Murder of Betsy Aardsma

In 2009, a nephew of Haefner's contacted Sherwood to divulge that on one occasion in approximately 1975, he had overheard a heated conversation between Haefner and his mother, Ere, who had been aware of several accusations of pederasty levelled against her son dating back to 1967. According to this individual, the conversation had occurred shortly after Haefner's 1975 arrest for molestation, and his mother had expressed her concerns as to whether the police suspected him of having "killed that girl" at Penn State. She had also chided him for coming to the attention of the police after "all [her] efforts" to protect him on the previous occasion. The overall context of this conversation indicated to Haefner's nephew that he had confessed to Aardsma's murder to his mother, who had ended the scolding of her son with the sentence: "You killed that girl, and now you're killing me!"

The evidence indicating Haefner's guilt of Aardsma's murder is circumstantial. Haefner was never charged with her murder, and died in 2002.

Wright failed to inform investigators of this conversation until 1976, following an argument with Haefner, who by the 1970s had begun to focus his interests upon volcanology. He remained a close acquaintance of Haefner's until the latter died alone in a hospital bathroom in March 2002. His cause of death was a tear in his aorta which bled into his lungs—a similar manner of death endured by Aardsma.

In August 1975, two boys who worked in Haefner's family rock shop would separately accuse him of having molested them. Although his subsequent trial resulted in a hung jury, these accusations resulted in his filing a number of subsequent vindictive lawsuits. Haefner successfully ensured the expungement of the records pertaining to his arrest and trial in 1981.

Aardsma's murder ultimately became a major factor in the creation of a university police force at Penn State. The years prior to her death had seen an increase in both violent crime, sexual assaults, and raucous student protests at the university, which had only a campus patrol to provide immediate law and order. Her death epitomized the need for increased public safety measures on the university campus, and a university police force was established in the early 1970s.

The murder of Betsy Aardsma is an American murder case dating from November 1969, in which a 22-year-old graduate student was murdered by a single stab wound inside the Pattee Library at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Aardsma enrolled at Penn State in early October 1969. She resided on campus in Atherton Hall, and shared her residence with a student named Sharon Brandt, who would later recall that Aardsma seldom pursued extracurricular activities and spent much of her free time either studying or—at weekends—traveling to Penn State Hershey to be in the company of Wright.

On the afternoon of November 28, 1969, Aardsma and Brandt left their residence to visit Penn State's Pattee Library to obtain research material for her English paper. En route, the two parted company, having formed plans to reconvene later that afternoon to watch either Easy Rider or Take the Money and Run at a movie theater that evening. At approximately 4 p.m., Aardsma spoke with one of her professors, Nicholas Joukovsky, to whom she stated her intentions to visit the Stack Building. Shortly thereafter, she encountered two friends named Linda Marsa and Robert Steinberg, with whom she briefly conversed before entering the library. She then placed her purse, jacket, and a book inside a carrel assigned to her before walking toward a card catalog. Having found the reference she sought, Aardsma walked down a flight of stairs into the Level 2 core stacks at approximately 4:30 p.m.

A few aisles from where Aardsma had been murdered, in a section of the Core used to store desks and spare shelving, investigators observed a desk with a seat pulled backwards. Atop this desk was a half-empty can of soda and a small stack of heterosexual and homosexual pornographic magazines—some of which dated as recently as October and November 1969. Furthermore, more than two dozen pornographic magazines were found concealed between books in the aisle where she had been murdered, and ample traces of semen were discovered in multiple locations on the floor, shelves and walls, with one investigator later commenting traces of semen were practically "everywhere". These discoveries led investigators to conclude secluded areas of the stacks were used to conduct illicit sexual encounters. Although partial fingerprints were obtained from this can of soda, the prints did not match any within police databases. All fingerprints upon and within the magazines were smudged and unusable.

Haefner was questioned by investigators in early December 1969. He freely admitted having become acquainted with Aardsma in late October, and to have occasionally socialized with her, although within approximately one week, she had terminated their budding friendship, stating she wished to remain committed to David Wright. According to Haefner, he had been eating an evening meal at a student union building on the evening of November 28, when he had first heard circulating rumors of a student having been murdered at the Pattee Library. Furthermore, he had subsequently felt physically ill upon learning his "former girlfriend" had been the murdered student. Haefner further claimed to have never set foot in the library, as he invariably obtained research material from the Deike Building, where literature related to geology was stored.

Aardsma was laid to rest on December 3, 1969. Her casket remained open throughout the ceremony prior to her interment. She was buried in the Aardsma family plot within Pilgrim Home Cemetery in her home town of Holland, with a single rose from her boyfriend placed in her hands. The final letter Aardsma wrote to her boyfriend had arrived at his address the day after her murder.

A well-respected but socially awkward individual, Haefner is known to have taken extreme measures to obtain platonic relationships with women to conceal his homosexuality. On one occasion in 1968, he is known to have traveled from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts to inform a girl he barely knew he loved her. He had arrived unannounced at her apartment to inform her of this fact, only to be surprised when she slammed the door in his face. Haefner resided across the courtyard from Aardsma at Atherton Hall at the time of her death and was widely known for engaging in erratic behavior, including periodic bouts of explosive anger, and the suspected theft of several specimens from the university's rock and mineral collection. He was known to frequently dress in khaki trousers and a sports coat, and to keep his brown hair short and tidy. His friendship with Aardsma had been terminated by the victim shortly before her death.

In the fall of 1967, Aardsma enrolled at the University of Michigan, studying art and English and sharing an apartment with three other female students. By her senior year, she had begun dating a medical student named David Wright, who by all accounts was her first serious boyfriend. She graduated from this institution with honors in the summer of 1969.

As a child, Aardsma displayed a flair for art and poetry. By adolescence, she had developed somewhat liberal ideals and displayed a concern for the underprivileged. Aardsma attended Holland High School and performed well academically, graduating with honors in 1965.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Aardsma enrolled in Hope College in the fall of 1965, with aspirations to become a physician. Her roommate, Linda DenBesten, later recollected Aardsma as an intelligent and fascinating individual who exhibited feminist traits.

Spencer was a 40-year-old sculptor who had relocated to Pennsylvania from Boston with his second wife shortly before Aardsma's murder. He had previously co-founded the Caffè Lena with his first wife in Saratoga Springs, New York, in May 1960, and had recently relocated to Pennsylvania with his second wife, obtaining employment teaching sculpture at a local college as his wife studied for her Ph.D. Spencer was first reported to police as a potential suspect in Aardsma's murder after allegedly confessing to having "killed that girl in the library" at a Christmas 1969 gathering of faculty members. These claims culminated in his being formally questioned by investigators in early 1970.

Elizabeth Ruth "Betsy" Aardsma was the second of four children. She was born in Holland, Michigan, to Esther and Richard Aardsma, and raised in a middle-class, religious and conservative household on West 37th Street. Aardsma's father was a sales tax auditor for the Michigan State Treasurer, while her mother was a housewife.