UPDATE: Arthur Schirmer Gets Life Sentence For Murdering Wife Betty Schirmer/No Trail Date Set For Schirmer for the death of his first wife Jewel.

Pastor Charged in Murder Cover Up
Retired Pa. Pastor Arthur Schirmer Ordered to Stand Trial in Second Wife's Death; Cops Investigating Death of First Wife

By ANDREA CANNING and CHRIS STRATHMANN
Sept. 28, 2010

Former Pennsylvania pastor Arthur Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, fell to her death down a flight of stairs in 1999. Nearly a decade later, in 2008, second wife Betty Jean was killed in a car crash. Both deaths were ruled accidents.

But in a stunning reversal, the seemingly unlucky widower was ordered today to stand trial on a charge of murder. Working from new evidence, investigators say they believe Schirmer, 62, murdered his second wife and used the car crash to cover it up.

Schirmer has denied the allegations.

The newfound suspicion surrounding Betty Jean's death has been enough for Lebanon County District Attorney David Arnold to open what he called a "brand new investigation" into the death of Schirmer's first wife as well.

As for Betty Jean's death, investigators say, the car in which she was traveling when she died was going 20 miles per hour, not fast enough to justify her extensive injuries. Schirmer was driving when, he has said, a deer ran out in front of the car, at which point he lost control, according to The Associated Press, which cited court documents.

Schirmer was uninjured and the car relatively undamaged but Billy Jean suffered extensive head injuries and later died.

Authorities also said traces of her blood were found inside the church. Schirmer reportedly told police a wood pile had fallen on her.

"We anticipated they were investigating and we have to face these accusations and we're fully prepared to do so," Schirmer's attorney, Brandon Reish, said.


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A Monroe County judge says there's enough evidence to try Arthur Schirmer on charges of evidence tampering and homicide for the death of his wife, Betty.

Her death was initially ruled an accident.

Police reopened the case following the suicide of a man whose wife was having an affair with Schirmer.

Police in Lebanon County are also re-examining the 1999 death of his first wife, Jewel.

She was reported to have died from falling down stairs.

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The brother of Jewel Schirmer, left, the first wife of former Reeders United Methodist Church pastor Arthur Schirmer, right, wants to know how she really died. Arthur Schirmer has been charged with murder in his wife's 2008 death. wants to know how she really died


The brother of Jewel Schirmer — the first wife of former Jackson Township church pastor Arthur Schirmer — wants to know how she really died.

"I've been walking around with unanswered questions for 11 years," said Jonathan Behner of South Lebanon Township. "It's time those questions got answered."

Arthur Schirmer, former pastor of Reeders United Methodist Church, is charged with murder in the July 2008 death of his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer. Arthur Schirmer said Betty Jean died from injuries she suffered when their car crashed in Pocono Township as he was driving her to the hospital for jaw pain. She was cremated after her death.

Joseph Musante, a member of Schirmer's congregation, shot himself in Schirmer's church office several months later, more than two weeks before Schirmer resigned as pastor following complaints about his behavior. That suicide led police to learn that Schirmer was having an affair with his personal assistant, Cynthia Musante, Joseph Musante's wife.

Police learned also that Schirmer had been previously married for 30 years to Jewel Schirmer and that the couple had lived in Lebanon, where Arthur Schirmer had pastored at Bethany United Methodist Church. In 1999, two years before Schirmer married Betty Jean and began pastoring in Reeders, Jewel died from what was then reported as injuries suffered during a fall down a flight of steps.

Based on this and other information, police took another look at Betty Jean Schirmer's death and now believe her husband inflicted those fatal injuries prior to the car crash. As a result, authorities in Lebanon County are now re-investigating Jewel Schirmer's death.

Arthur Schirmer said he came home from jogging and found Jewel unconscious at the bottom of the steps.

"Speaking as a former paramedic, I know police didn't respond to the call because their presence wasn't requested by paramedics, so police were never involved in the beginning," Behner said.

"By the time my dad and I got the call about what happened, Jewel was already at Hershey Medical Center in a coma," he said. "When we saw her in the hospital, we knew something wasn't right. I said to my dad, 'Somebody gave this woman a beating.' I don't remember who the head doctor who looked at Jewel was at the time, but I remember being upset with the hospital for not getting the police involved at that point because it was obvious to us Jewel had been assaulted.

"The doctors said there was nothing more they could do, so we knew she was going to die," he said. "She died at 11 p.m. the next day."

John Leahy, now chief of the Detective Bureau at the Lebanon County District Attorney's Office, was a detective with the police department there at the time.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Wayne Ross, who performed the autopsy on Jewel Schirmer, told Leahy that she died from a massive heart attack and Leahy then relayed that information to the family, Behner said.

"It's what the authorities told us at the time and it's what we accepted, so the case was closed," Behner said. "But deep down, I still felt something wasn't right."

After the investigation into Betty Jean Schirmer's death was reopened, the case was taken before a Monroe County grand jury, which heard witness testimony and reviewed documents to determine if Arthur Schirmer should be charged.

One of the witnesses who testified was Ross, who said the injuries found on Jewel Schirmer were more consistent with some type of assault than with a fall down a flight of steps. Ross said her death should be treated as a homicide investigation, which Behner said is different from what he told her family in 1999.

Ross has not returned phone messages left by the Pocono Record and Leahy has declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.

"We've been keeping in touch with authorities," Behner said. "I'm now satisfied that they're doing what they can to get to the bottom of what happened to Jewel."

Behner described his sister as kind, loving and outgoing with few, if any, enemies and someone who was passionate about teaching children.

"Our family wants to let Betty Jean's family know that our prayers and thoughts are with them," he said. "Both families share the same experience."

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Thanks for the picture & articles, BJ! Although he doesn't have the smirk, I am starting to think that he is another Drew Peterson! If these allegations are true, it is very scary that he was a pastor for so long & got away with murder for so long.

A former Methodist pastor accused of staging a car wreck to cover up his wife's killing had performed marriage counseling for the woman whose husband's suicide eventually led to his arrest, the dead man's niece said Wednesday.

Police say Joseph Musante shot himself in October 2008 in the office of the Reeders, Pennsylvania, church where his wife Cindy worked as the secretary. Musante had learned that his wife had been having an affair with the church's then-pastor, Arthur Schirmer, who had counseled the couple, his niece -- who agreed to be identified only by her first name Joanne -- told HLN's "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell."

"My uncle and Cindy were having problems in their marriage, having difficulties, and the pastor was there and he was supposed to be, you know, leaning towards Cindy to help her in her marriage," Joanne said.

A judge in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had enough evidence to put Schirmer on trial for murder in the July 2008 death of his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer. Mrs. Schirmer was initially believed to have died from head injuries in a car crash, but police reopened their investigation into the wreck after Musante's suicide and after a two-year investigation, arrested her husband in mid-September.

Schirmer has been held without bond and has not yet entered a plea. His attorney, Brandon Reish, has not returned phone calls seeking comment.

The probe also led to new scrutiny of the 1999 death of Schirmer's first wife, Jewel Schirmer, who died after what was reported to have been a fall down the steps at their home in Lebanon, about 100 miles southwest of Reeders.
Schirmer resigned his pastorship in November 2008, about a month after Musante's death, the Rev. Peggy Johnson, the United Methodist bishop for eastern Pennsylvania, told HLN's "Prime News."

"We are praying for him, and the whole community is just devastated," Johnson said.

Schirmer and Cindy Musante are still dating, Joanne said. She said she was "just so relieved" that Schirmer was arrested, "and I'm sure my uncle is up in heaven looking down and so relieved this has happened as well."

Upon re-examining the July 2008 auto accident, investigators determined that Betty Jean Schirmer's injuries were inconsistent with what appeared to be a low-speed crash and that the death should be investigated as a homicide, according to a Pennsylvania state police report. Schirmer was not injured in the crash, and investigators found his wife's blood on the floor of his garage.

Back in 1999, Schirmer reported that he found his then-wife Jewel lying in a pool of blood at the foot of their basement steps. Jewel Schirmer had a fractured skull and "multiple impact injuries," according to an investigators' affidavit in the second wife's death. Her manner of death "remains undetermined" and is under investigation by authorities in Lebanon, the affidavit states.

Lawrence Kobilinsky, a forensic science professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said it could be "very hard" for prosecutors to find enough evidence to bring charges against Schirmer in that 11-year-old case -- "especially when you're talking about whether somebody was pushed down a flight of stairs or whether somebody fell down a flight of stairs," Kobilinsky told "Prime News."

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This is a cross between Drew Peterson and "As The Stomach Turns". You could not make this stuff up!! I have a feeling this is just the beginning of a very sordid story.

What is going on with religious leaders lately? I hope I don't offend anyone but it seems we are hearing more and more about these type of crimes by people who claim to be "Christian". It boggles my mind!

This reminds me of the Michael Peterson case here in North Carolina from several years ago...He also claimed that his wife died by falling down the stairs, which was very similar to what he claimed happened to another female acquaintance years earlier in Germany...Your can read about it here:

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Sorry, I'm a bit late in posting this - I'm not as "on the ball" as BJ! I'm glad to hear that he will be standing trial for his wife's death - it does sound like he murdered her (as well as his first wife)!

October 1, 2010 9:08 AM
TANNERSVILLE, Pa. (CBS/AP) Retired Pennsylvania pastor Rev. Arthur Burton Schirmer has been ordered to stand trial on charges he killed his wife and staged a car accident to cover it up, a case that also has investigators re-examining his first wife's death.

The 62-year-old, from Reeders, Pa., will face charges of homicide and evidence tampering, a judge in Tannersville ruled Tuesday.

Authorities had initially concluded that 56-year-old Betty Schirmer died in July 2008 as a result of an early-morning car crash, but police reopened the case several months later after the suicide of a man whose wife was allegedly having an affair with Rev. Schirmer.

Police found Betty Schirmer's blood in the garage of the church parsonage, and forensics experts concluded from photos of the blood-soaked passenger seat and dashboard, taken by an auto damage appraiser, that she was bleeding before the crash. Prosecutors allege her husband - who spent nearly four decades as a pastor at several central and eastern Pennsylvania churches - hit her with some sort of object.

Investigators also are looking again at the 1999 death of Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, who was reported to have died in a fall down a flight of stairs.

At Schirmer's preliminary hearing Tuesday, a paramedic who responded to the car crash testified that she couldn't figure out why Betty Schirmer had blood covering her head and major bruising above her eye and on her leg, despite little damage to the car.

"We couldn't figure out what caused the head injury," Margo Warner said. "There wasn't enough damage to the inside of the vehicle."

Rev. Schirmer - then the pastor at Reeders United Methodist Church in the Poconos - told investigators he was driving Betty to the hospital so she could be treated for jaw pain. He told police a deer crossed their path, causing him to lose control of the car.

He was unhurt in the crash, but his wife suffered multiple skull and facial fractures and died at the hospital, according to court documents. No autopsy was ever performed and she was cremated.

Police Cpl. Douglas Shook, who reconstructed the accident, testified that the Schirmers' car was traveling under 25 mph when it crashed, not 45 mph as Arthur Schirmer had claimed. Although Schirmer said he had swerved to avoid a deer, Shook said that "there was no physical evidence of any avoidance maneuver in the roadway," nor sufficient damage to the car to have caused a fatal injury.

Schirmer was pastor of another church, Bethany United Methodist in Lebanon, Pa., when his first wife died on April 24, 1999. Jewel Schirmer, 50, died at Hershey Medical Center of a traumatic brain injury "from an alleged fall down a flight of stairs at a parsonage they shared," according to a police affidavit.

On Tuesday, District Judge Thomas Olsen refused to let prosecutors introduce evidence about Jewel Schirmer's death, calling it an issue for the trial court to decide.

Schirmer has denied harming either of his wives. His daughter by Jewel Schirmer recently told AP that the family is standing by him, though Jewel Schirmer's brother told the Pocono Record that he suspected when he saw his comatose sister in the hospital that "somebody gave this woman a beating."

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03/18/13
A former Pennsylvania pastor was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole in the fatal bludgeoning of his second wife in 2008.

Arthur "A.B." Schirmer, 64, was sentenced in Monroe County Court nearly two months after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the death of Betty Schirmer. The conviction brought an automatic life sentence.

"My mom is finally able to rest in peace," Betty Schirmer's son, Nate Novack, said after the sentencing. "We do have some closure and it's a great day overall, even though the life conviction isn't going to bring my mom back."

Schirmer is charged separately with killing his first wife, Jewel Schirmer, in 1999. He awaits trial in that case.

Prosecutors said he clubbed Betty Schirmer on the head with a crowbar, then loaded her into their car and staged a low-speed accident in an effort to conceal the crime. The former Methodist clergyman took the stand in his own defense and testified that he was driving her to the emergency room for treatment of jaw pain when he swerved to avoid a deer and hit a guard rail.

A jury deliberated about 90 minutes before returning its verdict.

Local police initially believed Betty Schirmer's July 2008 death was the result of a car crash. State police began a more thorough investigation months later, when a man committed suicide in Schirmer's office after learning the pastor was in a relationship with his wife, the church secretary.

Authorities ultimately concluded the fender-bender could not have caused Betty Schirmer's extensive head and brain injuries. Police also found her blood on the garage floor, along with evidence that someone had tried to clean it up.

Schirmer's girlfriend and his two daughters with Jewel Schirmer said outside court Monday that they continued to believe in his innocence.

"I just didn't hear evidence that led me to believe that he committed a crime," said Julie Campbell, one of the daughters.

The investigation into Betty Schirmer's death led police and prosecutors to take another look at Jewel Schirmer's case. Arthur Schirmer has long claimed he was out for a run on April 23, 1999, when he returned home to find Jewel Schirmer's body in a pool of blood at the bottom of the basement steps.

He was charged last September with killing her. He has maintained his innocence in both cases.

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Schirmer is charged separately in the 1999 death of his first wife, Jewel Schirmer, and awaits trial in Lebanon County.

The longtime United Methodist pastor asserts that Jewel – his wife of more than 30 years – fell down the basement stairs while vacuuming. He said he found her with the cord of a Shop-Vac wrapped around her ankle.

"That's staging 101," said Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso.

Like Betty Schirmer, the prosecutor told jurors in his closing argument, Jewel Schirmer suffered "forceful, hard blows to the back of the head. It was murder, and it was going to happen again."

The defense had fought to keep testimony about Jewel Schirmer's death out of the trial, but the judge allowed it. Reish said that decision would form the basis of his appeal.

"I think the admission of the circumstances surrounding the death of Jewel Schirmer really did prejudice the case," he said. The quick verdict, he added, "says there was something there that was improper that they shouldn't have been considering."
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No Trail Date Set For Schirmer for the death of his first wife Jewel.

  WOW!