A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder Page 4

  “I told her, ‘Barbara is not responding and I wish I never would’ve pulled the blanket back,’” Linda said. Katie ran to get another neighbor, Amanda Troyer, while Linda rushed to call for help.

  Firman started to gather the children. Sarah, who was about to turn six, had been running around repeatedly asking, “Mom, where are you?” Harley was overheard saying, “If this was Dad, then he’s had it!” Firman took them to his house and stayed with them while Linda waited for the ambulance and sheriff’s deputies. Another neighbor, a Mennonite, said her first instinct when she saw the commotion was that Eli had harmed Barbara. He’s really done her in now, she thought.

  The ambulance, the one Fannie Troyer had seen rush by, arrived at the house.

  Phillip Chupp, assistant fire chief and a paramedic for the Fredericksburg Fire Department, asked Linda what the problem was. She didn’t speak but just led him into the house and pointed to the bedroom door. Chupp saw a “late twenties female lying partially on her right side … with blue lips … and an ashen pale color.” He checked for a pulse and couldn’t find one. He saw that a bullet hole had blasted through the bedcovers, leaving a black edge. He gently pulled down Barbara’s nightgown a few inches and found what looked like a gunshot wound to the right side of her chest. He thought she was dead but used a heart monitor to confirm she was, then immediately called the sheriff’s office. She was pronounced dead at 9:30 a.m., but determining when she died was going to be complicated.

  Wayne County Sheriff’s Office deputy Thomas Holmes was the first patrol officer on the scene. He joined Chupp in the bedroom. After Sergeant Ryan Koster arrived, he and Holmes cleared out everyone, including the paramedics, then walked through the entire house from the basement to the children’s bedrooms upstairs. They secured the house, phoned for detectives and the coroner’s office, and began to take witness statements.

  Linda told them that the last time she had seen Barbara Weaver—before she saw her in her bloody bed—was at eight o’clock the night before, when Linda turned the sign on Eli’s store to “Closed.” As she looked across the yard, she saw Barbara on her porch. She did not hear gunfire during the night.

  Firman told the sheriff’s deputies that he had arrived home from his job at a mill around 11:00 p.m. Monday. He’d glanced at the Weaver house and thought it unusual that the lights were on so late. He’d assumed Eli was getting ready for his fishing trip the next day.

  When Detectives Michael Maxwell and John Chuhi arrived at the house, the sheriff’s deputies were taking statements, paramedics were still on the scene, and neighbors of the Weavers were clustered outside. Sergeant Koster briefed Maxwell and took him inside the home. Coroner’s assistant Luke Reynolds arrived and joined Maxwell in the bedroom.

  The only photographs ever taken of Barbara Weaver were in death. With her dark-blond hair pulled back, and freckles, she resembled the fresh-faced Amish teenagers depicted on the romance novels she liked to read.

  She was beautiful.

  Reynolds gently pulled back the white blanket and opened Barbara’s nightgown so that Maxwell could photograph the wound near her right breast. Maxwell also took photos of her hands, arms, and legs; of the bullet hole in the comforter; and from the doorway where he thought the assailant had stood. Maxwell moved to other areas of the house, photographing the kitchen, the living room, the children’s rooms upstairs, the money on the kitchen counter, and the open cash box in the basement, with twenties, tens, fives, and ones neatly segregated, plus change. There was also a shotgun that was disassembled and a pellet rifle.

  It was the home of a young family, except neater and simpler. Harley’s mostly homemade birthday cards were taped to a wall in the hallway. Crayon drawings of birds were stuck on the refrigerator. Instead of a television, video games, and computers, there was a grandfather clock, candles on a doily, and a wall hanging that read: “Under His wings you will find refuge.” Psalm 9:14. A white family Bible had a prominent place on a hutch. Picture frames held poems or pretty artwork, not photographs. A wood plaque, with two hearts joined and Eli’s and Barbara’s names and the date of their wedding, was displayed. In the living room, there was a blue plush sofa and recliner, and blue curtains.

  Upstairs, the boys’ room had an outdoors theme. Antlers hung above a window, and two paint-by-numbers paintings, of a horse and a wolf, were framed. A set of the first five Laura Ingalls Wilder books, including Farmer Boy, stood on a dresser with a Native American dream catcher. A small backpack lay on the floor, a teddy bear and a toy tractor nearby. The girls’ room had a pink teddy bear and a crib. A pink item of clothing had been left on the floor. An extra bedroom had a few playthings, including a child-sized table and chairs, ready for a tea party. A poster of Disney’s Bambi, the kind that might have been included with a book or DVD, was on the wall above the tiny furniture. Barbara had sponge painted the walls light pink.

  The master bedroom looked like one in a million other homes, with a maple four-poster bed, dresser, and bedside table, probably made for Barbara and Eli at the time of their marriage. In the closet, a few of Barbara’s modest calf-length dresses, all in dark hues of brown, green, gray, or black, hung next to a few men’s white shirts. On the bedside table were two windup clocks, a candle, and a lamp.

  The kitchen table and chairs were also maple pieces. Children’s books were on the table, and several pairs of children’s shoes were piled in a corner. About a quarter of a white cake with white frosting sat in a clear plastic grocery-store container. One lonely blue flower was all the decoration remaining on the cake.

  The detectives didn’t know it, but the house—which the Weavers rented—was unusual for members of the Andy Weaver Amish. The house had conveniences, like natural gas lighting installed in the ceilings and patterned linoleum, that were typical among Old Order Amish but forbidden to Andy Weaver Amish. At one time Eli had expressed interest in joining the Old Order—he wanted fewer rules—but his family and ministers discouraged him from doing what the Amish call “jumping the fence,” drifting to another Amish group.

  The basement was bare, except for a washtub and a clothesline. There was a coal- or wood-burning stove. A few toys were scattered about, including one Rollerblade. Two boy-sized straw hats hung by a door.

  The front of the two-story house had a three-quarter porch with baskets of flowering plants hanging above it. There were two doors into the basement, one on the front, or north, side of the house and one on the west. The home had well-maintained grass, trees, and shrubs. In a side yard there was a tricycle and a small trampoline. Barbara was probably responsible for the trim lawn and plantings.

  Detective Maxwell prepared evidence to take back to the sheriff’s department, including the comforter and Barbara’s blue nightgown, the covering on her head, and her purple panties, which were removed from her body. They were sad reminders of a young woman who was a good Amish wife and mother yet liked a few pretty things.

  Maxwell took photos of the exterior of the ten-year-old, 1,798-square-foot single-family home. Most Amish homes and many barns are painted white, as this one was. He looked around the property and saw two sheds, the barn, and the aluminum building that housed Eli’s store. In front of the store was the phone shanty, the portable toilet, a barbecue grill, and a duck blind. To one side was a paved area with a basketball hoop.

  Inside the store there were fishing poles and tackle for sale, a few rifles, and rain jackets. A cabinet housed rifles and several trophies Eli had won in beagle competitions. On the wall by the cash register was a cartoon of a man with his head in a bucket crying, “Help!” Above the illustration it said: “Of all the things I’ve lost … I miss my mind the most.”

  The Weaver house was, like others nearby, set on just a couple of acres—too little land to farm. Other homes, one with a man-made pond and another with grain storage tanks, buggies, and the occasional wagon used for hauling, were to the east.

  During a search of Eli’s outbuildings, Maxwell found a small-caliber r
ifle and a large-gauge shotgun—one too small and the other too large to make the wound that killed Barbara Weaver. But while searching Eli’s business, the detective found two .410 gauge shotguns—exactly the size they thought could have caused the wound—one behind shelving and one in a closet. One shell was missing from a box of shot shells that still had a sales tag on it. Detectives took the shotguns and opened box of shells as evidence.

  As harsh as it might seem, detectives knew it was crucial to interview the children as soon as possible. After taking dozens of photographs, Maxwell sat with a representative of Children Services while she interviewed the children. Detectives learned that something—maybe a storm—had scared the children the night before and both Harley and his cousin Susie had moved downstairs to the living room. Later, Susie had gone back upstairs. They said they never heard an intruder in the house.

  As deputies searched the house and the outbuildings, and the children and neighbors were questioned, everyone at the scene asked the same question. Where was Eli?

  Firman knew. He went to the phone shanty, and called Steve, and identified himself. He said he had bad news and needed to speak to Eli.

  7

  Waiting

  There’s been no true repentance expressed since a year ago when he got caught.

  —BARBARA WEAVER, WRITING TO HER COUNSELOR THAT ELI WAS UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS

  It was curious. Eli didn’t want to talk to Firman Yoder.

  “I told him he needs to come home, that his wife is unresponsive, and that we had called the ambulance,” Firman said. “And then he said, ‘Here, I’ll hand the phone over to somebody else.’” And he did. Firman found himself delivering the grim news to the driver for the day. Firman told Steve that Eli’s wife was dead. Steve said they’d be home as soon as possible.

  While the investigation continued and everyone waited for Eli, one of the sheriff’s deputies interviewed the Weavers’ neighbor Amanda Troyer. She had visited with Barbara the night before. Eli was gone, so she sat and chatted with Barbara for about an hour while the children played outside. Amanda’s description of Eli was one they would hear repeatedly.

  “Never home. He didn’t seem comfortable at home. He wasn’t truthful to Barbara. She said, ‘I feel there is an affair going on; it’s just a matter of time,’” Amanda told detectives. “He’d be out so long that if she asked where he was, he said he was choring. But he didn’t have many chores. Never took the boys along, didn’t suit [him] or [there] wasn’t room.”

  Amanda was familiar with how Eli exerted his control over Barbara by withholding money for food and ignoring the children. Two years earlier, family and friends had given Barbara six thousand dollars to help her and the children move and get settled after Eli had left. When Eli returned home, he took the checkbook and her money.

  Despite not having found a weapon in the bedroom, detectives asked Amanda if Barbara Weaver had seemed suicidal. “Never. She’d get the blues but [was] never suicidal.” She also said she had seen no signs of domestic violence and knew of no one who would want to harm Barbara.

  The only person to ever voice concern was Barbara’s mother, Emma Miller. “She had been fearful for some time that someday Eli might do something to Barbara,” a family friend said. Barbara’s mother died of cancer in 2008. She wouldn’t be there to see her worst fears realized.

  * * *

  THE MURDER OF Barbara Weaver on June 2, 2009, provides a clear example of how the Amish and English coexist. Short of murder, Amish bishops almost always punish members from within the community. Rarely do the English step into Amish country.

  Each Amish congregation—made up of twenty-five to thirty-five families—is led by a bishop, two ministers, and one deacon (all men), who are chosen from the congregation by the drawing of lots. They receive no formal theological training. Only married men who are members of the local church district are eligible.

  Twice a year bishops meet to clarify the Ordnung, the unwritten set of rules and regulations that guide everyday Amish life. Then members vote to accept the Ordnung and affirm their agreement to live according to it. The rules govern hairstyle, dress, style of buggy, use of electricity, and divorce. The rules of the Ordnung can differ among groups of Amish. In some groups, Rollerblades are okay but bicycles are forbidden; others have adapted the bicycle. Some Amish permit flip-flops; others stick with more traditional footwear. Most forbid bright colors, such as pink, yellow, and orange, but some Amish women now wear red.

  Unwritten but taken for granted is that the Amish do not have sex outside of marriage. Bishops and ministers decide if a member who has sinned or committed some other infraction is placed under a Bann and then shunned by church members. The Andy Weaver Amish practice strict shunning; it is why they split from the Old Order Amish in 1952.

  Shunning may take the form of eating separately, not doing business with a person, not accepting gifts or rides from a shunned individual, and generally excluding him or her from community activities. It’s a kind of tough love, a way of getting a deviant person to change his or her behavior and reaffirm his or her commitment to the church. Offenders can return if they repent.

  Some families will set a place at the dining table for a shunned family member, a symbolic gesture. But if the individual continues to flout church rules, the bishop will move to excommunicate him or her. The place setting disappears.

  In Eli’s group, the Andy Weaver Amish, family and friends may still keep in contact with the Banned member, but they can’t eat at the same table or travel with him. Family can give the Banned member food, lodging, or transportation, but they can’t accept it in return.

  If a young person decides after Rumspringa to leave the community, he or she is discouraged from returning to see his or her family.

  Eli Weaver had left his family and community twice to live like the English. Twice he had repented—or claimed to—and had been forgiven. His bishop, ministers, and deacon had experience with members who bent the rules. They did not have experience with murder.

  The murder of Barbara Weaver was the first in an Amish community for the paramedics and sheriff’s deputies called to the house on Harrison Road in Apple Creek. Crimes are rare among the Amish. Sheriff’s deputies have more experience at the scene of an accident between buggies and automobiles than they do at the scene of a murder. Because the population and services in the townships are sparse, it took three counties to investigate the case.

  Wayne County’s coroner, Dr. Amy Jolliff, arrived at the murder scene to determine the cause and time of death. Summit County’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Lisa Kohler, conducted the autopsy. Wayne County Children Services would be involved in the welfare of the Weaver children. Deputy Joe Mullet with the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office, whose first language was a German dialect called Schwäbish, was loaned to Wayne County to translate recordings of phone calls made from jail. Pennsylvania Dutch—or simply Dutch, the shorthand all use—is the “mother tongue” for most Amish.

  Like others in rural Ohio, Dr. Jolliff wore several hats. Coroner since 2005, she was a longtime family practice physician with additional training in forensic medicine. She arrived at the house at 11:30 a.m. and entered the bedroom. First she took a good look at the room to see if anything seemed out of place. Then she carefully lifted the layers of blanket and nightgown off of Barbara Weaver so she could see her skin. She studied the bullet hole and found bruising on Barbara Weaver’s hands and legs, possibly unrelated to the shooting.

  Dr. Jolliff looked for stippling—the pattern that gunpowder and gunshot residue leave that determines the distance from gun to victim. Barbara’s body was placed in a body bag and taken to Summit County for the autopsy. Time of death, which is required for a death certificate, is a tricky issue. It’s determined at the crime scene and is based on blood pooling in tissue or skin, as well as body temperature. The coroner issues two reports, the first before an autopsy, the second after. The autopsy does not help determine the time of death. Dr. Jol
liff estimated the time of death as 2:00 a.m., with a window of midnight to 5:00 a.m. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest, and the death was ruled a homicide.

  Detective Chuhi took eleven items from the coroner to be kept as evidence, including nail clippings, hair samples, fingerprints, DNA evidence, and shot pellets.

  In all the interviews the deputies conducted that day and for days to come, they would ask this question: What motive could anyone have to harm Barbara Weaver?

  Her friends and family were hesitant to speak. Linda Yoder told them she was afraid to answer the question. “I asked her who she was afraid of,” Deputy Holmes wrote in his report. “She stated her [Barbara’s] husband. She said, ‘I’m not saying he did anything, but in the past their marriage hasn’t been the greatest.’” The Yoders had reason to fear Eli.

  Sheriff Thomas Maurer issued a statement saying that the killing of Barbara Weaver was an apparent homicide and the investigation would receive highest priority.

  He added that it was especially disturbing because six young children were in the house at the time of the murder.

  8

  The News

  If I tell you the truth, I feel sure (almost) that he’s having an affair, on the phone if not some other way. Am I too suspicious?

  —BARBARA WEAVER, ON HER FEELING THAT ELI HAD RETURNED TO HIS BAD HABITS