Corey Edkin Part 3: Rickey Wolfe & Barbara Miller

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We’ve made it to the third and final episode diving deep into toddler Corey Edkin’s disappearance and other related cases.  People who have been interviewed in recent years about Corey’s case say they were also asked about individuals connected to the 1986 murder of Rickey Wolfe and the 1989 disappearance and presumed murder of Barbara Miller.  Join us as we wrap up this fascinating & multi-layered case.  

Before we begin, let’s review what we covered so far:

  • Two-year-old Corey Edkin disappeared from his New Columbia, Pennsylvania home in October 1986. Investigators believe that Corey may still be alive and left his home with someone he knew.
  • Corey’s mother, Debbie, had ex-boyfriends, friends, and other close contacts who were known burglars, arsonists, drug dealers, and rapists. Three of her siblings were convicted of drug, theft, and assault charges from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. One of Debbie’s boyfriends was murdered in 1999, and his case is still unsolved. One of Debbie’s friends – Henry Bush – was arrested in 2020 for lying about his relationship with Debbie when Corey disappeared.
  • Corey’s grandmother, Myrle, was accused but acquitted of poisoning her first husband. Her second husband died in his home on Christmas day. She was convicted in the poisoning death of her third husband in 2023. Myrle has been convicted of numerous financial crimes throughout her lifetime, and since her latest conviction, suspicion of her role in Corey’s disappearance has increased.

People who have been interviewed in recent years about Corey’s case say they were also asked about individuals connected to the 1986 murder of Rickey Wolfe and the 1989 disappearance and presumed murder of Barbara Miller. Now, we’ll discuss Rickey and Barbara’s cases in depth and review the links between all three cases.

Rickey Wolfe

In December 1986, 30-year-old Rickey Wolfe was living alone in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Connie filed for divorce six months earlier, after 12 years of marriage. They split custody of their two children, a 12-year-old daughter, Jennifer, and a son, Timothy, who turned eight on Thursday, December 11, 1986. Rickey called Connie at 5:20pm before leaving work that day to confirm that he was headed to Tim’s birthday party. Next, Rickey called his grandmother, saying he would pick her up on the way. Rickey never showed, and his family reported him missing by 10:30pm.

Rickey’s body was found at 8:30am the next morning at a boat launch ramp along the Susquehanna River. It was located off Route 405, the road Rickey would have travelled from work to his grandmother’s house. Several witnesses would recall seeing Rickey talking to an unidentified man along the highway around 5:30pm the day before.

Now, he was lying face down in a pool of blood a few feet away from his car. The car had a cracked windshield and bent front bumper. Rickey’s eyeglasses were broken, his jacket torn, and he had a large “gash across his forehead.” Blood found around and inside Rickey’s car all matched his blood type. It appeared to investigators that someone murdered Rickey and staged the scene to look like a car accident.

Autopsy results confirmed that Rickey Wolfe had been murdered sometime between 5:30pm December 11 and 3:30am December 12. Rickey had suffered “substantial trauma to the head,” including a “blow to the back of the head with a blunt object” consistent with a baseball bat. Rickey had also been choked, and his internal neck fractures were the result of manual strangulation. His non-fatal injuries included a nose fracture, two black eyes, skull fractures, and a broken upper jaw which required “a severe impact.”

Links to drug ring

Throughout 1987, police were busy investigating a drug operation shipping marijuana from Arizona into Sunbury, Pennsylvania. One witness’s statements suggested a link between this drug activity and Rickey Wolfe’s murder. Police searched the home of Robert Hummel, a local dealer, and investigated his associates. The witness was Julie Williams – she helped transport the drugs from a cartel in Arizona back to Pennsylvania and distribute them among local dealers, including Robert Hummel. Police interviewed and arrested Julie multiple times throughout the years on drug-related offenses, and her statements would play a key role in Rickey Wolfe’s murder investigation.  

In December 1987, a year after Rickey Wolfe was killed, Northumberland County District Attorney Robert Sacavage requested the use of a special state police task force. The state police crime lab recovered “several new pieces of evidence” from Rickey’s car, “valuable information” was obtained from “numerous lie detector tests,” and investigators were working on a psychological profile of Rickey’s killer. By the second anniversary of Rickey’s murder, “several items gathered from the scene” were sent for DNA testing. It was only the second time the county had ever conducted DNA testing, and it didn’t yield useful results.

Key witness

The case took a major leap forward on May 9, 1989, when six men were charged with Rickey Wolfe’s murder. Investigators believe that Rickey was “killed because his assailants believed he owed a large sum of money to cocaine dealers and because [he] was a suspected government informer.” Rickey was not an informant, but information collected from a regional “drug trafficking ring” led them to connect those activities with Rickey’s murder. From there, DA Sacavage said that investigators focused on, “Who can we possibly break down to get some information?” More than 300 different people were interviewed, some several times.

Their key witness – the one who broke down – was 22-year-old Robert Hummel of Sunbury. He was already facing drug-related charges and said he agreed to cooperate because the investigation was leading to him. “I admit I took my part, but I did not commit the murder,” he claimed. Robert’s cooperation earned him a plea deal in which his charges were reduced to third-degree murder with a maximum sentence of only 10-20 years, and sentences for his other drug charges would be served concurrently. Robert implicated five other men in the murder, and the DA said his statements were corroborated by other witnesses and associates from his drug dealings.

Julie Williams is the only corroborating witness whose statement was specifically mentioned. She told police about a drug-related confrontation involving three men in her basement in 1986. Robert Hummel now implicated these men in Rickey Wolfe’s murder, and Julie’s statement proved they were associates at the time. Julie says that her statement is wrong – the confrontation happened, but not until 1987, after Rickey was killed – and that she tried to correct her statement. She claims that the detective she spoke to “kept screaming” and threatened her with jail time if she didn’t cooperate and go along with the original statement.

Robert Hummel’s first statement

In his statements to police, Robert Hummel claimed that Scott Schaeffer, William Hendricks, and Thomas Yoder – all young local men – worked for him by collecting his drug-related debts. Thirty-two-year-old Mark Byers was one of Robert’s customers, and when Mark showed up to purchase drugs with a friend, Rickey Wolfe, Scott told Robert that Rickey was an informant – not only should Robert not make the sale, but he should kill Rickey for being a “snitch.”

On December 11, 1986, when Robert was attempting to collect about $4,000 from Mark, Mark told him that Rickey Wolfe owed him money. Mark agreed “to bring [Rickey] to the boat launch area,” while Robert Hummel, Scott Schaeffer, and William Hendricks went there to wait. When Mark arrived at the boat launch alone, Scott and William left to get Rickey themselves, picking up Thomas Yoder on the way. Mark left alone, and Robert waited at the boat launch.

Scott, William, and Thomas returned with Rickey about an hour later. They punched Rickey until he was face down in the dirt and then handcuffed him. Robert interrogated Rickey while Scott “struck [him] several times.” Rickey denied owing money or being an informant, but Robert wasn’t convinced, telling Rickey that he had one week to pay up, then giving the other men orders to “rough him up a little bit.” Robert says he went to his car and didn’t witness whatever happened next. Everyone but Rickey returned within 15-20 minutes, and the four remaining men drove away. Robert would recall conversations after the murder in which Scott, William, and Thomas implicated themselves and each other in killing Rickey Wolfe and staging the scene to look like a car accident.

Serious charges

Scott Schaeffer, Mark Byers, Thomas Yoder, and William Hendricks were charged with criminal homicide, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, and unlawful restraint. Most of them had already had run-ins with police for DUI and drug-related offenses. William would later claim that, like Robert Hummel, investigators had offered him two different plea deals in exchange for testifying for the prosecution, but he turned their offers down.

Northumberland County DA Robert Sacavage announced that he would seek the death penalty for all four men given the “brutal” nature of the killing. Thirty-four-year-old Scott Wertz of New Columbia, a friend of Mark Byers, was also charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution and criminal conspiracy for his role, even though Robert Hummel hadn’t implicated him.

Barbara Miller’s phone call

After news of the charges broke, 30-year-old Barbara Miller, a single mother living in Sunbury, made a phone call to Scott Schaeffer’s fiancé. She got the answering machine and left a message stating that she knew who killed Rickey Wolfe. Scott and his fiancé reported this to investigators and provided police with the original tape, but it was lost. The evidence wasn’t presented at the preliminary hearing in June 1989.

Preliminary hearing

By then, a little over a month after charges were filed, Robert Hummel’s story had already changed. Now, Robert admitted that he hit Rickey with num-chucks on the left side of his head, but then Scott Schaeffer, Thomas Yoder, and William Hendricks “just went off” and “ganged up on” Rickey. Robert removed Rickey handcuffs, noticing a “mortal wound,” and later tossed the handcuffs into the river as he drove away. Robert also confessed to excessive alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine use throughout the day and during the murder.

Steven Marks of Sunbury, another drug-related associate of Robert Hummel’s, provided testimony that contradicted Robert’s statements – Steven said that Mark Byers owed him money, not Robert. Despite the discrepancies and changes in Robert’s statement, the judge accepted his plea deal. The other five men plead not guilty and prepared to go to trial.

Death threats

On June 16, 1989, the same day the preliminary hearing began, Barbara Miller went to police after receiving death threats in the mail. The typed letters accused Barbara of being a police narcotics informant – she was not – and the writer claimed to be a motorcycle gang member. Police were on high alert already due to defendant Thomas Yoder’s connection to the Warlocks motorcycle gang and threats they had received too. According to Scott Schaeffer, police knew by now that Barbara Miller had information about Rickey Wolfe’s murder.

In “late June,” Barbara returned to police, demanded her letters back, and insisted that they drop their investigation because “everything was ok.” Barbara gave the original letters to a friend for safe keeping but took them back a few days later, and the letters have never been recovered.

Missing

The same day Barbara Miller recovered those letters from her friend is also last day her 14-year-old son, Eddie, saw her. Barbara left their house for a friend’s wedding in a vehicle driven by James Egan, who goes by “Mike,” and he has been described as both her “estranged” and “live-in boyfriend” at the time. Eddie said that his mother and Mike were having “domestic problems,” and that they argued about the wedding because Mike wasn’t invited and didn’t think Barbara should go without him. Barbara had previously filed “domestic complaints” against Mike after he had threatened to kill her. Mike was convicted of theft and extortion in the early 1980s while he was a Sunbury police officer and drug dealing charges in the early 1990s.

Mike claimed he last saw Barbara at 5:00pm on Saturday, July 1, 1989, when he dropped her off with her wedding gift at a parking lot in Milton. She planned to meet friends who were taking her to the event in Mifflinburg – some reports say it was a wedding, others a reception – but she never made it. Later, Mike would say that he saw Barbara return home on July 2 and leave with two men to attend a “motorcycle event.” Mike reported Barbara missing on July 5.

Police said there was no evidence of foul play or a crime. They didn’t mention Barbara’s connection to Rickey Wolfe’s murder, the death threats she reported two weeks before her disappearance, or that the last person to see her alive had threatened her life too. Barbara’s family found it hard to believe that she would leave all her possessions and her son behind.

It wasn’t until November 1989 that investigators considered Barbara Miller an “involuntary missing person,” and they finally revealed that she had received threatening letters before she went missing. Investigators theorized that she was either killed or fled to escape danger, and that her case “may be linked to drug trafficking in the region.”

‘Right church, wrong pew’

In late 1989, Northumberland County District Attorney Robert Sacavage pushed for an expedited, single trial for all six men charged with Rickey Wolfe’s homicide, while the defendants asked for separate trials, a change of venue, and even dismissal of charges, claiming that Robert Hummel’s statements weren’t sufficient evidence to move to trial. Despite collecting numerous pieces of physical evidence, nothing conclusively connected any defendant to the crime scene. None of the fingerprints found in Rickey’s car matched the defendants, and only three recovered hairs came back as “similar” to the defendants, but that only meant they couldn’t be excluded.

Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania praised investigators “for working around the clock to solve the crime.” Afterward, several letters written to the local paper criticized the governor for not waiting until after the trial to commend investigators. One called the investigators “incompetent” and claimed there was a “lack of legitimate evidence.” Another accused the DA of “destroy[ing]” families to “make himself look good politically.”

Williams Hendricks’s trial

William Hendricks was successful in getting a separate trial, but the tradeoff was that his trial would be held first, sooner than planned, and his change of venue request was denied. When the trial began in February 1990, DA Sacavage made a surprise announcement: he was no longer seeking the death penalty because William didn’t strike Rickey during his murder.

Proceedings began with the sequestered jury taking a field trip to the crime scene after opening statements. William Hendricks testified that he didn’t know Robert Hummel until June 1987, six months after the murder, and that he didn’t know Rickey Wolfe at all. On the day of Rickey’s murder, William said he went to work, went home afterward, and then went to his girlfriend’s house for the night.

When Robert Hummel took the stand, he admitted to altering his statement after receiving assurances about his plea deal – when he felt more certain that the DA wouldn’t back out of the agreement, he provided more details. The defense pointed out that Robert was now on his fourth version of events. Robert also admitted that he had planned to kill Scott Schaeffer and William Hendricks in 1987 because they tried to get drugs from a different dealer.

Robert’s brother, Richard Hummel, testified that, during a phone call from prison, Robert admitted that three of the men he implicated weren’t involved in the murder. DA Sacavage argued that Robert’s brother misinterpreted what he said. He acknowledged Robert’s credibility issues and claimed that his statements included information only known to police and corroborated by other witnesses.

A local jury of five men and seven women deliberated for nine hours before finding William Hendricks guilty of second-degree murder. William faced a sentence of life in prison. He promptly appealed the verdict, noting that there was no physical evidence linking him to Rickey Wolfe’s murder and highlighting the problems with Robert Hummel’s statements. DA Sacavage said that “there was no need for physical evidence to place the defendant at the scene of the crime” because the “key prosecution witness” said he was there.

Crackdown

The DA also said that the trial demonstrated how county officials are taking a serious, hardline approach to the area’s growing drug problem. He promised, “we’re going to pursue these people relentlessly.” Less than a week later, Robert Hummel, William Hendricks, and Scott Schaeffer were arraigned on felony drug charges related to the distribution ring that police had been investigating since 1987 – the same case that led to charges in Rickey Wolfe’s murder.

Mark Byers’s trial

Mark Byers was also granted a separate trial for his role in Rickey’s killing, this time with an outside jury. As Mark’s trial began in April 1990, the remaining three defendants continued with their pre-trial motions while also juggling their new drug-related charges, and William Hendricks requested a new attorney to handle his appeal and latest charges.

Once the Centre County jury for Mark Byers’s trial was selected and sequestered, his trial kicked off with another field trip to the crime scene. DA Sacavage once again announced that he would not seek the death penalty since Mark didn’t strike Rickey Wolfe. However, he claimed to have evidence that Mark was at the crime scene: blood on a recovered marijuana pipe is the same type as Mark’s blood, type A. Mark testified in his own defense, saying that he was at a bar during the murder until about midnight. Fellow defendant Scott Wertz corroborated Mark’s alibi.

Other than his alibi, the cornerstone of Mark’s defense was the fact that Robert’s testimony was the only evidence implicating him in Rickey’s murder. Robert’s phone records from the days leading up to and immediately following Rickey’s murder show that he was in frequent contact with three associates – Steven Marks, Roy Herrold, and Sean Bobb – but not the men Robert had implicated, and Robert never called Mark Byers like he had claimed. The defense’s arguments were enough to convince the outside jury of six men and six women to acquit.

Within the month, separate trials were also granted for the remaining defendants. Scott Schaeffer was got an outside jury from Adams County, while Thomas Yoder was allowed a change of venue to Northampton County, both due to publicity surrounding the case.

Scott Schaeffer’s trial

Scott Schaeffer was the next defendant to go to trial in July 1990. Scott had already passed eight lie detector tests, but lie detector test results aren’t allowed as expert testimony in the state of Pennsylvania.

After a field trip to the crime scene, the sequestered Adams County jury heard from Steven Marks, a former cocaine dealer and associate of Robert Hummel’s who had already provided testimony contradicting Robert’s statements. Originally, Robert said Mark Byers owed him money, and that Rickey Wolfe owed Mark. After Steven first testified that Mark owed him money, not Robert, Robert changed his version of events to say that he confronted Mark because Steven owed Robert money. Steven testified that he didn’t owe Robert any money and that Mark repaid him a few months later.

Scott Schaeffer said he never met Rickey Wolfe, didn’t know Robert Hummel until April 1987, and only met William Hendricks in mid-1987, months after they allegedly murdered Rickey together. Scott said he stopped associating with Robert in the fall of 1987, and testimony from Robert’s wife couldn’t link Scott and Robert before 1987 either. After Robert put a hit on Scott and William, Scott told his other contacts to stop dealing with Robert, which cost Robert a lot of money.

Scott said he was socializing at a bar in Sunbury the afternoon of December 11, 1986, and then he went Christmas shopping with his girlfriend before spending the night with her. Robert Hummel’s brother once again testified that Robert admitted to implicating innocent men, and one of Robert’s fellow prison inmates testified that Robert confessed the same thing to him. Scott’s defense attorney highlighted Robert’s changing story and the lack of physical evidence connecting Scott to the crime scene.

After about eight hours of deliberation, the outside jury of seven men and five women returned a guilty verdict, convicting Scott of first-degree murder and related charges. Scott cried in the courtroom saying, “I’m innocent. I didn’t kill Rickey Wolfe. I didn’t even know him.”

Scott Wertz

As Scott Schaeffer began working on his appeals along with William Hendricks, Thomas Yoder was busy filing pre-trial motions. Meanwhile, the final defendant, Scott Wertz filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him, claiming that there was no evidence he committed a crime, and he hadn’t been brought to trial within a year. Scott Wertz testified at Mark Byers’s trial that he and Mark were together at a bar when Rickey Wolfe was killed, and Mark had already been acquitted. Scott Wertz was cleared too in September 1990.

Thomas Yoder’s trial

The fourth and final trial began in Northampton County in November 1990. The state laid out their case the same way, starting with a jury field trip to the crime scene. Thomas Yoder’s defense attorney pointed out that Robert Hummel had provided 11 different statements by now. When Robert was grilled on the stand about his numerous inconsistencies, his story changed even more. Now, Robert said that he didn’t remember Mark Byers telling him that Rickey Wolfe owed him money. Robert admitted that it was “hard to remember that day” because of how much drugs and alcohol he consumed.

A new forensic pathologist concluded that Rickey Wolfe died within eight hours of when his body was discovered. That makes his earliest time of death closer to midnight, not 5:30pm. This expert witness also emphasized that blows and choking resulted in Rickey’s death, while the prosecution focused on a single “fatal blow” they claimed Thomas Yoder delivered out of Robert Hummel’s sight.

Another witness named Steven Sprinkle, a resident of Sunbury, came forward to testify that he knew parts of Robert Hummel’s statements were inaccurate, and Steven had another witness who could corroborate him. He claimed to have gone to DA Sacavage back in 1989 with that information, but the DA’s office denied that the call ever happened.

The outside jury of eight women and four men took less than three hours to find Thomas Yoder not guilty based on a lack of motive and evidence. One juror said afterward, “There for a while, I was wondering what he was doing on trial.”

Lingering doubt

Unlike William Hendricks and Scott Schaeffer, Thomas Yoder didn’t even provide an alibi. The local newspaper ran an editorial lamenting that Robert Hummel had gotten away with murder. Several community members wrote to the paper questioning the different outcomes of each trial when the DA’s case was the same. Out of the six men charged with Rickey Wolfe’s murder, only two were convicted, and a third, whose changing statements provided the only evidence implicating the others, would be out in 10-20 years on a plea deal.

All the numerous appeals made by William Hendricks and Scott Schaeffer throughout the early 1990s were denied. Their convictions were upheld, and they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Lithia Springs searches

Also in the early 1990s, police analyzed bones found in a flower garden in Lithia Springs. Barbara Miller’s ex-boyfriend Mike Egan had rented the property, and there is speculation that the bones could be Barbara’s remains. They turned out to be cow bones, but it was the first time police named Mike Egan as a suspect. The property is searched again when a shower curtain is found “coming from a manmade hole that resembles a grave,” but it proves to be another dead end.

Key witness recants

Major breaks came in both cases a decade later in 2002. In April, Robert Hummel was granted parole and recanted his statements that put Scott Schaeffer and William Hendricks in prison for life. He claimed that the DA and two state police officers pressured him “to give false information.” Robert said that Roy Herrold, now deceased, ordered Rickey Wolfe’s killing. Phone records confirmed that Robert and Roy were in close contact in the days surrounding Rickey’s murder, and Roy’s name was mentioned by other witnesses who contradicted Robert’s statements. William Hendricks and Scott Schaeffer filed new appeals, but they wouldn’t be released just yet.

New evidence

Barbara Miller’s unsolved cold case was reopened two months later. A recently recovered photograph proved that Barbara attended the wedding (or wedding reception), and “an item that she dropped” in her house afterward proved that she was home in the early morning hours of July 2, 1989. Investigators conducted more than 50 new interviews related to the death threats Barbara received in June 1989, which led them to new names and new leads, including several witnesses who had also been threatened.

In September, investigators searched abandoned mines where Barbara Miller’s remains might be located, and several pieces of evidence were collected and sent to the state crime lab for “DNA, blood and comparative testing.” None of these items proved to be valuable. Police also searched the home of a Lewisburg man but found nothing of value there either. In October, Barbara was declared dead as of July 2, 1989, and her case was reclassified as a homicide investigation.

In August 2003, investigators announced “significant advances in the case,” and it was the first time a possible link between Barbara Miller and Rickey Wolfe’s cases was officially reported. A task force was organized to investigate them together.

Vacated sentences

In April 2004, police received an anonymous piece of mail containing a tracking slip with William Hendricks’s signature on it, proving that William was working during a time that contradicts Robert Hummel’s statements. By July, William Hendricks and Scott Schaeffer’s sentences were vacated. They agreed to plead no contest to third degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, reducing their sentence to 10-20 years plus 10 years’ probation. The new evidence would have likely warranted a new trial, and Robert Hummel was no longer a cooperative witness for the state. Scott was granted parole in 2006, and William in 2007.

Rickey Wolfe’s family was shocked by the decision and worried that they may never know what really happened to Rickey. The new Northumberland County DA admitted that some officers believe both men are innocent, however there is “not enough evidence to clear” them. Former DA Robert Sacavage, now a judge, insisted that investigators did their due diligence by corroborating all of Robert Hummel’s statements at the time. While he “doesn’t disagree” with the new deal, he “never lost a minute of sleep over the convictions.”

Investigators on Barbara Miller’s case claim they collected evidence that they felt cleared William Hendricks and Scott Schaeffer. “The system failed these two men,” lead investigator Tim Miller would later say. Miller and his team believe that Barbara had information about Rickey Wolfe’s murder, but they don’t necessarily think the same people killed both Barbara and Rickey.

Latest searches

Investigators searched a water-filled strip mine for Barbara’s remains in 2004, and while evidence was collected and sent for analysis, it doesn’t appear that they found anything of value. In 2006, police returned to the home in Lithia Springs that Mike Egan had rented with a cadaver dog, but there’s no report of any evidence recovered there. In 2008, two more bones were found in a hole with a knife while repairing the Lithia Springs home’s foundation, but they turned out to be cow bones again.

Barbara Miller’s unsolved cold case was reactivated in 2016, and in 2018, the state Attorney General’s office took over. Investigators are focused on a duplex home in Milton where Mike Egan’s sister, Cathy Reitenbach, lived with her boyfriend, Harry Catherman. Cathy and Harry rented the home from Samuel Ranck, the Northumberland County judge who presided over many of the trials we’ve covered up to this point. Judge Ranck had also sentenced his own tenants for dealing drugs from the home he rented to them.

Numerous tips led investigators to believe that Barbara’s remains were entombed “in little pieces” in a concrete basement wall in that same home. Mike Egan did construction there in 1989, when the wall was likely installed. Cadaver dogs indicated human remains there, so the wall was removed, and female bone fragments were recovered, but it appears that there is not enough genetic material to match them to Barbara.

Police believe that the threatening letters Barbara received came from someone close to her and that she was killed in her home after she returned from the wedding. Their primary suspect is Mike Egan or someone connected with him. Some of Barbara Miller’s family members feel they know who killed her but are reluctant to publicly name that person.

DNA to be tested

Scott Schaeffer and William Hendricks, now in their late 50s, want to be exonerated. According to Scott, “I have said from day one we did not do this, and I have dedicated my life to proving that.” Rickey Wolfe’s son, Tim Wolfe, believes in their innocence and publicly supports their efforts.

Scott requested DNA tests on evidence in Rickey’s case in 2019, 2020, and 2021. He appealed to the State Superior Court after being denied, insisting that advancements in DNA technology could prove others were at the crime scene and he wasn’t. In his appeal, Scott also claimed that a baseball bat owned by Barbara Miller’s son, Eddie, was the murder weapon. Like Barbara’s recorded voice message, Scott said that police had it in evidence but lost it. The State Superior Court refused to hear Robert’s appeal and the evidence remains untested. The court argued that Scott pleaded “no contest” – he didn’t claim innocence, and that means he can’t make requests to prove his innocence.

Connections

Investigators have confirmed that there is an “overlap of players” between Corey Edkin, Rickey Wolfe, and Barbara Miller’s cases, including family ties. There is at least one “reported link between [Debbie] Mowery [Corey’s mother] and an individual in the Barbara Miller case.” Several people who have been interviewed about Corey Edkin’s disappearance in recent years have been asked about people involved in Rickey and Barbara’s cases. Although police are keeping information on these open investigations close to the vest, we know from our research that several members of Corey’s family were involved in the same criminal activities we talked about in Rickey and Barbara’s cases today, and they all occurred within the same regional area and time period.  

Corey Edkin’s cousin, Whitney Trump, started researching his case in 2017, saying, “I just don’t want Corey to be forgotten.” After researching and presenting his case, it’s impossible for us to forget Corey either. We hope that this three-part episode brings attention and a fresh perspective to these cases.

If you have any information regarding Corey Edkin’s disappearance, Rickey Wolfe’s murder, Barbara Miller’s murder, or any other serious crime, please contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS or online here.

Additional resources

RICKEY WOLFE – Murder and original investigation

RICKEY WOLFE – Arrests and lead up to first trial

RICKEY WOLFE – William Hendricks trial

RICKEY WOLFE – Mark Byers trial, appeals, and drug ring bust

RICKEY WOLFE – Scott Schaeffer trial, appeals, and another drug bust

RICKEY WOLFE – Thomas Yoder trial, Scott Wertz cleared, and more appeals

RICKEY WOLFE – Appeals, additional sentencing, and ongoing drug cases

RICKEY WOLFE – Robert Hummel recants and aftermath

RICKEY WOLFE – Latest developments

BARBARA MILLER – Disappearance and original investigation

BARBARA MILLER – Renewed investigation and searches

BARBARA MILLER – Latest developments