Case closed? The murders of Joann & Alex Katrinak

      No Comments on Case closed? The murders of Joann & Alex Katrinak

In 1998, Patricia Rorrer was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend’s new wife, Joann Katrniak, and her infant son, Alex, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The case against her was solid but also largely circumstantial. Today, Patricia and her advocates argue that the single piece of forensic evidence used against her was junk science and accuse law enforcement of conspiring to convict her. Is this case truly closed, or does Patricia Rorrer deserve another day in court?

Subscribe

“Catty”

Catasauqua is a small borough within Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley in the eastern United States. The Lehigh County borough is about 1 hour 15 minutes north of Philadelphia and 1 hour 45 minutes west of New York City. Its name is Lenni Lenape for “dry or thirsty ground.” Settlement in Catasauqua increased after the anthracite iron industry was founded there in 1840. By the 1980s and 90s, its population of primarily blue-collar, middle-class citizens had risen to about 6,600. 

New love

Joann Katrinak, one of the murder victims in this case, was born on October 11, 1968 in Hackettstown, New Jersey, about an hour northeast of Catasauqua. Her parents, David and Sally O’Connor, were from New York. David passed away in 1996, after Joann’s murder but before her killer’s arrest, and Sally followed in 2019. In October 1991, Joann briefly married another New Jersey-native, Michael Jack, but the marriage was an unhappy (and some say abusive) one. It ended in divorce within a few months.

In April 1992, 23-year-old Joann met 37-year-old Andrew Katrinak at a club in Allentown. They fell in love quickly and married the following spring. Joann moved into Andy’s home at 740 Front Street in Catasauqua, and she gave birth to their only child, a son named Alex, on August 21, 1994. Joann and Alex would disappear less than four months later. 

Andrew Katrinak was born on September 1954 to parents Andrew and Veronica, lifelong Lehigh Valley residents. Veronica passed away in 2011, and she was the last person to speak to Joann before she disappeared. Her husband Andrew followed in 2015.

Old flame

The person convicted of killing Joann and Alex Katrinak is Andy’s ex-girlfriend Patricia Rorrer. Patricia was born on January 24, 1964 in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. She dropped out of high school and got married in 1981 when she was just 17. Patricia had a baby around this time that died at just three-and-a-half months old. Her marriage ended in divorce shortly thereafter.  

Patricia started dating Andrew Katrinak in 1984 after they met at a restaurant. By 1987, the relationship became serious enough that Patricia moved into Andy’s Catasauqua home. She lived there for two years until their break up in 1989. But the couple continued to talk on the phone and rekindled their romance twice: once for about a week in 1990, and another time in 1991 when Patricia showed up on Andy’s doorstep unannounced. 

Patricia’s boyfriend after Andy was arrested after assaulting her, and she had another altercation with him upon his release. Patricia fled to Andy after the fight and stayed in his home for a few days in 1991 to recover and lay low. After that, Patricia moved hundreds of miles south to Linwood, North Carolina. The boyfriend Patricia was fleeing, Conrad Hewitt, and Patricia’s next boyfriend, Walter Blaylock, would both testify at her trial that Patricia constantly brought up Andy during arguments and compared them to him. 

Upsetting news

In April 1994, Patricia called Andy for the first time in over a year. Andy told Patricia about his marriage to Joann. Patricia next contacted Andy in early December 1995 and learned about the birth of baby Alex. Andy said that Patricia sounded “depressed” in response to the news, but Patricia said she was happy for him, if a little surprised. 

Andy says there was one more phone call from Patricia on Thursday, December 12, 1994, just three days before his wife and child were abducted. According to Andy, Joann answered the phone, Patricia asked for Andy, and Joann told her that Andy was married with a baby and to never call again before hanging up. 

Phone records show the Katrinaks did receive a brief call from an unidentified number on December 12, followed immediately by three unanswered calls from the same number. Patricia Rorrer’s home phone records reflect numerous daily calls except for December 11 through December 16.

Missing or abducted?

The Sunday after this alleged phone call, December 15, 1994, Andrew Katrinak said goodbye to his wife Joann for the last time when he left for work at about 6:30 am. Joann called her mother-in-law Veronica at about 1:15 pm to confirm that she would be leaving soon with the baby to pick her up for a shopping trip. Joann never arrived, and Veronica’s calls to the house later that afternoon went unanswered. 

Andy arrived home from work at about 6:30 pm expecting his wife and son to be home already. Seeing nothing amiss, thinking the shopping trip may have started late, and assuming there was heavy holiday traffic, Andy drank a few beers, watched television, and waited almost two hours before calling his mother. When Veronica told him that Joann never showed up, Andy began making more phone calls trying to figure out where she and Alex could be. Both Andy and Joann’s families traveled to the home to help him, and by 10:30 pm, after finding that his basement door lock had been damaged, Andy called 911 to report Joann and Alex missing.

When police arrived on the scene, Joann and Alex’s family insisted that they had been abducted and urged police to search for them. Responding officers said it was most likely that Joann left on her own. Perhaps she took the money saved for Christmas presents to start a new life with a secret partner. Andy showed police an exterior basement door that had its lock pried away from the doorframe, a possible intruder’s entry point, but it didn’t seem relevant to officers at the time. If anything, they were watching Andy carefully. 

Joann’s car

Joann and Alex’s family began searching when police refused to and left. They found Joann’s car in the McCarty’s Tavern parking lot across the street and called police back to investigate. The hood was cold, indicating it had been there for several hours, and it was backed into the parking spot, something Joann’s loved ones say she would never, ever do. Joann’s car keys, Alex’s car seat, and some other items were in the vehicle, but otherwise nothing appeared out of place. 

Andy retrieved a set of spare keys from his home, just 100 yards away, and a responding officer advised Andy to drive the car home. Andy refused, worried about ruining potential evidence. One officer took the keys, opened the car door, and reached in to grab something, but Joann’s sister yelled at him to stop, and the officer fortunately listened.

The next day, Pennsylvania State Police impounded Joann’s car to collect evidence while other officers canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses. No one reported seeing anything suspicious, even though Joann and Alex’s abduction potentially took place on their busy street in broad daylight. They had more luck with the car, finding six eight-inch long blonde hairs on the car’s driver seat headrest. The hair color closer to the root was brunette, indicating the hair may have been dyed blonde, and that combined with the hairs’ length meant they most likely came from a female. 

It’s always the husband

Andrew Katrinak was investigators’ primary suspect, and he addressed that by offering to do whatever they needed to clear him so they could focus their resources on finding his wife and son. Joann had a minimal life insurance policy. There were no secret debts or affairs. Andy’s alibi that he was working on a home addition with his father is weak, but nothing contradicts it. Police subjected Andy to two polygraph tests, and he passed both times. 

Joann’s ex-husband in New Jersey was cleared by his solid alibi. Police visited Andy’s ex Patricia Rorrer too, and she shared information that implicated Andy. Patricia told investigators about her unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant while she was dating Andy, believing that he was infertile since she had already had a child. Patricia suggested he had killed Joann and Alex because Alex wasn’t his. 

Police decided to conduct a fertility test, and Andy willingly submitted a semen sample. Patricia was wrong – Andy could father a child – and her accusation that Andy had killed his wife and son over infidelity stuck in their minds.  

A sad discovery

It would be nearly five agonizing months until Joann and Alex Katrinak were found. Farm Paul Kovalchik was out plowing on Sunday, April 9, 1995 when he noticed what he first thought was a pile of garbage in a wooded area at the edge of his field. Joann, still wearing her leather jacket, was lying on her back. Alex, in his baby blue sleeper, was lying face down on top of her abdomen. One responding officer said it looked “…almost like putting him back in the womb.” 

The spot was an “extremely remote area” in Heidelberg Township, about 15 miles west of the Katrinaks’ Catasauqua home. Joann and Alex were found along a trail used by horseback riders. Investigators determined that whoever brought them there drove up to the site and then walked 50 feet in. They found various objects nearby, like Alex’s rattle and bottle, as if Joann or Alex dropped them while walking in. Joann still had Alex’s diaper bag with her. 

Joann’s identity was confirmed through dental records. An autopsy revealed that she had been shot once below her right eye with a .22 caliber handgun and beaten around the head and face with a blunt object, suffering 19 blows in total. The shell casing was never found, and the bullet inside Joann was warped, making ballistics testing extremely difficult even if the murder weapon were found. Alex died of either suffocation or exposure.  

The forensic team collected two hairs from the scene. They analyzed insect activity at the site and local patterns to help determine a time of death, but could only narrow it down to mid-December 1994 through February 1995. Joann still had her Christmas shopping money on her, and there was no evidence contradicting the theory that Joann and Alex were killed soon after being abducted.

Alex Katrinak didn’t make it to his first Christmas. He and his mother were buried in the same coffin. Alex was just a couple weeks shy of four months old, the same age as the baby Patricia Rorrer lost a decade earlier. 

The circumstantial case against Patricia Rorrer

Patricia Rorrer was the only suspect investigators hadn’t been able to clear. When Andy saw the area where his wife and son were found, he remembered that Patricia used to manage a horse stable about a mile away, and that Patricia rode horses on the same trail Joann and Alex were found lying along. Police interviewed Patricia again on April 27, and she only rose higher on investigators’ suspect list from that point forward. To start, they already knew that Patricia made no calls from her home between December 11 and December 16.

The alibi Patricia gave for December 15 quickly fell apart. She said she spent the afternoon at the tanning salon, but the salon was closed that day. Patricia claimed that she spent the evening at a private dance club, but it was one where you had to show your membership card and sign in and out. Patricia signed in every other time she had gone there, but not on December 15. At trial, Patricia’s fiancé and his friend testified that she was with them at the dance club, but no one else saw her there and everyone else – including her fiance and his friend – were on the sign in sheet.

Investigators also checked Patricia’s claim that she had never owned a gun. Her ex-boyfriend Walter Blaylock remembered her buying a .22 Jennings chrome plated handgun at a yard sale for $50. He claimed that Patricia always kept it with her and once brandished it at him during an argument. A man named Walter Brinkle would testify to selling Patricia the gun at a yard sale in North Carolina, and investigators acquired a copy of the check Patricia wrote for it. 

Patricia’s own family also acknowledged that she owned a .22 handgun. Her mother, Patricia Chambers, says Patricia gave it to her in May 1995 but didn’t say why. Her mother also couldn’t explain why she one day decided to take it to work with her and realized she couldn’t because she drove a school bus, so dropped it off with Patricia’s sister-in-law, Sandra Ireland, instead. Sandra said that Patricia’s mother asked her to hold the gun for her. Sandra’s husband was uncomfortable and decided to bury the gun in the yard. At some point. Patricia’s mother retrieved it, but no one remembers when or what happened to it after then. 

Police were never able to locate the weapon, even after searching Patricia’s North Carolina home on July 24, 1995. They do recover some .22 shell casings in Patricia’s backyard, but those couldn’t be tested because of the quality of the bullet found in Joann’s skull. When police questioned her about those casings, Patricia said ex-boyfriend Walter Blaylock owned the gun and took it with him when he moved out in November 1994.

The case against Patricia looked even worse as investigators uncovered her rap sheet, which included breaking and entering, public intoxication, cruelty to animals, larceny, and a shoplifting charge that earned her 12 months probation. 

But one thing investigators couldn’t overcome: Patricia Rorrer was a brunette, and the hairs found in Joann Katrinak’s car were blonde. That issue was resolved when a photo of Patricia that was taken 11 days before Joann and Alex Katrinak went missing surfaced. Patricia’s hair was dyed blonde in the photo. 

The forensics case against Patricia Rorrer

Officers’ next move was to obtain a warrant to collect hair and blood samples from Patricia Rorrer. Her hairs were first ‘matched’ to the hairs found in Joann Katrinak’s car, and then subjected to one of the earliest uses of mitochondrial DNA testing (genetic matching to maternal lineage). With the technology available at the time, only one of the three car hairs with roots had enough genetic material in the root tissue for nuclear testing, and the nuclear DNA test would have destroyed that one hair. 

A mitochondrial test required less genetic material and could be used on one of the other hairs to rule Patricia in or out as a potential match. Results concluded that Patricia could not be excluded as the hair’s owner – there was a 1 in 37,000 probability that the hair could belong to someone other than Patricia. The lab conducted scientific reliability tests on the results for more than a year afterward to confirm these results since the science was so new.

Patricia Rorrer’s (potential) confession

Once the lab results were verified, Pat Rorrer was arrested at her home in North Carolina, on June 24, 1997. Sheriff Suzanne Pearson went upstairs with Patricia while she changed and said goodbye to her infant daughter, Nicole.

Suzanne testified that Patricia began rocking her daughter and apologizing to her, and Suzanne took note of what Pat said to her daughter: “Why did I do this, Nicole? If I had known I would get caught, I would have never brought you into this world.” As she was being led out, Suzanne and other responding officers reported Patricia saying, “I’m never going to see my baby again. I’m going to the electric chair.” 

Conviction

At trial, prosecutor Mike McIntyre acknowledged from the start that his case was based largely on circumstantial evidence. He called more than three dozen witnesses who testified to evidence against Patricia in eight areas: “motive, opportunity, means, science, gun, alibi, lies and statements, no other suspects.” 

Jurors heard about Pat’s break up with her boyfriend in the weeks before Joann and Alex’s murders, and they were asked to consider whether she was trying to rebound with Andy when she called on December 12 like she had in the past. The finality of Joann’s rejection is what the prosecution theorizes motivated Patricia to murder. Patricia’s infant died, she wanted to have a baby with Andy but couldn’t, and now she was being cut off from Andy for good. 

Patricia became pregnant shortly after she was reinterviewed in April 1995, and she was accused of getting pregnant in order to gain sympathy. That’s also when she asked her mother to hide a .22 caliber handgun, like the one Joann was shot with. After the murders, she dyed her hair darker in case anyone saw her in Catasauqua. 

Patricia’s defense emphasized that there was no evidence placing Patricia in the area at the time and dismissed the jealousy motive as ridiculous. The jury disagreed, and on March 7, 2008, after just two hours of deliberation, they found Patricia Rorrer guilty on two counts murder and two counts kidnapping. She received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. 

Appeals

Patricia Rorrer immediately filed a post-sentencing motion citing 105 claims of counsel ineffectiveness and court error, all of which were denied. Then, she filed an appeal stating that her legal counsel didn’t effectively argue all 105 claims in her motion, and that was also rejected. 

In 2005, Patricia was successful in an appeal for new nuclear DNA testing the six hairs found in Joann’s car as well as a cigarette butt and fingernail fragment found with Joann Katrinak’s body. Lab results showed that the hairs were Patricia’s, and that the blood on them was Joann’s. The cigarette butt had Patricia’s DNA on it, however, there was not enough genetic material on the fingernail fragment to test it. 

In 2006, Patricia petitioned for a new trial, this time claiming that the state withheld a key witness statement. The court agreed to depose the witness, Walter Troupman. In the 2006 deposition, Walter claimed he saw Joann Katrinak arguing with her husband around the time she went missing. Walter said he reported this to police, but they shoved him out of the station and down the stairs, injuring him. 

In reality, after Joann and Alex Katrinak’s bodies were discovered in April 1995, Walter Troupman went to the police fifteen times with information about what happened to them. In his first statement, Walter reported that he saw Joann in her car arguing with a Hispanic man outside her vehicle. Walter’s statement changed each time he went to police with information, and when police began to dismiss him, Walter would scream, act erratically, and need to be escorted from the building. The court concluded that Walter’s statement had no evidentiary value and denied Patricia a new trial. 

In 2012, Patricia petitioned for a trial review based on two new claims. The first was that the state tampered with the fingernail fragment found with Joann’s body so that it could not be DNA tested. The second was that she should qualify for relief from Miller v. Alabama, which prohibits mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders. Since Patricia was 30 when Joann and Alex Katrinak were killed and no evidence tampering could be proven, Patricia’s appeal was denied. 

In 2015, Patricia argued that the microscopic hair analysis comparison testimony used at her trial would be inadmissible by today’s standards. This is true according to the FBI’s own analysis of forensic hair evidence, however, the hairs weren’t just matched. At the time of the trial, the hairs underwent mitochondrial DNA testing, and in 2005, nuclear DNA testing produced the same results. Therefore, the court determined that a new trial recognizing that the hair matching testimony was inaccurate wouldn’t produce a different verdict. 

Anticipating this, Patricia included another point in her 2015 appeal: she accused the state of a conspiracy to convict her, claiming that investigators intentionally switched the hairs collected from Joann Katrinak’s vehicle with hairs collected directly from Patricia’s head to ensure a match. According to the lab, there were three hairs from Joann’s vehicle with roots, and those were mounted and sent to the lab in July 1995. Patricia Rorrer’s hairs weren’t collected until November 1995, so the court denied this part of her appeal as well. 

The final point in Patricia’s 2015 appeal was that responding officer Joseph Kicska told another officer, Joseph York, after the fact that he lied about the Katrinaks’ basement door being pried open. However, Officer Kicska denies this conversation, and the other responding officer attests to the basement door damage. Original statements and police reports show that Andrew Katrinak alerted responding officers about the basement door, but they weren’t immediately convinced that it was connected to Joann and Alex’s disappearance. The court determined that Officer York’s contradictory claim wouldn’t be enough to warrant a new trial or produce a different verdict considering the overwhelming evidence against Patricia Rorrer. 

Advocates

Patricia’s latest motion was in 2021 when she sought and received all documents related to the chain of custody for the hairs in evidence. She maintains her innocence and has many advocates in her corner. They question why Andrew Katrinak waited so long to report his wife and son missing. They find it suspicious that Andy called police three times that night to report new information and that his family found Joann’s car. They also question the way Andy pointed police in Patricia Rorrer’s direction.

Whether you believe Patricia is guilty or innocent, it’s important to remember which case details are factual, speculative theory, or outright falsehoods. For example, Patricia’s advocates often mention the secondary phone line that was cut in the Katrinaks’ basement. It ran to Andy and Joann’s bedroom only, and it was located in a hard-to-see area deeper in the back of the basement. Some say that Andy repaired the line before police came out to investigate it. Coupled with how hard the line is to locate, Patricia’s advocates believe Andy cut the line himself to stage a breakin and deflect attention from himself. In fact, the responding officer’s report states that he told Andy to splice the line back together, and Andy did so in his presence. 

In another example, after learning how Joann died from a gunshot and 19 blows to the head and face, officers quickly theorized that her killer’s gun had jammed after the first shot, and then she was beaten to death instead. However, there is no proof that she wasn’t beaten first and shot last. The gun jamming theory makes Patricia appear more guilty because her ex-boyfriend told investigators that her handgun was “junk” because it jammed after one shot. That’s not just circumstantial – that’s pure speculation because there’s no evidence that the gun that killed Joann jammed. 

In the end

Patricia Rorrer’s advocates have several more points of contention, but most have been addressed through her appeals. Although her supporters raise questions about Andrew Katrinak’s guilt, going so far as to accuse him of framing Patricia, none have evidence linking him to the murder of his wife and only son. 

Today, Joann Katrinak would be 54 years old. Alex would be 28 by now. After they were found, Andy followed through on the plans he and Joann had made to move to Colorado. He eventually remarried, and Joann’s family supports his innocence to this day. 

Additional resources

Additional materials of interest not researched for this episode:

  • March 5, 2017: Murder in the Lehigh Valley Keith Morrison Investigates (2-part episode) – TV
  • March 2020: Wrong Man Patricia Rorrer (2 episodes) – TV
  • Feb 12, 2020: Hair Trigger: The True Story of the Investigation, Trial and Aftermath of the Katrinak Family Murders (Mike McIntyre) – book