Still, Shopping Spree,theForensic Filesepisode about the murders, left me curious about an epilogue for Fairley. The relationship deteriorated, and she eventually moved out of the house, she said. Men who murder are conventional, women are sensational, posits the Worldwide Womens Criminal Justice Network. The Free Patricia Rorrer page responds to comments from supporters (How is this even possible that this woman is still in jail?!? Not gender neutral. Region. Patricia Rorrer's home phone record did not show her call to the Katrinak house three days prior to the kidnapping because she'd already made the trip to Pennsylvania to see Andrew. In fact, she had moved 500 miles away and was in a new relationship herself. After his wife disappeared, she made no attempt to be with him or to see him. As for an epilogue on ex-flame Andrew Katrinak, he has moved to Colorado and kept a low profile since the trial ended. She asked to speak with Andrew, who was home during the call; Joann refused. Rorrer, who is Katrinak's former girlfriend, was convicted of abducting Joann Katrinak and her son from their home, shooting Katrinak in the face, and leaving her and the child in the woods, where their bodies were found nearly four months later. The episode indicated that Andrew Katrinak informed police that Patricia Rorrer had made the phone call to his home three days before Joann's disappearance. The organization purports that if there were awards for distorted reporting, the Morning Callwould win high honors.. She had money put aside. Fairleysargument:The court should have rendered him a minor for sentencing purposes. Another witness, Walter Traupman, who never testified, had told state troopers that on the day of Joanns disappearance, he saw a couple who looked like Joann and Andrew arguing about the paternity of a baby. During questioning, heclaimed he got them while mosh-pit dancing, although it later came out that he had told friends he got scratched up while rescuing a guywho was being beaten up outside the clothing store. . Burke said the prosecution brought no one from North Carolina to testify that Rorrer wasn't home for several days..McIntyre said Rorrer tried to conceal her guilt by concocting phony alibis, which shows consciousness of guilt. The prosecution alleged that after the murder, Patricia drove Joanns car to McCartys parking lot and backed it into a parking space. It's as if she had left with young Alex as planned but then somehow simply vanished. To answer your question re the testing of the cigarette butt: it was never tested prior to the trial, and one can only speculate as to why it wasnt. She just stayed in touch with everybody, Kathy Barber said in her interview on NBCs Murder in Lehigh Valley: Keith Morrison Reports in 2017. Christopher Coble and Sgt. Those hairs would ultimately send Rorrer to prison for life, even though she claims she never was in the car, and the evidence collection and preservation practices have been attacked.The next day, Andrew Katrinak told police that a gut instinct made him think Rorrer was involved. I lived in this area at the time of the sadly disgusting Murder in Collegeville. The article also notes that most inmates earn around 19 cent an hour at their jobs and must pay $5 each time they need medical attention or medicine. Whatever observers claim about the circumstances surrounding the crime why would she do this/surely shed be seen/shes unlikely to have thought that they are speculative, whereas the hard science, beyond REASONABLE doubt, says she did it. . Lenient system? Andrew Katrinak was suspected because he failed two polygraph tests when asked if he had lied to police and hid evidence. At the states request, the instructor wore a wire during a phone conversation with Patricia. Today, more than two years later, that woman awaited extradition from North Carolina to face charges she kidnapped and killed her ex-boyfriend's family in December 1994.Authorities said Tuesday it took two years to build a tight forensic case against Patricia L. Rorrer, 33, partly through blond hairs found in Mrs. Katrinak's car a day after she disappeared.``We wanted to make sure that the hairs found at the scene were also consistent with the hairs found at the car,'' said Lehigh County District Attorney Robert Steinberg. Rorrer was identified early on as a possible suspect. Other loyal friends and associates attested to Patricias kindness toward horses and devotion to her daughter, whom she took along as she worked in stables. ''FBI examiners concluded there was a DNA match.Ms. Well, that really caught our attention of course.". Posted: June 22, 2022 They theorized might've simply started a new life with another man, but this seemed absurd to everyone who knew Joann. They also found a photo of Patricia taken 11 days before the homicide. Although there was a conviction in that case, there are many troubling aspects and questions surrounding the conviction, and the states theory was probably the silliest thing I ever heard. We found out that he was a real pervert, all kinds of sexual devices and various perverted stuff, District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. told Forensic Files rather triumphantly. In April 1995, the family buried Joann and Alex in a single bronze casket after a funeral mass at a Bethlehem church. Walmart woe. In a million years, she wouldnt do anything to harm that.. Fairley has not found prison life agreeable. Nothing probative of innocence should be read into anything she offers viz DNA. The 5-foot-9-inch-tall Patricia was physically strong, no match for 5-foot-4-inch Joann. She had a suitcase packed, Devine said. Fairly, I can keep things like that to myself and act normal. It's shocking to think that Patricia Rorrer, being a mother, could end the life of an infant. Are we to believe that Rorrer was still in such a rage 8 days later that she hopped into her van (with a bad universal joint), drove 500+ miles and killed a woman and baby she had never met, without anyone either seeing her in PA or missing her from NC? I do not just blindly accept whatever the courts decide. While the newly discovered evidence was included in her appeal, it has always focused on the contradictory hair tests and wide gaps in paperwork on the chain of custody in hair evidence. So begins a case that features a missing wife, a missing baby, and the husband who gave news interviews repeatedly asking for the return of his wife and son. The autopsy indicated that Joann fought hard for her life. Then 31 years old, she had lived a rocky existence. . He would be alive today if it were not for Patricia Rorrer. The mild-mannered Sarah died in 2019 at the age of 83. He had worked as a semi-pro boxer in Las Vegas in his youth and later settled . The Irish-Italian girl had full, fluffy dark hair, olive skin, and a pretty face. All this culminated in Caleb Fairleys April 1996 conviction fortwo counts of murder, aggravated assault, theft, and abuse of a corpse. . Convenient Suspect: A Wrongful Conviction In The Murder In Lehigh For more on the Katrinak murder case, you can watch Autopsy Six: A Fatal Attraction for free on YouTube. She produced phone records showing a call to Andrew Katrinak two weeks before the abduction not three days before it to tell him she had won a national horse competition in Oklahoma. Andrew Katrinak reported missing his wife, Joanne and 3.5-month-old son, Alex, in December 1994. She wasn't aware she had left behind small clues in the woods and in the car, which police believe was used to take the victims to the woods, the prosecutor said..Burke highlighted the prosecution's failure to test another hair -- one found in Joann Katrinak's hand. That decision drew public anger, as can be seen inPhiladelphia Daily News letters to the editor published on September 29, 1995. My theory on Fairley is nothing more than a hunch; it could have just as easily been another random sicko who targeted her. Rorrer is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution Muncy, a prison for women in Clinton Township, Pennsylvania. If I knew I was going to get caught, I never would have brought you into this world, the arresting officers testified they heard her say to Nicole. She also said that she was in North Carolina on the day of the abduction, where she was involved in a committed relationship with the father of her daughter. But other things Patricia did also seemed strange, especially according to prosecutor Michael McIntyre. By all accounts, Rorrer has never been a smoker. I watched both the prosecutor and the lead investigator on that case squirm when Datelines Keith Morrison posed some pretty tough questions, and their answers were less than satisfactory. Sir I would not kill somebody and I definitely wouldnt kill somebody I never met, Rorrer said. Criminals aren't always the smartest folks - this area highlights the common (and reoccurring) mistakes they make. She is petitioning for DNA testing on the nail fragment that was found on the victims body. That may be true, in that Alex may have died of exposure, not intentional killing. Andrew Joseph Katrinak (1926-2015) - Find a Grave Memorial She appears a rather better fit than Fairley, particularly when we remember that in the great majority of murders, victim and perp are known to each-other, per Katrinak-Rorrer. Someone had shot Joann in the face with a .22-caliber pistol, then beaten her about the head hitting her 19 times in all with a blunt object. The authorities charged her with two counts of murder. Both were deceased. And even prosecutor Michael McIntyre, who wrote the book Hair Trigger about the case, acknowledged to Keith Morrison that it was a little odd that the police found blood on the hairs in Joanns car but nowhere else in the vehicle. My two cents, just as the heavily stretched circumstantial evidence convicted Rorrer, new uncovered circumstantial and direct evidence should give Rorrer benefit of a doubt and allowed for a new hearing and trial. Her alibi about going to the club, called Cowboys Nitelife, got fuzzy when investigators discovered she hadnt signed the guest book on that day. Three days before she vanished, Mrs. Katrinak had angrily told Ms. Rorrer to stop calling her husband. Hecame from an affluent family, is white, and was young when he committed his crimes all factors that can favorably tip the scales of justice. Police found her 1988 Firebird in the shopping plazas parking lot and located a witness who remembered seeing Lisa in Your Kidz & Mine. DNA testing revealed the blood came from either Joann or her son. Andrew Katrinak reported missing his wife, Joanne and 3.5-month-old son, Alex, in December 1994. She said she did not give the hang up by Joann Katrinak a second thought. The forensic reports indicate that there was a significant amount of blood and tissue clinging to this fingernail, which would have been an excellent source of nuclear DNA testing. Meanwhile, interest in Patricias plight continues on social media. She received 12 months' probation.Rorrer was 18 when she lost her 3-1/2-month-old son on Nov. 20, 1982. Andrew Katrinak, was the husband of Joann Katrinak and Alex's father. After Joann Katrinak, the wife of Patricias former flame, turned up dead along with her infant son, prosecutors suspected Patricia. Joann was shot once, then the gun jammed. Three of them were mountedon slides and sealed in adhesive. Should reasonable doubt be defined for the jury or is that to nudge them some unintended direction by lawmakers? Rorrer said she had spoken once to Joann before she and Katrinak were married and that Joann seemed friendly when she put Katrinak on the phone.Rorrer said that years ago, she rented a barn in Washington Township for her horses. The jacket also fit the description of the blue-black synthetic fibers police found in Joann Katrinaks watchband.Neither witness testified during the trial because the prosecution deemed them unimportant and never revealed the information to the defense, despite legal rules compelling the government to disclose any potentially exculpatory evidence. Although the prosecution used it as evidence that she was trying to create a false alibi, it actually sounded more like Patricia was simply trying to nail down the facts he had already asserted to her. Jimmy had reported Lisa missing when she failed to return home from shopping by dinner time. Of course, I have no answer to the claim that this was a corruptly prosecuted case, but I would ask that if its as obviously flawed as you suggest, why have appeals failed? Puny policy. Jaime: Thanks. She worked at restaurants and later sold insurance and real estate and worked at a car dealership in Reading.She met Katrinak in May 1984, she said, when he was a regular at a restaurant where she worked.They dated, lived together and bought a home in Salisbury Township. After a very early failed marriage, the 24-year-old Joann scored a new husband in Andrew Katrinak, 38, whom she met at a club. Her mother, Patricia Chambers, provided day care for their baby son, Charles. But its small argument on her side. Having said that, to simply answer your question why? Police and FBI being under pressure to solve this highly publicized case, it had already been two years before they arrested Rorrer and case had gone cold. !) and detractors (This is another bs attempt to free a psycho). McIntyre didn't address that issue in his closing argument..Burke said soil in the woods didn't match soil in and on the car and questioned why there was no blood in the car if the killer drove the car back to Catasauqua where it was found..He also wondered how the victims could have been kidnapped at gunpoint from their home at 740 Front St. in the afternoon without anyone seeing anything..Prosecutors claim that Rorrer planned the killing and even might have been in the area before Dec. 15, 1994. If shes been in a public place, such as a shop, a shed hair from someone else could be picked up on ones clothing and stick to a sweaty palm, etc. View the profiles of people named Andrew Katrinak. I cant agree on the evidence Im aware of that this is more likely than her guilt. With Marlene Sanders, Jeffrey J. Lewis, Michael Baden, Andrew Katrinak. For next week, Im researching a bit about Dungeons andDragons and whether any game aficionado or the nature of the pastime itself hasbeen linked to other major crimes. She was always looking for a fight, Gary Gabard told the Morning Call, which noted that he was a head shorter than Patricia. They had a son, Alex Martin, in August of 1994. Prosecutors offered Patricia a plea deal that would take the death penalty off the table, but she declined. Those who knew Joann pointed out that she didnt like to drive in reverse and would have never parked that way. Rorrer maintains her innocence to this day and argues that someone either negligently or intentionally put her hair on the slide. Barbara, wife of Gary Verser of Virginia; and a . Its proximity to the stable she'd managed made an undeniable association to her. Plus, he had only a minimal life insurance policy on Joann and he passed polygraphs, according to The FBI Files: Family Secrets. Rorrer said she was almost 500 miles away in North Carolina on the day of the disappearance. Many of these are circumstantial, so investigators were grateful for their DNA match from the hair. But thats just some of the ammo on Team Patricias battleship. By: Robert S. In 1994, Joann Katrinak called her mother-in-law and made plans to go holiday shopping. But was Andrew in on this plan? Had a father the slightest inkling that a g/friend he would marry had murdered his child, unless a psycho he couldnt possibly be with her. (McIntyre said that Egan ignored Traupman because he was a nut who said that the man he saw arguing with the woman in a car was Hispanic but wearing a fake mustache and a toupee. Joann Katrinak, and her baby, had planned to go Christmas shopping with her mother-in-law but she never arrived to pick her up despite calling to say that she was on her way there. She returned to North Carolina in 1991. A year later, she started calling again. Rorrer, a photographer with an 18-month-old child, was arrested in Linwood, N.C., and jailed without bail pending an extradition hearing.She was born in Phillipsburg, N.J., and in 1978 moved to North Carolina with her family. On a happier note, in 1998, the Limerick Township Park System built the Manderach Memorial Playground in honor of Lisa and Devon. But fortunately the murder createdplenty of forensic evidence that made for a stronger case against Fairley. The state of the bodies suggested the victims had likely been killed the day very they were abducted. Even her defence counsel is desperate: having accepted that if mounted hair (see the doc) DNA was hers, she did it, it then moved to avering that she was framed when said hairs proved to be hers. I was like OK, maybe she was tired, you know with a new baby. Before getting into the most recent information on Fairley, heres a recap of the episode along with some additional facts culled from internet sources: Quick jaunt. I see not significance in the point you make here. Together they had a baby girl, Nicole. Perusing the claims made by her supporters, I find many are Aunt Sallies: points that claimants suggest are probative of innocence but are no such thing. Lisa Manderach, two weeksshy of her 30th birthday, worked full time as a fork-lift operatorin a food warehouse and also had an entrepreneurial streak. Her husband, Andrew, was surprised to not find his wife and child at home after arriving there . One final thought about those hairs: they were described as dirty blond and approximately 8 inches in length. He washed off the foundation at their request, uncoveringscratch marks that looked as though they came from someonesfingernails. Finally, four months after that dreadful day in December, a farmer plowing his fields found what at first seemed to be a pile of discarded clothing. When Andrew Katrinak arrived home from work shortly after 6 p.m. on Dec. 15, 1994, he noticed two unusual things. Investigators discoveredhis DNA under Lisas fingernails, some strands of long dark hairwith the roots attached (suggesting a struggle) in the vacuum cleaner bag at the store, and the babys DNA on thecarpet. Book her. In general, I wouldnt be so hasty to assume a link between perverted, well, whatever it was he had in his possession, and criminality. Prior to the trial, a local man named Walter Traupman told Pennsylvania State Police he saw a couple matching the Katrinaks descriptions engaging in a heated argument near where the Toyota was found the day of the disappearance. Why would someone want to kidnap and murder the young mother? The police considered the possibility that Joann ran away, a theory disputed by her family. Later, they both worked 12-hour graveyard shifts at a textile factory. An infant was lying face down on her stomach. Everything about that statement rings false, but it sure worked out for Officer Suzanne Pearson; she was promoted to Sergeant after sharing this bombshell confession with her superiors. At 6 a.m. on June 24, 1997, police arrested Patricia at her modest house in Linwood, North Carolina, and took her back to Pennsylvania. His wife's Toyota Corolla wasn't parked in back of their house at 740 F In the warm NC climate, Rorrer was dressed in shorts and a short sleeved T-shirt and had absolutely sign of injury. The phone wire was located at the opposite end of the basement, which was dark. "At one point, Katrinak stayed in North Carolina for several weeks to do a roofing job, and it looked as though they might get back together, Rorrer said. (Disclaimer: Im not a big fan of eyewitnesses who come forward years after the fact, but its possible). While theres no evidence to suggest he was unfaithful to Joann, within 6 months of her death Andrew and this woman were openly seeing each other. I was able to email with Patricia via the PrisonConnect platform around Christmastime. Random misfortune. Enter numeric value. This was part of Rorrer's defense strategy it seemed like an unrealistic motive to commit murder. Andrew described his existence with Joanne and Alex as a little Camelot., Ex-spouse off list. Some issues there, but I aver nothing that seems to undercut/override evidence against her. they will get on the band wagon to the state convention in Hartford and root for David Fitzgerald of .New Haven for governor and Thomas J. Spellacy of Hartford, for United States Senato. MAC: Thanks. Aside from the hair, there was almost zero forensic evidence. Not sure if i shopped here ever. According to a Morning Call account from March 5, 1998: McIntyre leaned forward conspiratorially like someone trying to persuade another to tell a secret, lowered his voice and said: Heres what I want to know: After you killed Joann Katrinak, did you kill that baby or just leave it to die?. And dance instructor William Jarrett couldnt remember whether she attended his dance class at the club the night of Joanns disappearance.