a gurney and removed from the library via a service elevator, to be taken to the Health Center, as the paramedics continued to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) upon her. The summoned ambulance transported Aardsma to the Health Center.^[16]

Although Aardsma was wearing a white turtleneck sweater at the time she was stabbed, the wound produced only a small amount of visible blood. However, Aardsma was also wearing a red sleeveless dress over this sweater at the time of her murder, and the clothing she wore had been of thick material in the November climate, thus meaning the single knife tear within her clothing was not immediately obvious. She had also urinated where she fell. As result of these facts, the non-medical individuals who discovered her body—plus the student first responders summoned to the scene in response to reports of a female student having "fainted" in the library—initially believed that she had indeed either fainted, experienced a seizure, or some other non-critical medical ailment.^[26]

Very shortly after Aardsma was transported to the Health Center, a more senior medical individual observed blood seeping through her clothing as the two student paramedics continued to perform CPR and immediately ordered the two to stop before locating the single stab wound. Aardsma was pronounced dead by a physician at 5:50 p.m.^[8]

Cold case

Despite the efforts of Pennsylvania State Police and the president of the university, Eric Walker (who had conducted his own private investigation into Aardsma's murder),^[3] the case gradually became cold and the number of investigators assigned to the case decreased as potential leads to pursue became increasingly scarce. Aardsma's murder remains unsolved. Records pertaining to her murder remain sealed under the state's Open Records Act.^[32] However, the Pennsylvania State Police are still actively seeking information on the case.^[39]

William Spencer

Spencer was a 40-year-old sculptor who had relocated to Pennsylvania from Boston with his second wife shortly before Aardsma's murder. He had previously co-founded the Caffè Lena with his first wife in Saratoga Springs, New York, in May 1960, and had recently relocated to Pennsylvania with his second wife, obtaining employment teaching sculpture at a local college as his wife studied for her Ph.D.^[40] Spencer was first reported to police as a potential suspect in Aardsma's murder after allegedly confessing to having "killed that girl in the library" at a Christmas 1969 gathering of faculty members. These claims culminated in his being formally questioned by investigators in early 1970.

According to Spencer, he and Aardsma had been acquainted, and she agreed to pose nude for his sculpting classes to earn extra money. He had been in the Level 2 core stacks at the time of her murder, and had seen her murderer, whom he insisted had been wearing an overcoat. He offered to construct a bust of the individual he had seen for investigators, which he later provided to the task force assembled to apprehend her murderer.

Police quickly dismissed Spencer's claims, as he and his wife had relocated to Pennsylvania just weeks prior to Aardsma's murder, thus offering little time for the two to become acquainted. His claims she had been a nude model were never corroborated, and rapidly dismissed by investigators and acquaintances alike, as Aardsma was known to be a prudish young woman. Furthermore, all nude models at Spencer's classes are known to have traveled to the university from Philadelphia.^[41]

Larry Maurer

One student who initially aroused investigators' suspicions was a classmate of Aardsma's named Larry Maurer. Maurer is known to have become acquainted with Aardsma in the weeks before her death, on one occasion taking her for a coffee. No ill-feeling is known to have existed between the two, and Maurer is known to have been cleared as a potential suspect in her murder, although it is unknown whether he actually passed or failed a polygraph test. However, Maurer was a blond individual, of average height, who did not wear glasses, making his physical appearance markedly different from that of the individual seen by three eyewitnesses—one of whom had been a classmate of his—running away from the Level 2 core stacks immediately after Aardsma's stabbing.^[42]

Richard Haefner

Author Derek Sherwood and investigative journalist David DeKok have each published books focusing upon Aardsma's murder. Both authors strongly believe Penn State professor Richard Charles Haefner–then a 25-year-old geology student at the university–was responsible for her death, and not Maurer or Spencer.^[42] A well-respected but socially awkward^[43] individual, Haefner is known to have taken extreme measures to obtain platonic relationships with women to conceal his homosexuality.^[42] On one occasion in 1968, he is known to have traveled from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts to inform a girl he barely knew he loved her. He had arrived unannounced at her apartment to inform her of this fact, only to be surprised when she slammed the door in his face.^{[n 12]} Haefner resided across the courtyard from Aardsma at Atherton Hall at the time of her death and was widely known for engaging in erratic behavior, including periodic bouts of explosive anger, and the suspected theft of several specimens from the university's rock and mineral collection.^[34] He was known to frequently dress in khaki trousers and a sports coat, and to keep his brown hair short and tidy. His friendship with Aardsma had been terminated by the victim shortly before her death.^[45]

Haefner's name had first been mentioned to investigators days after Aardsma's murder when her roommate, Sharon Brandt, had suggested to police that they interview him. According to Brandt, Haefner had visited their apartment on more than one occasion in the weeks prior to her death.^{[46][n 13]}

Haefner was questioned by investigators in early December 1969. He freely admitted having become acquainted with Aardsma in late October, and to have occasionally socialized with her, although within approximately one week, she had terminated their budding friendship, stating she wished to remain committed to David Wright. According to Haefner, he had been eating an evening meal at a student union building on the evening of November 28, when he had first heard circulating rumors of a student having been murdered at the Pattee Library. Furthermore, he had subsequently felt physically ill upon learning his "former girlfriend" had been the murdered student. Haefner further claimed to have never set foot in the library, as he invariably obtained research material from the Deike Building, where literature related to geology was stored.^[46] The identikit image created by Uafinda and a desk clerk never circulated to the media bears a striking resemblance to Haefner. In addition, his studying schedule shows he spent the two years following Aardsma's murder studying almost exclusively off campus.^[30]

In August 1975, two boys who worked in Haefner's family rock shop would separately accuse him of having molested them. Although his subsequent trial resulted in a hung jury,^{[n 14]} these accusations resulted in his filing a number of subsequent vindictive lawsuits. Haefner successfully ensured the expungement of the records pertaining to his arrest and trial in 1981.^[2] Several years after Aardsma's murder, an acquaintance of Haefner's named Lauren Wright (no relation to David Wright) would report that shortly after 6 p.m. on the date of Aardsma's murder, Haefner had arrived at his household in a state of exhausted panic, blurting: "Have you heard? A girl I dated was murdered in the library!" Having conversed with the Wrights for a short period of time, Haefner left their household. This account contradicts Haefner's official accounts of his movements which he provided to investigators.^[42]

Wright failed to inform investigators of this conversation until 1976, following an argument with Haefner, who by the 1970s had begun to focus his interests upon volcanology.^[42] He remained a close acquaintance of Haefner's until the latter died alone in a hospital bathroom in March 2002. His cause of death was a tear in his aorta which bled into his lungs—a similar manner of death endured by Aardsma.^[49]

In 2009, a nephew of Haefner's contacted Sherwood to divulge that on one occasion in approximately 1975, he had overheard a heated conversation between Haefner and his mother, Ere, who had been aware of several accusations of pederasty levelled against her son dating back to 1967.^[50] According to this individual, the conversation had occurred shortly after Haefner's 1975 arrest for molestation, and his mother had expressed her concerns as to whether the police suspected him of having "killed that girl" at Penn State. She had also chided him for coming to the attention of the police after "all [her] efforts" to protect him on the previous occasion. The overall context of this conversation indicated to Haefner's nephew that he had confessed to Aardsma's murder to his mother, who had ended the scolding of her son with the sentence: "You killed that girl, and now you're killing me!"^[51]