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. They married in 1992. While the newly discovered evidence was included in her appeal, it has always focused on the contradictory hair tests and wide gaps in paperwork on the chain of custody in hair evidence. "A Fatal Attraction" when a wife and her baby disappear hair found . Well, that really caught our attention of course.". 157K views, 2.2K likes, 116 loves, 110 comments, 285 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from The FBI Files: The December 1994 kidnappings of Joann Katrinak and her 4-month-old son, Alex. The baby had been smothered or left to freeze to death. New state, new man. When Andrew Katrinak arrived home from work shortly after 6 p.m. on Dec. 15, 1994, he noticed two unusual things. Andrew Katrinak - Forensic Files Now People . . I wish someone would look into the possibility that Caleb Fairley may have murdered Joann Katrinak and her infant son Alex in Catasauqua, PA, in December of 1994. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4438028/com-v-rorrer-p/. "Rorrer was born in Phillipsburg. Supposedly it was the relationship to this trail and Patricia's managing of the Silver Shadow Farms horse stable just a mile away that first brought Rorrer to detectives' attention. Then, despite her multiple alibis, she has an inexplicable five-day gap in this pattern. Forensic Files didnt mention it, but the hairs were actually brown at the top and the rest dyed blond, according to the show Autopsy Six: A Fatal Attraction. Wish me luck! While theres no evidence to suggest he was unfaithful to Joann, within 6 months of her death Andrew and this woman were openly seeing each other. If shes been in a public place, such as a shop, a shed hair from someone else could be picked up on ones clothing and stick to a sweaty palm, etc. One on one? Love your phrases: seething with thoughts of criminal perversion. Three days before she vanished, Mrs. Katrinak had angrily told Ms. Rorrer to stop calling her husband. Image credit: Episode screen capture from, - Sarah OConnor: Joann Katrinaks Mother, - Det. Murder in Lehigh Valley: Keith Morrison Reports is also available on YouTube, but it costs $1.99 to view (Keith comes off as an advocate for Patricias innocence on the episode). She claimed to have been home during this period how did her defense team justify such a departure from Patricia's norm? She is petitioning for DNA testing on the nail fragment that was found on the victims body. "Like I said, we were still friends," Rorrer said.She testified that she had met a new man and was happy that Katrinak had found someone special. Apparently it is universally agreed by courts that any hair testing before 2000 might had yieled an incorrect reading. Patricia was convicted based on her head hairs being found in the victim's car. Its not clear whether Fairleys interest in vampires was part of D&D or a separate pastime. No activity on her bank account or credit cards took place after the day she went missing, so investigators dismissed the theory that she took her child and bolted. Curiously, he immediately implicated Rorrer, his ex-girlfriend, even though they hadnt spoken in months and she was living in North Carolina. But defense lawyer Robert Pfeiffer said that plenty of evidence supported Patricias innocence. According to court papers from Patricia 2017 appeal, DNA on the cigarette butt found near the two bodies belonged to Appellant. (Prosecutor Michael McIntyre, however, told ForensicFilesNow.com that that the cigarette butt was never actually tested). Lets consider these statements Rorrer is alleged to have made in the presence of a police officer. Ive fought 10-plus years, hard, and may or may not win, Rorrer wrote in an October 2008 letter to the Innocence Institute of Point Park University. Kidnapped and killed? Why would somebody tell you, theyre going to fry me, if they didnt do it? Jarrett told Wrong Man. He had worked as a semi-pro boxer in Las Vegas in his youth and later settled . Prayers to the family. And the fact that Patricia called Andrew even after he married someone else didnt mean she was still carrying a torch for him, according to one of her friends. "We got along fine. The 5-foot-9-inch-tall Patricia was physically strong, no match for 5-foot-4-inch Joann. From the start, the Rorrer murder case was plagued with allegations of inconsistent evidence collection and testing that eventually led a judge to hold hearings on whether she deserves a new trial.Her case shows how the present system in contrast to the dictates of the Coverdell Act actually contributes to scientific confusion and has almost no automatic audit on investigations when misconduct allegations are leveled.On Dec. 15, 1994, Andrew Katrinak told police he arrived home from his construction job to find his wife, Joann, and 4-month-old baby, Alex, missing from their Catasauqua, Pa., home. On December 12, 1994, Joann answered a phone call from a woman shed never met, Patricia Rorrer, her husbands onetime girlfriend. That barn is about two miles from where the bodies were discovered along a trail in the woods, where a prosecution witness said she rode horses with Rorrer. However, the only record of any call made from Rorrer to the Katrinak household was on Dec 7th. . After a very early failed marriage, the 24-year-old Joann scored a new husband in Andrew Katrinak, 38, whom she met at a club. Patricia knew her gun tended to jam, but she used it anyway. Joann Marie O'Connor Katrinak (1968-1994) - Find a Grave Memorial She received 12 months' probation.Rorrer was 18 when she lost her 3-1/2-month-old son on Nov. 20, 1982. What would a crime show be without them? If I knew I was going to get caught, I never would have brought you into this world, the arresting officers testified they heard her say to Nicole. After a very early failed marriage, the 24-year-old Joann scored a new husband in Andrew Katrinak, 38, whom she met at a club. Joann grabbed her purse, the diaper bag, and their coats against the December chill in Pennsylvania. She said she sought shelter at Katrinak's home, before Katrinak met his future wife, because she knew no one else in the area.After Rorrer's father died when she was 15, she dropped out of school to get a job and help pay bills. Did investigators look for phone calls between Andrew and Patricia prior to December 11, 1994? Incriminating words. Also, Rorrer was interviewed by police within a week of Joann and Alex going missing. Reconsidering Andrew Katrinak's potential role. December 15th, 1994. In 1986, she met and began a relationship with Andrew Katrinak. ), The Wrong Man investigators Ira Todd and Joe Kennedy have some theories of their own. Rorrer said she had spoken once to Joann before she and Katrinak were married and that Joann seemed friendly when she put Katrinak on the phone.Rorrer said that years ago, she rented a barn in Washington Township for her horses. If Patricia drove it back from the murder scene after she shot Joann and then beat her to death, luminal would have lit up the interior. Join Facebook to connect with Andrew Katrinak and others you may know. Men who murder are conventional, women are sensational, posits the Worldwide Womens Criminal Justice Network. He later discovered a phone line had been cut.Mrs. But was Andrew in on this plan? Memorials. She said she did not give the hang up by Joann Katrinak a second thought. When police traveled to North Carolina to interview Patricia about the murders of Joann and Alex, she said that on the day of the homicides, she had visited a feed store, a tanning salon, and a country music club. Their bodies were found in April 1995.Pfeiffer earlier told jurors that the prosecution's theory on a motive makes no sense.Rorrer, who is charged with kidnapping and homicide, will continue testifying today and will be cross-examined by McIntyre, who has grilled some defense witnesses, firing question after question.Before Rorrer began testifying, she stood in front of the judge's bench as Pfeiffer put on the record that Rorrer was advised of her constitutional right not to testify and was told that if she chose to exercise it, it couldn't be used against her. "The Case of the Severed Hand" examines a case where a waterlogged hand leads to a defiled corpse and a practitioner of black magic. Someone with a life sentence has nothing to lose throwing any spanner in the works that might, as they see it, cast doubt even if the spanner has the opposite effect! So tragic. memorial page for Joann Marie O'Connor Katrinak (11 Oct 1968-15 Dec 1994), Find a Grave . How could I explain to my daughter years later that I took a plea for something I didnt do? she said. Meticulous primping. Andrew Katrinak, was the husband of Joann Katrinak and Alex's father. He was a little surprised when she approached him as though they were old friends last fall at a county barbecue.He was selling T-shirts for the department. One final thought about those hairs: they were described as dirty blond and approximately 8 inches in length. McIntyre didn't address that issue in his closing argument..Burke said soil in the woods didn't match soil in and on the car and questioned why there was no blood in the car if the killer drove the car back to Catasauqua where it was found..He also wondered how the victims could have been kidnapped at gunpoint from their home at 740 Front St. in the afternoon without anyone seeing anything..Prosecutors claim that Rorrer planned the killing and even might have been in the area before Dec. 15, 1994. One thing is for certain though: regardless of what color one would describe her hair, it was unequivocally a lot longer than 8 inches. And if nothing more, it certainly galvanized the law enforcement community and got us moving in the right direction. "The testimony appeared to strike an emotional chord in the woman whom prosecution witnesses have portrayed as a tough cowgirl. In addition to the Facebook page, there are Reddit threads on her case. As for the words exchanged on the call between the two big-haired women, Joann told Andrew that Patricia had used profanity; Patricia said it was the other way around. Even though he committed the double murder at age 21,a persons biological process is typically incomplete until the person reaches his or her mid-twenties.. It was later believed that his recollection was keen, since he'd been the one to dress her posthumously. She had been beaten and shot in the face. At the states request, the instructor wore a wire during a phone conversation with Patricia. not three days before it to tell him she had won a national horse competition in Oklahoma. Your email address will not be published. Joann was fun, likable, beautiful, always happy, said her sister-in-law Cindy Wiard. His father confirmed his alibi that they were doing construction work together, putting an addition on the house of friends Tom and Kathy Holschwander, at the time of Joanns disappearance. Andrew Joseph Katrinak. Joann had been shot once and then bludgeoned in the head. Rorrer, he said, bought one with his autograph and cheered him on "to go get the bad guys. That does not ring true to me. The episode claimed the jury required just two hours to deliberate, but other sources indicate it took six. Andrew Katrinak, a former heavyweight boxer, quickly gathered his in-laws and said he suspected foul play. Christmas was right around the corner, and the biggest shopping center in that tri-county area is the King of Prussia Mall, which is about 54 minutes away from Catasauqua and a stones throw from Fairleys home in Gulph Mills. Family Secrets | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files | The December 1994 Its doors were locked, but the keys were inside the vehicle. It's shocking to think that Patricia Rorrer, being a mother, could end the life of an infant. Four hours is a long time between Andrew getting home from work and calling the police. Rorrer, who is Katrinak's former girlfriend, was convicted of abducting Joann Katrinak and her son from their home, shooting Katrinak in the face, and leaving her and the child in the woods, where their bodies were found nearly four months later. 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. Murder Suspect Breaks Down As Detectives Tell Of Her Arrest: Monday, giving jurors a Cliff Notes version of her life up until the time a Catasauqua woman and her baby disappeared in 1994. wife, because she knew no one else in the area. With Marlene Sanders, Jeffrey J. Lewis, Michael Baden, Andrew Katrinak. This had been taken just 11 days before Joann's disappearance. Patricia and her husband broke up after the babys death. Jaime: Thanks. That decision drew public anger, as can be seen inPhiladelphia Daily News letters to the editor published on September 29, 1995. 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. Theres been some debate with regard to a picture of Rorrer shortly before the murders and the color of her hair. Wouldn't he have tried to call his mother recall it was with her Joann had planned to go Christmas shopping. I also forgot to mention the fingernail evidence. Convicting Factors: forensic fabrication, hidden evidence, media hysteria.Convicting Reasons: protect the real murderer. Three days later, Joann had plans to pick up her mother-in-law, Veronica Katrinak, to go Christmas shopping. Microscopic analyses, mitochondrial DNA testing and nuclear DNA testing showed hairs found at the crime scene and in Joann Katrinak's car matched Rorrer's hairs and DNA in her blood. Leave a comment below, or contact us! WHY? Finally, the evidence had been exposed to the elements for who knows how many months. Police treated Joann's car as a potential crime scene, and their investigation turned up several blonde hairs on the head rest. They also found a photo of Patricia taken 11 days before the homicide. Fortunately, investigators found glaring evidence of Fairleys guilt within days of the murder and built a case so solid that the attackerended up sentenced to two consecutivelife terms for two counts of second-degree murder. Joann Katrinak, and her baby, had planned to go Christmas shopping with her mother-in-law but she never arrived to pick her up despite calling to say that she was on her way there. Frank J. Hearn Michael J. Brady Antonio Verrelli B Stephen Zahornasky Hugh H. Taulty. And the kidnapping scenario became more plausible when you factor in the privacy of the alleyway behind the Katrinak house.
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