Instead of doing a serial killer for my passion blog this week, I’ve decided that I was going to do the unsolved murder of Betsy Aardsma. Now this isn’t just any murder, this murder in fact happened on our campus, at Penn State, University Park. I’m sure almost everyone here has been to the Pattee and Paterno Library. Well, that’s where this unsolved murder took place at. 

Elizabeth Ruth Aardsma also known as Betsy Aardsma was murdered on November 28th, 1969 at the age of 22. Betsy was a graduate student who was killed inside the Pattee Library at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. She was killed by a single stab wound right through the heart. If you have been to the library before then you might have heard of the stacks. This is where she was stabbed.

But before we get into the details of the murder and who might’ve done it, let me give you some back story of Betsy’s life. As of fall 1967, Betsy enrolled at the University of Michigan, studying art and English. Upon her graduation from the University of Michigan, Betsy opted to enroll at Penn State in early October 1969 because her boyfriend at the time intended to study there. She lived on campus in Atherton Hall (where I live, kind of spooky). 

November 28th, 1969, the day that Betsy was murdered. What exactly happened that day? Well, on the afternoon of November 28th, 1969, Betsy and her roommate left their dormitory to visit the Pattee Library to obtain research material for Betsy’s upcoming English paper. During that time both Betsy and her roommate parted where she and her roommate would meet up later to watch a movie at the theater that evening. Around 4 p.m., Betsy spoke to one of her professors, Nicholas Joukovsky. She intended to visit him at the Stack Building (which is located in the library). After the meeting with her professor she ran into 2 of her friends named Linda Marsa and Robert Steinberg where they chatted for a little before entering the library. Around 4:30 p.m. Betsy walked down a flight of stairs into the Level 2 core stacks. 

The last sighting of Betsy Aardsma in the Level 2 core stacks occurred a few minutes after 4:30 p.m., when Dean Brungart, an assistant supervisor, observed a girl in a red dress standing alone in an aisle (Betsy), with 2 young men talking quietly amongst themselves in a nearby aisle. Another witness, Richard Allen, overheard a conversation between a male and a female in the direction in which Betsy stood while he operated a photocopier. A few moments later, Richard heard a metallic crashing noise before a young man who “looked like a student” ran barreling past him.

Between 4:45 and 4:55 p.m., Betsy was stabbed through the left breast a single time with a knife in between rows 50 and 51 in the Stack building of the Pattee Library. It pierced right through her right ventricle of her heart. Two students observed a man running from the direction of the commotion, concealing his right hand, exclaiming, “That girl needs help!” One of the witnesses described the man wearing khaki slacks, a tie, and a sports jacket. He had brown hair and was approximately 6 feet in height, about 185 pounds and may have been wearing glasses. This person led the two witnesses to where Betsy’s body was at. While the one witness was checking for a pulse, the other followed the suspicious man out of the library. The witness attempted to chase the man, but was too slow. While at the hospital, Betsy was pronounced dead at 5:19 p.m. 

Several factors about Betsy’s death led investigators to believe that she knew her murderer. Research and questioning led to investigators crossing out the idea that she had been stalked and killed by her boyfriend because she was not expected to be at Penn State during that day, but with her boyfriend. Nothing left in her diary led to her doubting her relationship with her boyfriend as well. 

Another theory is that Betsy came across a homosexual encounter who had murdered her in order to ensure her silence. There was a chance she recognized one or both men, and was murdered to prevent telling others what she had seen. A few aisles from where Betsy was murdered there was a desk with a small stack of heterosexual and homosexual pornographic magazines. There were also more than two dozen pornographic magazines concealed between the books in the aisle she was murdered in. There were also traces of semen that were discovered in multiple locations on the floor, shelves, and walls. 

The Suspects

The first suspect is William Spencer, a 40 year-old sculptor who claimed that he “killed that girl in the library” at a Christmas gathering in 1969 with faculty members. Betsy and Spencer had been acquainted because she agreed to pose nude for his sculpting classes to earn extra money. He was in the Level 2 core stacks at the time of her murder, had seen her murderer, in which he stated that he had been wearing an overcoat. His claims were dismissed though because he had moved to Pennsylvania a few weeks prior to the murder of Betsy leaving little to no time for them to become acquainted. 

The second suspect is Richard Haefner who was a 25 year-old geology student at Penn State. Haefner is “known to have taken extreme measures to obtain platonic relationships with women to conceal his homosexuality.” He resided across the courtyard from Betsy at Atherton hall. He was known to dress in khaki trousers, sports coat, and he kept his brown hair short and tidy. Betsy ended her friendship with Haefner before her murder. According to Betsy’s roommate, Haefner had visited their room on more than one occasion in the weeks prior to her death. He was investigated in early December. They had been only talking for a week before Betsy ended their friendship because she wanted to stay loyal to her boyfriend at the time. 

My Review

Betsy’s murder is a very interesting murder in my opinion. Not only did it happen at the university we go to, but she lived in the same dorm hall as me. There are a lot of details about this case, but in my opinion, I think the person most likely to be the murderer is Richard Haefner. Not only does his description match the witnesses’ descriptions, but it could also tie in with the theory that Betsy saw a “homosexual encounter.” I did some more research on Richard Haefner, and it turns out that in August of 1975, 2 boys who worked in Haefner’s family rock shop would separately accuse Haefner of having molested them. The claims were later dropped due to a trial in 1981. Even Haefner’s own mother thought that he murdered Betsy. One of Haefner’s nephews overheard a conversation between Haefner and his mother where his mother had expressed concerns whether the police suspected him of having “killed that girl” at Penn State. At the end of the conversation she yelled at her son “You killed that girl, and now you’re killing me!” To me Richard Haefner was most likely the person who murdered Betsy. There are a lot of facts pointing towards him.

Image Citations:

Category: ZODIAC CIPHERS. (n.d.). Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/category/general%20news%20articles/9

NBCUniversal News Group. (n.d.). 52 years later, the unsolved murder of a Penn State student on Thanksgiving weekend in 1969 remains a mystery. NBCNews.com. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/cold-case-spotlight/unsolved-murder-penn-state-student-betsy-aardsma-haunts-community-52-n1284867