SUNBURY – The state Supreme Court has been asked to accept the appeal of a Northumberland County man who is trying to clear himself of a 1986 murder.
According to PennLive, Scott Schaeffer wants the court to interpret what the Legislature intended when in 2018 it amended the Post-Conviction Relief Act to include those like him who have completed their sentences.
The amendment permits DNA testing when there is reasonable possibility it would produce exculpatory evidence but did not change the time period in which to seek it.
The Supreme Court has never addressed the time issue related to the amended law, Schaeffer’s attorney Joel Wiest points out.
It makes no sense for the Legislature without overriding the timeliness requirement to allow those who have completed their sentences to seek DNA testing, he argues.
Otherwise, requests by those who have completed their sentences would be denied as untimely, he wrote.
Schaeffer is appealing an October Superior Court ruling that denied as untimely a request for DNA testing of certain evidence in the Rickey Wolfe murder case.
The ruling affirmed the decision by specially assigned Lycoming County Senior Judge Dudley N. Anderson who also found Schaeffer failed to make a prima facie showing the requested DNA testing would establish actual innocence.
Deputy Attorney General Christopher J. Schmidt opposed the testing saying Schaeffer could have requested DNA testing before entering his no-contest plea in 2004 but did not do so until 2018.
Schaeffer, of the Sunbury area, was found guilty in the murder of Wolfe, 30, of Mifflinburg, whose body was found Dec. 12, 1986, face down in a pool of blood near his car at a state Fish Commission boat ramp along the Susquehanna River north of Montandon. He was one of five men charged (two were acquitted) with beating Wolfe. The prosecution’s theory was Wolfe was kidnapped and beaten to death because he owed a drug debt.
Schaeffer’s 1991 conviction on first-degree murder and other charges and that of William Lloyd Hendricks III were vacated after co-defendant Robert Eugene Hummel said he had testified falsely under pressure from state police. In 2004, they pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. THEY were re-sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison followed by 10 years’ probation. Although Schaeffer had served the minimum, he remained in jail two more years for a total of 17 before being paroled.
Adding to the intrigue in the case was testimony in a 2002 court proceeding by the lead investigator, state police Cpl. Richard Bramhall, that he believed the actual murderer was a man named Roy Herrold.
Bramhall never disclosed his reasons and is now deceased. So is Herrold.
Wiest claims if the Supreme Court accepts the appeal and allows the DNA testing it could help solve Wolfe’s murder and the disappearance and presumed killing of Barbara Miller.
The latter is in reference to evidence uncovered by former Sunbury Police Chief Tim Miller that indicated Barbara Miller was kidnapped and murdered because she had knowledge of a former boyfriend’s involvement in Wolfe’s homicide.
Miller, 30, of Sunbury, who is not related to the former chief, disappeared July 1, 1989, after returning from as wedding. She never made it to a bar in Mifflinburg where she was to meet friends.
A judge on Oct. 10, 2002, declared her dead; it’s classified as a homicide.
At Chief Miller’s request, county Judge Charles Saylor referred her case to the attorney general’s office for investigation.
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