Error! Docket at pp. She is a tough one, Sheriff Gerald Hege would later tell the Morning Call in a June 29, 1997 interview. Mizgerd said she is convinced Rorrer is innocent. At 6 a.m. on June 24, 1997, police arrested Patricia at her modest house in Linwood, North Carolina, and took her back to Pennsylvania. Her mother, Patricia Chambers, provided day care for their baby son, Charles. The team on Wrong Man tracked down the history of this gun and found that the police did so as well. 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Senate vote, Reading Area Water Authority looking for leak on North Heidelberg Township line, Former Penn State Berks soccer player among dead in violent Monroe County crash, In Britain, warm hubs emerge to beat soaring energy costs, Biden expected to tighten rules on US investment in China, Paid express lanes grow more popular in once-reluctant South, Ukraine ally Kallas fights for reelection in Estonia vote, In Chicago, adapting electric buses to winters challenges, Pot vote has Oklahoma hungry to rake in green from Texas, Global race to boost electric vehicle range in cold weather, 6 Nigerian states drop suit to void presidential vote result, The implications of Walgreens' decision on abortion pills, What the Tech? Patricia Rorrer has been portrayed as a bully, petty thief, neglectful horse owner, and heartless killer or a sweet, caring friend railroaded by authorities desperate to solve a double-murder case that snagged worldwide interest. Joe Kennedys talks to Michael Brinkle, Patricia Rorrer's former neighbor who reaffirms that he had sold her a .22 Jennings handgun. When she stood trial that same year, she maintained her innocence and alleged that she and Andrew Katrinak had continued to stay in touch as good friends, so she wouldn't do anything to hurt him. Other defense claims and recent updates include: Two separate witnesses claim to have seen an unhappy Joann with a man on the day of her disappearance. Select "match any" to find at least one field. The victim in this crime had a hair clutched in her right hand, and three pieces of fingernail found on her body, none of which has ever been tested. Mal told Keith Morrison that Patricias dance teacher originally confirmed her alibi that she was in class on the day of the murder, then changed his mind. A second helping of justice will be served. Further, an early FBI report said the hairs found in the car had no roots which contain the DNA suggesting an evidence switcheroo. Why would someone want to kidnap and murder the young mother? She had money put aside. Everyone needs to wake up because this could be you, your wife, your husband, your mother, your father, your children! Patricia defaulted on her mortgage and then returned to North Carolina, where she eventually moved in with a boyfriend named Brian Ward. Deal refused. Rorrer and Andrew broke off their . She does not have a lawyer, her last lawyer was sued by the prosecutor. Rachael Ray Ending After 17 Seasons: Its Time for Me to Move On. With Chris Anderson, Fatima Silva. Other loyal friends and associates attested to Patricias kindness toward horses and devotion to her daughter, whom she took along as she worked in stables. Patricia Rorrer's Story. Mostly cloudy and drier, but a few scattered rain showers linger early, and perhaps a few snow showers at any point in the Poconos. The Free Patricia Rorrer page responds to comments from supporters (How is this even possible that this woman is still in jail?!? Or was it? But the Wrong Man team brought in their own experts to review the detailed information on the corpses. The two-hour special, called Murder in the Lehigh Valley: Keith Morrison Investigates, will premiere at 8 p.m. and air again at 11 p.m. Sunday night. Prosecutors offered Patricia a plea deal that would take the death penalty off the table, but she declined. My kid has had 99th percentile head circumference since birth. Meticulous primping. Convicted killer Patricia Rorrer is asking for new DNA tests in the 13-year-old murder case of her former boyfriend's wife and child. Patricias phone bill showed no record of a call to Catasauqua that day, but police noticed she didnt make any calls at all from her house in North Carolina that day either suggesting she could have been out of state and used a pay phone to dial up the Katrinaks. It'd be plausible to reason some deniability in Patricia's role if there weren't so many indicators of her involvement. No charmed life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDGl9dMgHwY&fbclid=IwAR1nlAYf6AcIu_i8kN0fD_MCD3CnxJ6DG_oUgVFdqN3b2EJ4fcLO2ci3wWc. The main one of course was committing murder of a young woman and her infant son over an argument. They even lived together for about two years before parting ways for good. Search is on. As for the murder weapon, police didnt find a .22 caliber pistol on Patricias property, but an ex-boyfriend claimed that she owned one and it would always jam after one shot. And why was my defense not provided with the "No Roots Attached" report which is exculpatory evidence, at trial.? On Instagram, I found a post for a two-part Win at All Costs podcast featuring journalism professor Bill Mousheys interviews with Patricia Rorrer from prison in December 2019. And their phone line had been cut someone had not wanted the Katrinaks to be able to call for help. Two-Part Special Premieres Sunday, March 5 at 8/7c; Features Exclusive First-Ever Interview with Inmate Patricia Rorrer (Silver Spring, Md.) (We didnt get into the specifics.). An early childhood introd This state is corrupt as in every state! Joann had been shot once and then bludgeoned in the head. FILED DECEMBER 13, 2013 Patricia Lynne Rorrer appeals from the order entered in the . The killer was Patricia Rorrer, the jealous ex-girlfriend of Joann's husband, Andrew. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. She was always looking for a fight, Gary Gabard told the Morning Call, which noted that he was a head shorter than Patricia. No comments yet - start the conversation above. Does anyone see motive in this scenario? Detective Robert Werts stated Rorrer offered four or five alibis for the time of the incident. The bodies of Joann Katrinak and her baby were found in a wooded area of Heidelberg Township in 1994. Now retired, he declined ForensicFilesNow.coms invitation to spar directly with Patricia via a podcast. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. Do any of the TV episodes suggest the possibility of their being held alive for some time? Patricias defenders also say Andrew Katrinak staged the scene at his house by prying the door and cutting the phone line. Use quotation marks to search as a Apr 5, 2016. And, I was quite angry with the police, that they accused Andy. Shes extremely, extremely happy with the baby. The FBI Files (Family Secrets) mentioned that Patty also lied about being at a tanning salon. An expert will be allowed to examine evidence from the 1994 . Until next time, cheers. Criminal Division at No (s): CP-39-CR-0002176-1997 BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., BOWES AND SHOGAN, J. The series was produced by Joe Berlinger, who made the Paradise Lost documentaries, which garnered actor Johnny Depps attention and ultimately helped free the West Memphis Three. The FBI waiting up to 6 months to question people in the class makes it near impossible for her to prove that she was actually there on a random Thursday night. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of the brutal torture and murder of a young babysitter named Linda Rodgers in 1984 in Santa Ana, California. Please walk thru her website and see for yourself how easy it is to be convicted of something you had nothing to do with. The Irish-Italian girl had full, fluffy dark hair, olive skin, and a pretty face. An ex-boyfriend of Patricia knew she owned a distinct .22 caliber pistol and knew of its tendency to jam, but Rorrer could only deny owning such a weapon. In 2015, the type of hair DNA science used was finally admitted to be junk by the FBI and incorrect in 96% of cases. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area. The phone wire was located at the opposite end of the basement, which was dark. Value of cutting back on your screen time, What the Tech? During these 4 years, many in the Lehigh Valley, PA community developed opinions on the case. The couple moved into Andrews sturdy brick house at 740 Front Street in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Patricia demonstrated a consistent habit of long-distance calls from home, then had an obvious gap while claiming she. Joann Katrinaks Killer Still Has Innocence Advocates(A Woman Scorned, Forensic Files). McItyre said this is hearsay and the officer has refuted everything in an affidavit. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Patricia had of course not registered that night. The police considered the possibility that Joann ran away, a theory disputed by her family. Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files. But if that's the main evidence against her, it seems awfully weak. Dance defense. See Commonwealth v. Rorrer, CP-39- CR-0002176-1997 (C.C.P. Shouldn't Andrew have mentioned this suspicious, out-of-the-blue phone call from his ex-girlfriend sooner? As usual, Rebecca at Forensic Files Now has a thoroughly researched article about the Patricia Rorrer case and events since her conviction. Great communicator. Keith Morrison investigates the horrific 1994 murders of Joann Katrinak and her infant son Alex, the tangled relationships surrounding the crime, and the ongoing claims that Patricia Rorrer was wrongfully convicted. Today, Patricia Lynne Rorrer resides in State Correctional Institute at Muncy, a medium and maximum security facility that has the highest rate of cancer of all prisons in Pennsylvania, according to a story from northcentralpa.com. Weak wages. The Worldwide Womens Criminal Justice Networks website also points to a bombshell: In 2015, the Justice Department acknowledged that most of the team members from an FBI microscopic hair comparison unit gave prosecutors flawed data from 1980 to 2000 that could have unjustly contributed to a number convictions including Patricia Rorrers. Barry Grube, one of the few, if not only, police officers sympathetic to Patricias cause, noted that Andrew didnt seem particularly frantic while authorities searched desperately for his wife and son. Patricia Rorrer (right) is led to her hearing in Lehigh County Courthouse Wednesday morning, August 26, 1998 by a sheriff's deputy, at left. They had a son, Alex Martin, in August of 1994. Joe Berlingers documentary series Wrong Man shows what long form documentary journalism can achieve. Why did the police not look into these things? I know that if I get a fair trial, I will win and be freed. The Innocence Project has declined to take her case. PATRICIA RORRER OBITUARY. She made an effort to look perfectly groomed even when she took out the trash, according to her mother, who appeared on Forensic Files. Starz announces premiere date for Joe Berlinger's Wrong Man Season 2. With Lynnanne Zager, Joann Katrinak, Alex Katrinak, Patricia Rorrer. They broke up in 1993. There was also a 2017 Dateline Keith Morrison episode which covered some of these facts. They theorize that Andrew Katrinak framed Patricia and that the hostile phone call between Patricia and Joann actually took place not on Dec. 12 as Andrew said but rather on Dec. 7. And yikes, he discovered someone had cut one of the houses phone lines and pried the hinge on the basement door. "When I read that petition for the first time about 30 days ago, I couldn't believe it was written by a lawyer.". Despite the new evidence and hypotheses, the courts have rejected all of Patricias bids for a new trial. Ive seen the forensics files episode a few times and Im shocked at how it could be so wrong! Regarding the gun, she claims to have said that she didn't have a gun at that time, not that she never had one. Based on body decomposition alone, it seems near impossible that they were kidnapped and killed in the same day or even within weeks. Pat Rorrer received a sentence of life imprisonment for her crime. She was a real estate agent, a salesperson, and an equestrian, but she also had a rap sheet that included a 12-month probation sentence for shoplifting from a North Carolina Walmart. Many of these are circumstantial, so investigators were grateful for their DNA match from the hair. The prosecution alleged that Patricia called the Katrinaks house from a pay phone in Pennsylvania. I was convicted on microscopic hair comparison and DNA testing that rendered a "match" of 1 in 37,000. Walmart woe. When Andrew was told of the location of his young family's remains, he offered investigators a lead. Brand New App to watch all of WFMZ-TV News and Syndicated Programing 24/7 on your Streaming App enabled TV. Then, despite her multiple alibis, she has an inexplicable five-day gap in this pattern. Chapter 1. Died along with his mother, Joann, as a victim of his father's jealous ex-girlfriend, Patricia Rorrer. At 17, Patricia dropped out of high school and married landscaper Gary Gabard. He was sentenced to life in prison. There are claims that the cigarette butt wasnt examined and that the hair strands had no roots (which contain the DNA), suggesting that nothing truly ties Patricia to the homicides. Please read her story. So now, lets find out everything there is to know about her, shall we? Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Together they had a baby girl, Nicole. She claimed to have been home during this period how did her defense team justify such a departure from Patricia's norm? . Thank God she decided to investigate these crimes on her own. Died along with his mother, Joann, as a victim of his father's jealous ex-girlfriend, Patricia Rorrer. Rorrer offered her attendance at a private club in North Carolina as one of her alibies, but the club (per a state regulation) required members to sign in. Nickelodeons Kids Choice Awards: What Is Slime, and Why Do We Love It? Keith Morrison investigates the horrific 1994 murders of Joann Katrinak and her infant son Alex, the tangled relationships surrounding the crime, and the ongoing claims that Patricia Rorrer was wrongfully convicted. Felix (Phil) Rosado and Terrell (Rell) Woolfolk-Carter, WELCOME HOME!!!!! A Lehigh County jury spared convicted double murderer Patricia Rorrer's life Monday after hearing impassioned pleas for mercy from her lawyer and family, and being assured there is no parole from . It's now up to a judge to decide whether to allow that information, as well as information questioning the validity of hair samples that helped put Rorrer behind bars. She claimed that shed spent that fateful day at a tanning salon and a country music club, but suspicion mounted when the guest book for the latter didnt have her name and a photo shed taken 11 days prior showed her naturally brown hair dyed blonde. Two of the seasons three cases will feature female inmates. Its proximity to the stable she'd managed made an undeniable association to her. Mostly cloudy and drier, but a few scattered rain showers linger early, and perhaps a few snow showers at any point in the Poconos. For one thing, her mother never asked Sandra Ireland to hide the gun, and she retrieved it on the way home the next day she worked as a bus driver and couldnt take it with her to school. Some who still believe in Patricia Rorrer's innocence say it was long enough for him to stage the scene. Exactly one week after Joann and Alex went missing, the FBI interviewed me at my mother's house. Really? His favorite rattle, shaped like a phone, lay near the crime scene. He gave an audio interview to the Wrong Man investigators when they made a surprise visit to his house, but he declined to appear on camera. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. But when did he find the evidence of the break-in? Four hours is a long time between Andrew getting home from work and calling the police. Prosecutor hiding something? She needs to be freed! Rorrer was convicted of killing them four years later. The state police dropped him as a suspect. Some recurring themes in Forensic Files facinate me. Any ideas why the fact that their bodies didnt appear to have been in the woods as long as previously thought wasnt brought up in court? I think you might have mistaken what's being mentioned in the Washington Post article; that is talking about microscopic hair analysis, which is when they compare two strands of hair for a match. He wanted to move to Colorado and she was against it.. State law requires that patrons of the bar sign-in when they come to the bar. Because when she did, she quickly began to realize that there was a lot more to the story than the public ever knew. Another case is Patricia Rorrer, who has been in prison since 1998, convicted of the murder of a young mother and her 16-week old son in Pennsylvania. Charles Robert, the 3-month-old son she had with Gary Gabard, died of sudden infant death syndrome; Patricia found him blue in his crib. Mitochondrial DNA is the small circular chromosome found inside mitochondria. Detectives from the Davidson County sheriff's office took the witness stand to recall the morning of June 24, 1997, when they knocked on the door of Rorrer's Linwood, N.C., home and told her she . Murder victim. The judge didn't make a decision on the findings on Tuesday. Brand New App to watch all of WFMZ-TV News and Syndicated Programing 24/7 on your Streaming App enabled TV. The victims vanished on December 15. It's as if she had left with young Alex as planned but then somehow simply vanished. The footage was quite old and filmed well before the show and theory so it caught my notice after the show stated his percentiles being nearly off the chart. Therefore, today, in her late 50s, Patricia is imprisoned at the maximum-security State Correctional Institution Muncy in Clinton Township, Pennsylvania. In the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County. Strands of the accuseds dyed-blond hair at two crime scenes proved it. I'm not sure to what extent it was brought up in the original trial. That hang-up, they said, was the last straw. Tapps lawyer saidWrong Mans in-depth investigation into the Tapp conviction helped free an innocent man.. Patricias marriage fell apart, and she returned to Pennsylvania, where she fell in love with Andrew Andy Katrinak after meeting him at a restaurant. Thank God she decided to investigate these crimes on her own. Thats all for this post. Select "match all" to require all fields. How would an intruder find it? These hairs being found in the otherwise cleaned car was also odd. A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. Patricia Rorrer's home phone record did not show her call to the Katrinak house three days prior to the kidnapping because she'd already made the trip to Pennsylvania to see Andrew. It's possible he was just a big baby/growing faster than average, but if there's some indication that they were alive for some time after their abduction, then it would seem to be an entirely different kind of crime than was first thought. How about the phone line being cut? They DID NOT match the bullets that killed Joann and her son. Its doors were locked, but the keys were inside the vehicle. Decades-old Lehigh Valley murder case back in national spotlight, Stormcenter - School / Business Application. This was my thought (I'm behind and just caught the 2nd half yesterday). The 5-foot-9-inch-tall Patricia was physically strong, no match for 5-foot-4-inch Joann. I was able to email with Patricia via the PrisonConnect platform around Christmastime. She said that shes no fan of Forensic Files and that the show had many misrepresentations about her case and that shed heard ForensicFilesNow.com mixed up some facts as well. Also she worked as a realtor so it's not that unreasonable for her to know which line to cut. The second is Patricia Rorrer, who has been in prison since 1998 after being convicted of the horrific murder of a young mother, Joann Katrinak, and her 15-week old son in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Patricia Rorrer was convicted of both deaths in the mid-90's and is serving a life sentence. Inside the locked 1992 vehicle, police discovered some strands of blond hair stained with dried blood. This had been taken just 11 days before Joann's disappearance. Although the prosecution used it as evidence that she was trying to create a false alibi, it actually sounded more like Patricia was simply trying to nail down the facts he had already asserted to her. Theyd been missing for four months, but their discovery only gave rise to more questions than answers, especially as the young mother had been shot once in the face before being struck on the head 19 times. However, a former boyfriend stated that she did own a .22 caliber chrome-plated semi-automatic weapon. A few eyewitnesses who didnt testify at her initial trial also back her statements of being in North Carolina on that fateful day, but nothing has been proven. In a million years, she wouldnt do anything to harm that.. An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. She is a true crime writer who believed I was 100% guilty when she decided to write about my case. Rejection and betrayal are good enough reasons for these women to commit heinous crimes. No one is safe if the justice system is broken and they are putting innocent people in prison. Your support and contributions will enable us to meet our goals and improve the legal counsel for Patricia. Did investigators look for phone calls between Andrew and Patricia prior to December 11, 1994? Testimony from Walter Blalock contradicted Patricias claim that she never had a gun. Conflicting versions. Both sides agree Joann hung up on Patricia.