James Robert Cruz Jr

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James Robert Cruz Jr raped and murdered a young runaway in March 1993

On a snowy day in March 1993, the body of a young girl was found discarded on the side of a rural road outside of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.  Who was she and where did she come from?  These questions and more would lead authorities up and down the east coast of the United States until they found James Robert Cruz Jr.

Bellefonte, PA - Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Bellefonte, PA Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Location

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania is the county seat of Centre County. They are next door neighbors to Penn State University. The area goes by the nickname Happy Valley. It was founded in 1795. It was known for its Victorian architecture and still is today. Originally, it was named after the spring that used to supply water to the town.

La belle fonte.

Snowy Grave

On March 24, 1993, a late snowstorm had hit the area. A man driving along one of the rural roads off of Interstate 80 noticed something along the side of the road and pulled over. Immediately the driver contacted the Pennsylvania State Police who descended to the area. A young blonde female was found discarded on a snowbank. Her hands were tied together with a yellow nylon rope that had also been tied around her neck with a granny-style knot

Police felt at the time that she was either a teenager or a young college student based upon her physical appearance. They also felt that she had been thrown from a position that was higher than that of a car. Perhaps from the cab of a tractor-trailer as she had sunk six feet into the snowbank. Dual tire tracks found near the scene would cement their theory. Plastic casts would be taken at the scene and sent to the PA State Police Crime Lab.

At the scene, the county coroner determined that she had died sometime before she was dumped. She had been found wearing only socks, underwear, and a sweater. There was no other identifying information found, such as a purse or id. Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar was also called to the scene. His observation at the time was that she was disposed of haphazardly like a piece of trash.

PA State Trooper Madden took the lead on the case. This would be the first murder in Bellefonte in thirteen years. Troopers would search the area to see if they could find any additional evidence to help identify the victim. They would even span out onto Penn State University campus.

Unfortunately, nothing would turn up.

What the Body Can Tell a Coroner

The victim’s body was taken to nearby Lehigh Hospital in Bethlehem, PA. The coroner determined that the victim had died by strangulation. No other wounds were found. Her time of death based upon her core temperature was less than 12 hours before she was found. It was also determined that she had had sex before she died. They did not know whether sex had been consensual but based upon the fact she was murdered they felt she had been raped.

The rope was carefully removed from around her neck. Under the knot, the coroner had found a single black hair. It didn’t match the victim. The hair and knotted rope were sent off to the FBI Crime Lab in Washington D.C.

In the victim’s left hand the corner found some faded writing that had been written there in ink. What was there was difficult to read. The skin was removed from her left hand and sent off to the FBI Crime Lab to see if they could enhance the writing to determine what exactly had been written.

Fingerprints

Fingerprints were taken and were run through the AFIS system and national databases for missing persons, but nothing turned up. They also looked through national and state databases on descriptors of her physical appearance. X-rays were taken in hopes that if a match was made they would also have another tool to identify her.

Due to the amount of bruising and contusions she had suffered the victim was sent to a mortician who could help restore her face to help her look as lifelike as possible. The mortician named her “Spring Dawn” after the area she was found in (spring township) and the time of day. Pictures were taken and distributed to newspapers.

Investigators also took the victim’s photos to area truck stops to show around. Some truckers were able to give the investigators names. Additional tips came through from photos run in the newspapers.

Unfortunately, nothing panned out

April Showers 

In late April the FBI Lab got in touch with Trooper Madden notifying him that the writing on the victims’ hand was a phone number to a Florida area code. When Trooper Madden tried the number he found it to be disconnected. That is when Trooper Madden felt maybe the number wasn’t from Florida based upon the victim’s appearance. She had no tan.

Investigators felt that she was from an area that would take no more than 12 hours to get to Bellefonte. Either from the north or west of PA. Investigators also discovered that she didn’t have one number written on her left palm, but two

Using a circumference with Bellefonte as the center point, investigators sent the numbers and photos to police departments in all the cities in that area.

Community Mourning

An outpouring of support came from the Bellefonte area for Spring Dawn. Florists, clergy, and clothing stores, as well as the cemetery, and a monument company wanted to donate to her funeral. A month after she was found plans were made to bury her since they could not preserve her body for much longer. Right before her burial Investigators received a message from a sheriff’s office in Maine.

The sheriff called one of the numbers on the victim’s hand and ended up talking to a local school guidance counselor, Mark Rosenburg. The counselor and his wife were able to identify the victim as Dawn Marie Birnbaum. Mark was a counselor at the Elan School for at-risk youth that Dawn attended.

Investigators discovered that Mark was one of the last people that Dawn had talked to before she died. She had called him from a payphone a few days before she was found murdered. Mark had given Dawn his home number. As she wrote it on her hand, the operator was telling Dawn she needed to add more money to the payphone in order to continue the call. She said she was safe and would call back later that evening, but she never did.

Troubled Youth

Dawn Birnbaum was originally from Indiana and had been in and out of foster care since her parent’s divorce. She had also run away a dozen times or more. Dawn had been sent to a boarding school in Maine and that is where she had met Mark Rosenburg. The PA State Police contacted the boarding school to request any identifying records.

They sent down her dental records which the corner was able to make a positive id. Dawn Spring was Dawn Birnbaum. The FBI now entered the case as Dawn had been last seen in Maine a few days before her death, but was found in PA. The FBI was looking at this as an interstate abduction.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Maine State Police would begin interviewing friends and acquaintances of Dawn. One friend, Heidi, was interviewed and told authorities that Dawn had been looking for a truck driver to hitch a ride with. This was not the first time Dawn had done something like this. The year before Dawn and another friend had gotten a trucker to take them to her friend’s home in Georgia.

Once he dropped her off they continued on together and their relationship turned into a romantic one. The truck driver was John Hoffpauir from Amory, Mississippi. Dawn traveled John’s trucking routes with him. He even introduced her to his grandmother. About a month after they first started out John’s truck was pulled over in a random traffic stop. Dawn supplied her driver’s license to the police officer that had pulled them over.

There had been a missing person’s report out on Dawn and she was taken into custody. Dawn was returned to her boarding school and for a while, it looked like Dawn was back on track. She was due to graduate in a few months.

Star Crossed Lovers

John Hoffpauir hadn’t given up on their relationship and he tried to visit Dawn at school. He was stopped at the gates and turned away. Dawn did not know this but was equally enamored with John. She decided that she was going to run away again and try to find him.

On Sunday, March 21, 1993, Dawn had snuck out of a movie theater in Poland Springs telling friends she was going to a truck stop in Bangor, Maine to see if she could find John. John Hoffpauir became the prime suspect in Dawn’s murder and investigators worked on tracking him down. They discovered that he had a home in Mississippi, but investigators only found his grandmother there when they went to talk to him. John’s grandmother told investigators that she had raised John as her own son and he had been devoted to her, until…

September 1992 (half-year before Dawn’s murder). John had stopped calling her and had even stopped working. He left his wallet and pets behind and just disappeared. John’s car had been found riddled with bullets a few miles from his home. Investigators theorize that John had met a violent end and was most likely killed in September 1992.

A New Predator

Investigators returned to the truck stop in Bangor, Maine two months later and talked with some employees who remembered Dawn. A young white blonde female. She stood out and the employees remembered her. Dawn had used one of the banks of payphones that were inside the truck stop located about 15 feet from the cashier’s counter.

FBI agents obtained a grand jury subpoena for the phone records from all the payphones. Agents wanted to find out who else Dawn might have called to help generate some leads in a case that had so few. They found that Dawn’s last call had been to the friend she had hitched a ride with when they first met John Hoffpauir.

She told the police that Dawn was disappointed that she couldn’t find John and that she was afraid to return to Indiana where her mother lived because she didn’t want to be returned to the boarding school. She also told her friend that she had gotten a ride from a friendly trucker to the truck stop. He had given her some money for food.

The FBI then looked at all the gas receipts for a four-day period around the time of Dawn’s phone calls to see if they could narrow down who might have given her a ride. FBI agents also looked at all the gas receipts from three area truck stops around Bellefonte to see if any of them matched. The distance between Bangor and Bellefonte was approximately 650 miles.

The Needle in the Haystack

After compiling a list of several hundred thousand names between the Bangor truck stop and the three truck stops closest to where Dawn’s body had been dumped only one name would come up as a match.

James Robert Cruz Jr.

On March 22nd he bought gas in Bangor Maine in the morning. Dawn made her calls just feet away from where Cruz was paying for his gas. On March 24th he bought gas at a Milesburg, Pennsylvania truck stop a few hours before Dawn’s body was to be discovered. Investigators discovered that James Robert Cruz Jr worked for a trucking company out of New Waterford, Ohio. They verified that he had been driving truck #44 on a route near the crime scene.

Although Cruz had an exemplary work record, investigators found that his personal life was not so exemplary. His criminal records showed that when Cruz was in the military he was convicted of murder for strangling someone to death. He had ended up serving time in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

They also discovered his blood type from his military record was A+. This matched the seminal fluid that had been recovered from inside Dawn. Not a concrete match, but it significantly narrowed down the suspect pool. 

Tracks

FBI agents secured a molding from the tires on the truck James Robert Cruz Jr had been driving around the time of Dawn’s murder. Cruz had no idea that the FBI was looking into him as he was out on another run. The tires were found to be XD1 Michelin Low Profile tires which was an unusual brand. The tire casts were used for a comparison and a match was made.

Finally, investigators had enough to secure a search warrant for a closer look at truck 44 and to obtain blood and hair samples.

  • Gas receipts
  • Tire match
  • Blood type match

Investigators were not hopeful that they would find anything as it had been over two months since Dawn would have been in the truck and it was exceptionally clean inside. A thorough search took most of a day and did not turn up much of anything. As investigators were about to wrap up one agent noticed a lone blonde hair stuck to the carpet near the bottom of the passenger side door. The hair was sent to the FBI Lab for analysis.

Lying In Wait

When James Robert Cruz Jr returned he was questioned as to a missing runaway. He was one of many drivers the investigators were speaking to. Investigators looked over his travel logs which all truckers are required to keep. Cruz admitted to falsifying some of his logs. His falsified logs centered around the truck stops in Maine and Pennsylvania when he got gas.

James Rober Cruz Jr. first denied that he got gas in PA in Milesburg, but when confronted with his signed gas receipt he said he only got gas there because they were giving away free showers at the truck stop. Cruz also denied ever having seen Dawn or even talking to her. James Robert Cruz Jr did not admit to raping or murdering Dawn.

He stayed calm and friendly throughout his interview. FBI profilers told investigators that when suspects remain eerily calm under intense questioning it can be a sign of guilt.

Investigators discovered that eight women who worked as prostitutes at Ohio truck stops had been murdered. Their murders had similar features to Dawn’s murder. A task force was convened to solve these unknown rape-murders. Unfortunately, it was disbanded when no solid evidence could be found to match Cruz with these murders.

Investigators felt that Cruz had been responsible. Meanwhile, the DNA on the hair found on the passenger side door would match Dawn. A search warrant was obtained for Cruz’s blood to compare it to the semen sample obtained from Dawn. On September 6th, 1993 the results would show 660 million to one match.

James Robert Cruz Jr Is Arrested

On September 8, 1993 (five months after Dawn’s body was discovered) James Robert Cruz Jr was placed under arrest on a federal arrest warrant. Cruz was arrested at his place of employment when he returned from another work trip. At his arrest, his calm friendly demeanor dropped and he became very angry towards the investigators.

Cruz was 36 at the time of his arrest and he was charged with murder in the first, second, and third degrees, kidnapping, rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse (sodomy), robbery, and theft by unlawful taking. On September 10th, Cruz had a bond hearing in Ohio’s Akron’s Municipal Court and it was set at five million dollars. At the time this was the highest bond amount ever set in Summit County, Ohio.

Unsurprisingly, right after Cruz’s arrest murders of prostitutes along the northeastern Ohio highways stopped.

Tried & Convicted

Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar served as the prosecutor. James Robert Cruz Jr had a court-appointed defense attorney. The story laid out by the prosecution was that Dawn had hitched a ride with Cruz at the Bangor, Maine truck stop believing that he was headed to Georgia. Late on March 23rd investigators believed that Cruz had raped and strangled Dawn in the compartment carrier of his truck. After buying gas, he disconnected his cab from the travel trailer and drove off looking for a dumpsite. In the early morning hours of March 24th, he pulled off a highway entrance ramp and pushed Dawn’s body out of the truck.

One of the most memorable moments at Cruz’s trial was when DA Gricar used a rope wrapped around a prop’s neck for four minutes to show just how long strangling someone to death takes. This was the amount of time the coroner had testified to.

James Robert Cruz Jr did not testify on his own behalf. On June 14, 1994, the jury came back with a guilty verdict for first-degree murder and misdemeanor theft after 14 hours of deliberation. He was acquitted of kidnapping, rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and robbery. The judge sentenced Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Oh No!

On April 20, 2015, the FBI issued a press release stating that testimony by FBI analysts regarding the microscopic hair analysis was “erroneous.” Erroneous meaning that statements were outside the limits of science and were therefore invalid. Five months later Cruz received a letter from the FBI which told him that the testimony given by FBI Agent Blythe at his trial contained erroneous statements.

Cruz immediately filed an appeal on grounds of newly discovered facts. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania ordered further proceedings reversing a lower court’s dismissal of Cruz’s appeal. As of October 1, 2020, a Centre County judge was looking into Cruz’s appeal for a new trial. Centre County Prosecutors have also filed their own appeal stating that there was other evidence used to convict Cruz that was outside of the hair analysis.

So as of now, Cruz’s appeal is still working its way through the court system.

Another Mystery

If James Robert Cruz Jr were to get a new trial one of the difficulties is that the original investigators have passed away and the DA who prosecuted his case has disappeared. On April 5, 2005, Ray Gricar was just eight months away from retiring after a 35-year career. He called his live-in girlfriend, Patty Fornicola around 11:30 am and told her that he was going to play hooky from work that day. Gricar was never seen again. 

He told her he had been driving down route 192 which cell phone records later confirmed. He also told her he wouldn’t be back until later so he wouldn’t be able to feed and walk their dog Honey. Tammy called the police around 11:30 pm when Ray had yet to return home or call and Tammy wasn’t able to reach him. Police Chief Duane Dixon was contacted when the call came in and notified surrounding police departments to be on the lookout for Gricar’s red Mini Cooper.

By the next day the Pennsylvania State Police joined the search using a helicopter to search the vast rural roads in the area around Bellefonte and nearby Lewisburg. The typical 24 hours wait period for missing person’s reports was bypassed due to Gricar’s position as the countys district attorney.

Mini Cooper Is Found

At 5 pm on Saturday Gricar’s Mini Cooper was found outside the “Street of Shops” which was an antique store in Lewisburg. It was found 55 miles from his home. His cell phone was turned off and was found inside the locked car.

However, his keys and wallet were not found inside the car. Gricar’s car was transported to a nearby police barracks where the technician’s found cigarette ash on the passenger side floor mat. Gricar didn’t smoke and was said to be intolerant of people smoking around him. Nothing else suspicious was found such as blood or scuff marks.

Mystery Deepens

Police looked for any activity on Gricar’s bank accounts or credit cards. Nothing turned up. What added to the mystery was that Gricar’s county-issued laptop was missing. He was last seen with it on Thursday the day before he disappeared.

Police were contacted by Gricar’s nephew who told them that the car parked by the fast-moving Susquehanna River and bridge was a familiar scene to the family. Gricar’s older brother committed suicide in 1996 and had left his car parked beside the Great Miami River in Dayton, Ohio. His body was recovered a few days later.

This information prompted police to begin a search of the river. Some who knew Gricar were aware that he never believed his brother had committed suicide because he wouldn’t do that to his two young children. There was nothing police could find that pointed to Gricar being depressed or struggling with suicidal ideas. Police did contact psychiatric units across Pennsylvania just in case, but nothing turned up.

If Gricar jumped or was pushed into the river his body might not ever be found. The water level at the time of Gricar’s disappearance was 11 ½ feet. If he did end up in the water the dams would have chewed up the body. The river eventually leads into the Chesapeake Bay and out to sea.

Gricar’s Laptop

In July 2005, Gricar’s laptop was found in the water under the Route 45 bridge between Lewisburg and Milton. Its hard drive had been deliberately removed and the hard drive was found two months later upstream. Police would discover that Gricar had purchased software to wipe hard drives clean and a search of his home computer would show searches on how to destroy a hard drive.

Police were hopeful that information could be recovered from the submerged hard drive. They took what they had to a company that had recovered data from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, Kroll Ontrack. Unfortunately, nothing could be recovered.

Another piece of evidence was discovered from questioning witnesses on the day of Gricar’s disappearance and that was that he had been seen with a mystery woman. It was never discovered who this woman was.

Theories – Take your Pick

In the years that have passed neither Gricar nor his body have ever surfaced, but theories certainly abound. Some believe that Gricar is alive and hiding out, either on his own or in the witness protection program. Searches continue as far as Slovenia, an ancestral country he had visited twice.

The walk away theory doesn’t rank highly as Gricar left a small fortune in his county pension and he left behind his daughter, Lara whom he had been very close to.

Another theory dealt with Gricar’s involvement in prosecuting a large heroin ring operating out of Centre County. Nothing linked those involved in the heroin operation to Gricar’s disappearance.

Yet another theory was that Gricar’s vanishing act was somehow linked to the Jerry Sandusky scandal that rocked Happy Valley. In 1998 Gricar had refused to prosecute after a victim came forward with allegations against a former defensive coordinator for the Penn State Nittany Lions. This PSU staffer had also founded The Second Mile Foundation for at-risk youth. Gricar cited a lack of evidence. Some believe that Gricar was looking into a cover-up by others to hide Sandusky’s prolific molestation of young boys through his foundation. Again nothing was linked to Gricar’s disappearance to the Sandusky case.

In 2013 another theory surfaced that theorized Gricar was kidnapped and murdered due to his prosecution of a member of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club.

In July 2011 Lara Gricar had her father declared legally dead. His case is still open as a missing person.

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