Peggy Reber

Reber grand jury comes up empty
By LES STEWART
Lebanon Daily News


Insufficient evidence exists to indict anyone for the 1968 murder of 14-year-old Peggy Reber, a Lebanon County grand jury investigating her homicide concluded in a report made public yesterday.
“We conclude that no probable cause exists for us to recommend any person, to include Richard Boyer, be indicted for the 1968 murder of Margaret “Peggy” Reber,” the grand jury wrote.

Over a period of eight months, the 23-member grand jury met 11 times and heard testimony from 33 witnesses and reviewed 463 pages of exhibits.

“There is no forensic evidence linking any known individual to the murder,” the report states.

Reber was strangled and brutally mutilated during the Memorial Day weekend of

Lebanon city police officers study the blood-stained floor of Peggy Reber s bedroom for evidence in this photo from May 1968. (Lebanon Daily News File Photo)1968. She died while she was alone in the apartment she shared with her mother.
“We found no competent or credible evidence linking Richard Boyer or any other known person to the murder of Margaret “Peggy” Reber,” the panel wrote. “In reaching this conclusion, we do not intend to exonerate Richard Boyer or any other person. However, we are deeply troubled by the concerted efforts undertaken to implicate Richard Boyer in a 40-year-old homicide absent the existence of reliable evidence against him. We conclude that Michelle Gooden, with the assistance of others, was largely responsible for this effort. Gooden went so far as to influence witnesses and the stories that they told,” the report said.

District Attorney David Arnold discounted a suggestion that much of the grand jury report centered on criticizing Michelle Gooden, a former Lebanon resident who is working on a book about the Reber murder. Gooden has been a vocal critic of the latest investigation into the murder.

Gooden’s name was not mentioned in the grand jury’s findings, Arnold said. However, her name is mentioned repeatedly in the body of the grand-jury report.

Read the Reber report here 40-year-old murder case, anywhere in this country, is nearly impossible,” Arnold said yesterday afternoon after the report was released. “Anybody who cannot accept that as a fact isn’t realistic.”
He said the investigation of the case was made more difficult by a handful of people in the community who circulated rumors about the case.

“That made it more difficult,” Arnold said.

He said his office spoke to experts across the country to seek assistance in their investigation.

The district attorney also said Richard Boyer appeared before the grand jury to testify, without an attorney.

Judge Bradford H. Charles, who was the supervising judge of the grand jury, signed an order yesterday

Read the Gooden report here. releasing the grand-jury report to the public.
The grand jury stated its job of investigating a 40-year-old murder was complicated by the controversy and conspiracy theories.

“We found it very difficult to distinguish true facts from those generated from rumor and theory, or those which were simply fabricated and utilized as ‘a means to an end,’” the report said.

The grand jury wrote that there was no evidence of a cover-up or a conspiracy on the part of any investigator or prosecutor involved in the case.

“Not one witness provided us with factual support for any such theory. In fact, objectively verifiable evidence tends to disprove such theories. In spite of this, conspiracy theories persist as some admittedly have a keen interest in generating controversy for economic and political reasons, “ the grand jury report stated.

Richard Boyer testified before the grand jury and denied any involvement in Reber’s murder.

“As to Richard Boyer’s alleged involvement in Reber’s murder, we heard absolutely no competent, credible, or reliable evidence from which to conclude that Richard Boyer was involved in Reber’s murder,” the grand jury wrote. “In fact, evidence obtained in 1968 led investigators to conclude that Boyer was not involved in the murder.”

Although Richard Boyer was the first person on a list of 84 possible suspects prepared by investigators in 1968, evidence showed he was at work at Reading Alloy in Robesonia the night of the murder and went home at 11:05 p.m. right after work on the night of the murder, the report states. Investigators obtained his time card, and his co-workers and supervisor corroborated his alibi, the report adds.

Richard Boyer learned of Reber’s murder the next morning, the report states.

The report also states that Richard Boyer provided DNA samples for potential comparison, but a forensic scientist with a private forensic lab in Willow Grove was unable to isolate DNA material from existing evidence, such as the belt used to strangle Reber.

“The murder of Peggy Reber was a horrific crime,” the grand jury stated in its conclusion. “The investigation of the crime was complicated by the unfortunate and dysfunctional environment in which Peggy was raised. We are disappointed to conclude that some who were the most vocal advocates of “Justice for Peggy” were motivated by interests wholly unrelated to legitimate interests of justice.”

In 1970, a Lebanon County jury acquitted Arthur M. Root Jr. of murdering Reber. Root, who had had an affair with Reber’s mother, was the only man ever charged with the crime.

Interest in the murder was renewed in 2006 when the Lebanon Daily News reported that Lebanon police officer Kevin Snavely had reopened the cold case.

A year later, the Daily News ran an article quoting Gooden’s startling claim that the killer was alive and living in Lebanon.

Gooden’s accusation generated a public outcry for Arnold to convene a grand jury. In January 2008, more than 2,000 people, including Reber’s twin sister, Kathy Meador, signed a petition calling for a grand jury.

The grand jury report states Meador gave statements to police in 1968 that were corroborated by other witnesses, but in recent years “has given inconsistent statements concerning her recollection of events.”

“In identifying Boyer as a suspect in Reber’s murder, Kevin Snavely testified that he relied primarily on statements made by Kathryn Meador,” the grand jury report states. “Snavely reported that Kathryn told him that she was ‘coached’ by Richard Boyer and his mother as to what to tell investigators in 1968.”

But during her grand jury testimony, she denied that she was coached in 1968 as to what to say to investigators. However, she acknowledged, she relied on input from others because of her age and the shock of her sister’s murder.

Richard Boyer was first publicly implicated as a suspect in Reber’s murder in a lawsuit Snavely filed against city officials and others after he was fired in 2008 from his job as a city-police detective.

The grand jury report also notes that only a small amount of evidence from the original investigation remains. Much of it was damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Agnes in June 1972 when it was in the care of the Lebanon Police Department.

In April last year, Reber’s body was exhumed, but the advanced stage of decomposition of her remains made forensic testing impossible, the report states.

LesStewart@LDNews.com