Former Pastor Found Guilty of Second Wife's Murder
By Denis J. Omalley
After less than two hours of deliberation, a Monroe County jury on Tuesday convicted the former pastor accused of killing his second wife in 2008 with first-degree murder.
The relatively quick decision, which also found Arthur Schirmer, 64, guilty of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence for staging a car crash on Route 715 in Jackson Twp. to explain Betty Jean Schirmer's death, came after an 11-day trial that saw nearly 60 witnesses testify.
Schirmer, who served as pastor at Reeders United Methodist Church at the time of the murder, showed hardly any reaction as he stood listening to the jury forewoman report the guilty verdict at about 4:20 p.m.
Just a few feet behind him on the other side of the courtroom's wooden gallery barrier, Mr. Schirmer's two daughters and his fiancée buried their heads in their hands and wept.
Across the aisle dividing the gallery, dozens of Mrs. Schirmer's relatives, including her only son, Nate Novack, burst out in cheers and applause upon hearing the verdicts."I'm happy that justice was served for our sister Bets ... and that he's put away," said Sandy Weikel, Mrs. Schirmer's sister.
Shortly after the verdict, Novack addressed a crowd of local and national media that had grown since the trial began and briefly thanked those involved "with bringing my mom's killer to justice."
"Today she can finally rest in peace," he said.
After meeting with Mrs. Schirmer's family after the verdict, Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso, who prosecuted the case, thanked Pocono Twp. police Detective James Wagner and state Trooper William Maynard - the lead investigators in the case - as well as Monroe County Detective Wendy Serfass and retired state Trooper Phillip Barletto.
Barletto testified over two days in the first week of the trial on his analysis of the blood stains found in the Schirmers' PT Cruiser and the parsonage garage at the Reeders church, which indicated to him that Mrs. Schirmer suffered the severe head trauma that killed her before entering the vehicle.
That information, along with the findings of Dr. Wayne Ross, a forensic pathologist, led investigators to conclude Mr. Schirmer had actually bludgeoned his wife to death with a metal instrument like a crowbar.
Mr. Schirmer never wavered in his claim that his wife suffered her fatal injuries when he swerved around a deer in their PT Cruiser and crashed into a guardrail on Route 715 early on July 15, 2008.
What also remained constant in Mr. Schirmer's story was his inconsistency in recounting certain details of the crash - including the speed of the car, which state police investigators determined Mr. Schirmer had grossly exaggerated.
Mr. Schirmer's story of the crash changed in several of his statements, up to and including his testimony as the defense's final witness on Friday, which included previously untold details of the staged crash.
The prosecution put the blood evidence and analysis of the crash at the forefront of its case while continually comparing the cover-up to the death of Mr. Schirmer's first wife, Jewel Schirmer.
Jewel Schirmer ostensibly died in a fall down stairs in the parsonage at Bethany United Methodist Church in Lebanon County in 1999, where Mr. Schirmer served as pastor until shortly after her death.
The murder charge lodged against Mr. Schirmer in Lebanon County last year for Jewel Schirmer's death arose out of the Monroe County investigation after Pocono Twp. Detective James Wagner became suspicious of similarities in the two cases.
Just as an accidental death had been staged to cover up Betty Schirmer's murder, it appeared to Wagner that the fall Jewel Schirmer took down the stairs she was reportedly vacuuming in April 1999 could also have been a constructed scenario modeled to mask a murder.
But both women's deaths did not come under significant scrutiny until the October 2008 suicide of Joseph Musante, the husband of Mr. Schirmer's then-mistress and current fiancee, Cindy Moyer Musante.
Rose Cobb, Mr. Musante's sister, urged authorities to take a closer look not only at the circumstances of her brother's suicide but the deaths of Mr. Schirmer's two wives after Mr. Musante broke into Mr. Schirmer's office at the Reeders church, sat behind the pastor's desk and shot himself in the head.
Shortly before his suicide, Mr. Musante became aware of his wife's affair with the pastor after confronting his daughter, Samantha Musante, who discovered the relationship when she stumbled upon the an email chain between her mother and Mr. Schirmer.
The Lebanon County District Attorney reopened the investigation of Jewel Schirmer's death in 2008.
Thirteen years after authorities, under the false impression a heart attack caused Jewel Schirmer's fall down the stairs, ruled her cause of death undetermined, it was reclassified as a homicide in January of last year.
Mr. Schirmer is awaiting trial in Lebanon County in that case.
"I think the admission of ... the circumstances surrounding the death of Jewel Schirmer really did prejudice the case, and the jury couldn't look by that," said Brandon Reish, Mr. Schirmer's attorney, moments after Tuesday's guilty verdict.
Prior to the trial, Reish moved to have testimony about Jewel Schirmer's death barred from the trial, though Monroe County President Judge Margherita Patti Worthington ultimately decided to allow it.
That testimony took up a significant portion of the trial and served as a cornerstone of the prosecution's case against Mr. Schirmer for a different murder that took place nine years later in another county.
Reish said he and Mr. Schirmer "reserve the grounds to bring an appeal" in the Monroe County case, which he felt "we should be on fairly sound footing asking for one from the superior court."
Asked if Mr. Schirmer said anything to him upon hearing he had been found guilty of a crime that carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, Reish said his client told him "he didn't do it."
Schirmer is scheduled to be sentenced in Monroe County Court on March 18 at 9:30 a.m.
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