Unholy Deception: The case of A. B. Schirmer

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Could your trusted local minister harbor a secret life of malevolence? This episode peels back the veneer of piety surrounding Arthur Burton Schirmer, the “sinister minister,” exposing a trail of untimely deaths including his two wives and a troubled congregant.  As we share the heart-wrenching narratives of those affected by these tragedies, we also spotlight the relentless pursuit of truth by the families and law enforcement that eventually cast a glaring light on Schirmer’s shadowy existence.

Today, we are delving into the chilling case of the deaths surrounding Arthur Burton Schirmer, or A.B. as most knew him, a man who wore the cloak of a pastor while concealing dark and deadly secrets.  Known as the Sinister Minister, A.B. Schirmer was either an unlucky man who lost two wives through tragic accidents or a killer who almost got away with murder if not for an unexpected event no one saw coming.

Pastor’s Office

Jackson Township in Monroe County is located in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.  At the intersection of PA Route 715 and Church Road sits Reeders United Methodist Church—a beautiful white steeple building with vibrant red doors that offer fellowship and service to those seeking spiritual guidance. One such man was Joseph Musante, a carpenter who struggled with alcoholism and had sought out A.B. Schirmer for support.  Joseph’s wife, Cindy, was also a congregant of Reeders United Methodist Church and AB’s secretary/personal assistant at the time. 

While working through his issues with Pastor Schirmer, Joseph helped with construction jobs around the church as he was a carpenter by trade.  He even built a desk for A.B. that he used in the church office.  Pastor Schirmer had been counseling both Joseph and Cindy who had been married 18 years and had two children, but that assistance would end in October 2008 when Joseph Musante was found dead sitting behind the vary desk he had built.  Joseph died of a single gunshot wound to his head.  What would cause Joseph to take his own life? Was his alcohol addiction too overwhelming or did something else drive him to it?

Rose Cobb was Joseph’s sister and when she learned of her brother’s death she traveled to Reeder’s to be with her family.  When she arrived she felt that something was off as no one was around offering comfort and condolences to the family.  She questioned Cindy as to why that was and that is when Cindy told her that she had fallen in love with her boss, A.B. Schirmer who had lost his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer three months prior in a car accident.  Cindy relayed what A.B. told her about a deer running out in front of the car he was driving while taking Betty to the hospital for jaw pain. 

Background

A.B. Schirmer is described as a good speaker who held a magnetism and charm when he delivered his sermons.  A.B. was a native of Milton Delaware, and had received his pastoral degrees attending Eastern Pilgrim College in Allentown and Messiah College in Grantham, both in Pennsylvania.  Reeders United Methodist was not A.B.’s first assignment as they had previously served as pastor to United Methodist Churches in Lebanon and Lancaster counties.  A.B. and Betty had moved to Reeders in 2001, the same year they had married.  A.B. had been married to his first wife, Jewel for thirty years when she died in 1999.  

Betty Schirmer was born Betty Jean Shertzer on June 28, 1952, in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  She was one of nine siblings growing up in the town of Hummelstown right next door to Hershey.  Betty, like A.B., had been married previously and divorced and had one child, a son.   At the time of her death, Betty was fifty-six and an active member of the church her husband ran.  Betty is described as always having a smile on her face, she was kind, outgoing, and generous.  She was also a board member of the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Network, a program whose mission is to provide” low-income families or families in crisis with the essentials to maintain a dignified standard of living”.  These services include a food pantry and clothing closet for residents of Monroe County.    

Questions

Rose wanted to know more about Pastor Schirmer especially after Cindy told her his first wife, Jewel had also died suddenly in 1999.  That death was due to an accidental fall down the stairs in the couple’s home they shared in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. A.B. at that time had been the pastor at the Bethany United Methodist Church in Lebanon. To Rose, two wives dying from accidents seemed to be more than just a coincidence or even bad luck.  Knowing this information also called into question Joseph’s death and the reason behind his taking his life.  

One person who knew what may have driven Joseph to commit suicide was his sixteen-year-old daughter, Samantha.  Samantha had found out about her mother’s affair with A.B. through some text messages she discovered between the pair.  She was worried about how her father would react to finding out as he had turned to A.B. for support and guidance with his drinking and marital problems.  

Samantha tried to end her mother’s affair by setting up a fake email under the name Jean Smith and sending a message to A.B. that someone knew what he was up to with his secretary and that he should keep it professional.  However, that is not what happened.  A.B. and Cindy figured out it was Samantha who sent the email and A.B. confronted her in his office telling her she was wrong and denying anything sordid was happening between him and her mother and how dare she accuse them of such. She needed to drop it. 

Samantha left that meeting not believing what A.B. told her but kept quiet for her father’s sake.  That was until he started asking questions.  Joseph asked his daughter if Cindy loved A.B., and Samantha said, “I think so.”  Joseph confronted Cindy and she had promised to end the affair but she secretly kept in contact with A.B.

Final Act

The day before Joseph took his life, Cindy had taken herself and the kids to her sister’s house and refused to allow anyone to answer Joseph’s repeated calls including Samantha. Joseph reached out to his daughter several times with her mother directing her not to answer. Now in the morning, Samantha did listen to a voicemail her father had left.  He said, “If you love me at all, please call me back.”  That was the last time she heard from her father.  

Rose Cobb now knew of three bodies connected to Pastor Schirmer and that didn’t sit right with her.  So Rose notified the Methodist Church Bishop to inform her about Cindy and A.B.’s relationship.  Her next call was to the police.  Detective Jim Wagner of the Pocono Township Police Department was assigned to investigate.  Like Rose, Detective Wagner felt that there were some red flags and initially suspected that Cindy, A.B., or both had a hand in Joseph’s death.  Now that Joseph was no longer around the two could be together.  

However, the Pennsylvania State Police Toppers Phiil Barletto and William Maynard, who initially investigated Joseph’s death ultimately ruled that it was a suicide.   They based their findings on the blood spatter evidence and glass fragments found on the bottom of Joseph’s shoes which were consistent with him breaking the glass to gain entry into the building and then stepping on that glass.  Also, Cindy and A.B. had air-tight alibis.  A.B. was over an hour away at the time of Joesph’s suicide.  

Suspicion

Detective Wagner accepted the state police findings but still had suspicions that something wasn’t right with the pastor’s wives both dying of accidents nine years apart.  Detective Wagner wanted to take a closer look into Betty Jean Schirmer’s death who as I mentioned died just three months before Joseph’s suicide.  Her death was originally classified as an accident after the vehicle crashed.

On July 15, 2008, Stan Dickerson was driving home in the early morning hours when he came upon a PT Cruiser alongside a guardrail.  Stan stopped and asked the driver what happened and if he was okay.  The driver, A.B., told him he was fine but he didn’t think that his wife was.  A.B. turned the lights on in the car and Dickerson was able to make out Betty who appeared unconscious and having trouble breathing.  He also noticed an extreme amount of blood.  He asked A.B. if he called 911 yet and A.B. replied, “Not yet” so Dickerson called.  Operator – “What’s your emergency?”  Dickerson – “Somebody hit the guardrail. There’s a woman here, she’s hurt. There are two people in the car but..uh…the guy seems okay.” 

Within minutes the ambulance arrived and Betty Jean Schirmer was removed from the passenger side of the vehicle bleeding from her head, unconscious, and having difficulty breathing.  She was rushed to Lehigh Valley Hospital.  Betty was in grave condition.  She had a wound to the left side of her head and two gashes on her right side. Betty had multiple skull fractures and a subdural hematoma to her brain.  She died in the early morning hours at 12:12 am on July 16th. 

Meanwhile, back at the scene Patrol Officer Gupko took photographs of the scene both inside and outside the vehicle.  Ultimately, no one had any suspicions of anything nefarious occurring and the accident was ruled just that, an accident.  

Questions

The coroner talked to A.B. after Betty passed about how she had sustained such severe injuries.  His job was to determine if an autopsy would be necessary or not.  A.B. told him that he had been taking Betty to the hospital for a jaw pain and while traveling 50 mph or more a deer had run out into the road.  He avoided hitting a deer but the car spun out of control going off the road.  He overcorrected and that is when he struck the guardrail head-on.  That then caused the car to spin again and hit the guardrail a second time this time to the rear of the vehicle.  

A.B. also told the coroner that Betty was not wearing her seatbelt and was flung around the inside of the out-of-control vehicle.  A.B. stated that Betty had first hit the windshield, then the rear-view mirror then the post that the seat belt loop is attached to. At the time, the coroner was unaware of any questions as to why Betty wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.  

Betty’s family was shocked when they heard that she had not been wearing a seatbelt as Betty was always safety conscious.  A.B. when asked by one of her sisters said that Betty had started playing a game where she would leave her seatbelt off to see how long it took for the seat buzzer alarm to turn off.  He would also give another explanation that Betty had taken her seatbelt off right before the deer entered the road as the seat belt had caused her jaw pain to intensify and yet another version was that the seat belt had simply come undone.  

Betty’s loved ones, dealing with their shock and grief upon her death, didn’t think to ask more questions. 

New Questions

But Detective Wagner was now asking those questions.  The first thing that stuck out to him looking at photographs taken that night, was how someone in the passenger seat sustained the type of head injury Betty had.  Another thing, why were there no skid marks on the roadway?  According to A.B., the car was violently out of control yet there was no evidence of breaking.  Then there was the car itself.  It sustained only minor damage to the front end and the airbags were never deployed.  The car was still functional and could have been driven.  

Focusing on the blood stains, Detective Wagner observed numerous blood drops on the seat cushion that looked to have been absorbed into the seat Betty had been sitting on.  To Detective Wagner Betty looked to have been sitting in the passenger seat until Dickerson had stopped.  

First Mrs. Schirmer

Next, Detective Wagner wanted to know more about how the first Mrs. Schirmer died so he contacted the Northern Lebanon Township Police Department in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.  Jewel Schirmer had died in 1999, in what appeared to be a household accident when she fell down the basement stairs while vacuuming with a shop vac.  At the time, A.B. told authorities that he had discovered his wife’s body at the bottom of the basement stairs after returning home from jogging around 2:15 pm.  

First responders were initially taken aback by how calm A.B. was when they arrived.  His story of just returning home from jogging was also unsettling as it was raining that day and A.B. was completely dry.  It also appeared odd that when EMTs were ready to transport Jewel to Hershey Medical Center they couldn’t find A.B. to notify him and he also was not at the hospital for some time after Jewel’s arrival.  It was discovered years later that A.B. had stayed home and cleaned up the bloody basement while Jewel was hooked up to life support machines.  

Dr. Ross

Doctors initially thought Jewel had a heart attack. It was forensic pathologist, Dr. Wayne Ross, at Penn State Hershey Medical Center who had conducted Jewel’s autopsy that concluded a heart attack wasn’t the reason for her falling down the stairs.  

Dr. Ross conducted tests that showed that Jewel was negative for heart disease.  However, she had several injuries to her skull.  Two linear tears were on the right side of her head. According to Dr. Ross, Jewel’s skull had received a blow equivalent to a force of at least 750 pounds of pressure.  In all, she had 14 blows to her head and face along with numerous cuts, abrasions, and bruises.  However, She had no injuries to her ribs or pelvis or scrapes that would indicate that she had slid down the steps.  She also had no significant injuries below her neck, and nothing broken in her hands or wrists. 

Dr. Ross classified Jewel’s death as undetermined as he did not feel Jewel’s injuries would have been caused by a passive fall.  He urged the Northern Lebanon Township Police to look further into her death but for some reason they never did.  After nine years, Jewel’s case was reopened after Detective Wagner’s inquiry.  

Two years later in 2001, after marrying Betty, A.B. and his new bride moved to Monroe County to become the pastor of Reeder United Methodist Church in the small country town tucked away in the Pocano Mountains.

Search Warrant

On December 18, 2008, five months after Betty’s death, Detective Wagner was able to secure a search warrant for the parsonage that A.B. and Betty had been living in before his dismissal.  Detective Wagner was looking for any evidence that a physical altercation had taken place.  Nothing appeared out of place in the house, but in the garage, investigators found blood drops on the concrete floor.  Using the chemical luminol a trail of blood led to the passenger side of where the car would have been parked from the garage’s back door.  There they found a large pool of blood that someone had taken the time to clean up.  You could tell by the swipe marks DNA was collected from Betty’s son, mother, and sibling to compare to the DNA found in the garage.  DNA tests would confirm that the blood was Betty’s.  Results would show that the blood collected was 20 trillion to one it was Betty’s.  Of all the samples collected none belonged to A.B.   To detectives, Betty had been assaulted and bleeding before being placed in the car.   

While the search of the parsonage was occurring, the Pennsylvania State Police were questioning A.B. about the blood they had been told had been found.  A.B. denied that Betty had ever bled in the garage bleeding.  Then A.B. claimed that they had been moving some wood that had been stacked in the garage and one of the pieces had fallen cutting them both weeks before. There was a woodpile found in the backyard and at the bottom of that pile were some local newspapers that were dated September 2008, two months after Betty’s death. This was not the wood he claimed they had moved if it had been moved at all. 

During A.B.’s six-hour interview with state police, he claimed that right after the crash he had held Betty in his arms trying to wake her up.  He also admitted that although he had a cell phone he hadn’t thought of calling 911.   

New Relationship

A year after Betty’s death, A.B. was still in a relationship with Cindy and had moved into her home. It was on Samantha’s 18th birthday that she moved out.  In the summer of 2010, Samantha received a text from her mother that had her worried for her mother’s safety.  A.B. had given Cindy an engagement ring.  Samantha, knowing the first two Mrs. Schirmer didn’t live happily ever after contacted the Pocono Township Police. 

Authorities had been working on their investigation over the past two years and took their findings to the two men who could move their case from an investigation to charges.  On July 8, 2010, forensic pathologist, Dr. Samuel Land and Lehigh County Coroner, Scott Grim reviewed all the evidence that had been gathered.  They both determined that Betty’s injuries were not caused by a car crash.  Betty’s death certificate was changed from accidental to murder.  

According to Detective Wendy Serfass with the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, investigators felt that it was only a matter of time until whatever triggered A.B. would surface in his relationship with Cindy and that may put her in danger.  In September 2010, two years after Betty’s death and only a few weeks after A.B. had proposed, he was arrested for Betty’s murder and taken into custody at Cindy’s residence.  He was denied bail. 

Grand Jury

Later that month, a grand jury was held in which several key witnesses testified as to what they observed that night at the “accident” scene.  Paramedic Margo Warner testified that she couldn’t figure out how Betty sustained such a traumatic head injury with there being such little damage to the Schirmer vehicle.  Warner described that Betty had blood covering her head and had major bruising about one eye.  Those injuries didn’t seem to reconcile with what she saw inside the vehicle, although there was a lot of blood there was no major damage.  Nothing inside the car appeared to cause the injury to Betty’s head.

Dr. Wayne Ross, who had performed Jewel’s autopsy in 1999, had a look at Betty’s medical records from the crash. Betty did not have a formal autopsy and was cremated shortly after her death, but the hospital did have a CAT scan done when she arrived at the hospital.  The lingering question was how likely it was that two women married to the same man had two lacerations on the right sides of their heads, both dying of traumatic brain injuries under suspicious circumstances.  

Dr. Ross also conducted additional tests after being contacted by Detective Wagner.  Using crash test dummies of the same weight and height as Jewel, Dr. Ross placed chalk all over the dummies’ heads to see if the linear strikes he found on Jewel’s head could be replicated from a fall down the stairs.  They could not.  Dr. Ross changed Jewel Schirmer’s death certificate from undetermined to homicide.  Dr. Ross believed that Jewel had been struck with a long cylinder object like a crowbar or a pipe.  Dr. Ross testified to the grand jury of his findings that both women had died from similar injuries.

Accident Reconstruction

Police Corporal Douglas Shook who had reconstructed the car accident testified that the Schirmer vehicle had been traveling under 25 mph when it “crashed” not the 45 mph to 55 mph that A.B. had claimed.  He also testified that there was “no physical evidence of any avoidance maneuver on the roadway nor sufficient damage to the car to cause a fatal injury.”  His testimony was backed up by Penn State University’s Crash Safety and Research Center.  Their computer-generated model of the crash determined that the Schirmer vehicle had been moving between 18 and 22 mph when it crashed. 

As I mentioned before, once Detective Wagner contacted Lebanon County authorities about the circumstances around Jewel Schirmer’s death an investigation was opened.  At A.B.’s preliminary hearing, Jewel’s brother was allowed to give testimony that before her death they had a conversation where Jewel told her brother that she believed A.B. had been cheating on her.  

Indictment No. 2

In September 2012, A.B., who was already in custody, was indicted for Jewel’s murder.  Jewel, who had died at 50, was born on October 30, 1948, into a ministerial family.  At the time of her death, Jewel had been an elementary music teacher at Our Lady of the Valley School in Lebanon for the previous ten years.  Jewel was also active at Bethany United Methodist Church as a junior choir, director of church musicals, and church organist.  Jewel was also a singer and taught others to play for over thirty years.  All of this in addition to being a mother of three.  

Job Opportunities 

After United Methodist Bishop Peggy Johnson filed a complaint against A.B. back in 2008, A.B. surrendered his ministerial credentials. He didn’t retire or was fired; he voluntarily turned in his credentials.   That didn’t mean he left ministering behind.  A.B. was an accomplished singer who often sang with his first wife at church and church camp retreats.  In March 2009, A.B. joined the evangelical singing trio, Beroean.  Beroean is named after a group of people written about in the Book of Acts who were described as people of noble character and integrity.  Beroean performed their musical ministry at various churches throughout the Lancaster and Lebanon area up until his arrest. 

A.B. also found another job in May 2009 working as program director for the Lebanon Elm Street Program.  This position was to work with state grants on economic revitalization programs for the community.  Both of these ventures were obtained before A.B.’s arrest in September 2010.  

Trial No. 1

On January 8, 2013, A.B., now 64, stood trial for first-degree murder and tampering with or fabricating evidence in Betty’s death.  In Prosecutor Mancuso’s opening statement, he referred to Arthur Burton Schirmer as the Sinister Minister telling the jury that his whole life was based on deceit, a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.  

At trial, the prosecutor presented the evidence, the blood trail in the garage, photographs showing saturated blood on the passenger seat where Betty sat, and the coins on the car’s console that had remained neatly stacked after the supposed violent crash.  If you believe his version of events and his car had been traveling forty-five to fifty-five miles per hour, those coins should have flown all over the car.  

The prosecution’s theory was that A.B. had brutally attacked Betty, beating her in the head with an object such as a crowbar or pipe in the garage of the parsonage.  Then he placed her in the passenger side of the couple’s 2007 “P.T. Cruiser then staged a low-speed car crash along Route 715” less than two miles from the Schirmer home.   

Surprise Testimony

One detail that came out at trial was a call Joseph Musante made just before his suicide.  He had called A.B.’s supervisor, Rev. Bronwyn Yocum who oversaw the United Methodist Church Northeast District on October 28, 2008.   Rev. Yocum testified that Musante had called her to file a complaint alleging that Schirmer was having an affair with his wife and he wanted something done about it.  There were a series of phone calls that October afternoon with Rev. Yocum arranged for Musante to come to her Allentown office to file a formal complaint.  He would never keep that appointment as he had used a .380 Beretta to end his life in the early morning hours of October 29th.  

Another interesting witness was a woman who was receiving counseling from A.B. around the time of his affair with Cindy Mustante.  She testified as to a conversation she had with A.B. about divorcing Betty after he had shared with her his relationship problems and his affair with his secretary.  She testified that A.B. told her that he didn’t want to lose half of everything he had to his wife. Perhaps a motive?  

Testimony from Jewel’s Schirmer’s brother was allowed.  Jon Behney testified that the day he saw his sister lying in a hospital bed with “raccoon eyes looking as if she had taken a beating didn’t believe that she did not die from a fall down the stairs.”  Both Jon and his father, Albert Behney, who died in 2004, felt something wasn’t right not only about Jewel’s injuries but how A.B. was acting at the hospital with some of his parishioners who had come to offer support.  

At the time of Jewel’s death, Jon reached out to a detective with the Northern Lebanon Police Department to share his suspicions that Jewel had died from a beating and not a fall down the stairs.  The detective got Jewel’s body transferred to Hershey Medical Center from the Roland Funeral Home in Lebanon where she had already been partially embalmed.  Dr. Wayne Ross performed her autopsy.  

Defense

The defense decided to put A.B. on the stand.  A.B. told the jury the same version of events that he had told authorities that night.  During A.B.’s testimony, Prosecutor Mancuso found it interesting that A.B. moved his chair to face the jury.  This is something that an expert witness will do.  To the defense, they thought A.B. did well on the stand.  He was consistent and relayed to the jury the story of how Betty died that night.  He didn’t waiver or embellish.  To the prosecutor, they thought A.B. was their best witness with his flat, unemotional testimony.  

What version of events did the jury believe after eleven days and sixty witnesses?  After ninety minutes of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder and tampering with or fabricating evidence.  A.B. received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.  

Deal

In October 2010, A.B. was charged with one count of murder in the first degree for Jewel’s death.  A year-and-a-half after A.B.’s conviction he struck a deal with the Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office in the death of his first wife, Jewel.  He pleaded no contest to the charge of third-degree murder. 

In Pennsylvania, a person can plead “no contest.”   This means a person is not admitting guilt for the crime they are charged with and is waiving their right to a trial.  The judge with a defendant pleading no contest will then sentence that defendant based on the crime he or she had been charged with.  Why would anyone do this and not try to mount a defense?  The benefit of pleading no contest is that a plea cannot be used against you in a civil or criminal case because you never admitted guilt.  Since you’ve never admitted guilt you have grounds for an appeal.  

At A.B.’s sentencing, he still professed his innocence. His motivation for entering the no-contest plea was to spare his family the trauma of going through another murder trial.  A.B.’s children from his first marriage stood by their father and believed that he was innocent of both their mother’s and Betty’s deaths.  However, not everyone believed in A.B.’s innocence.  Jon Behney, Jewel’s brother, told the court that he believed A.B. was an evil man.  A.B. received a sentence of twenty to forty years on top of his life sentence and is to be served consecutively.   

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