One Dew Point From Murder

One Dew Point From Murder In August, 1986, Betty Wolsieffer was strangled and murdered by someone who had broken into her home. Her husband, Dr. Glen Wolsieffer, was also strangled and knocked unconscious.

His little brother Neil, lived across the street and in the early hours, he got a phone call from Glen pleading for him to come over, that an intruder had broken into his home. Since he was just a few houses down, he was the first to arrive on the scene. When he saw his brother injured, Neil called 911.

When police arrived at the scene, Glen was downstairs on the floor, fading in and out of consciousness. Upstairs had been ransacked, furniture overturned, desk drawers emptied, fortunately Glen’s 5 year old daughter was still in her room, asleep.

When they entered the master bedroom, they found Betty on the floor next to the bed with bruises around her neck and her face showed signs of a severe beating. Betty had been beaten and strangled to death.

So, a little history about the couple… Glen and Betty had been married for 9 years. They were former high school sweethearts. Both were from well-known, influential families. Glen went to dental school and later married Betty. After graduation, the couple returned to their hometown to set up his dental practice in Wilkes-Barre PA. The couple bought a house just a few houses down from Glen’s brother Neil because the brother’s were nearly inseparable.

They were said to be almost like twins. They rarely did things without one another. Both were obsessively into sports. When Glen and Betty had a baby girl, life seemed to be picture perfect. Their families all got along and seemed to adore one another. They were seen as the all American family.

At the time of the murder, the couple’s daughter was 5 years old. On that fateful morning of August 30, 1986, It appeared an intruder climbed a ladder to the roof over the back porch and entered the house through a 2nd story window. The screen had been pulled out and left on the roof. Glen said he was asleep when he heard a loud noise at about 6 am. He then grabbed his gun and he saw a masked man running down the stairs. He ran after him.

The intruder hid then surprised him from behind, strangled Glen with a belt and then knocked him out with a blow to the head. When Glen regained consciousness, he called his brother. Glen described the assailant as having dark hair and eyebrows. He wore a translucent mask that made his race impossible to determine.

He told police $1300 in cash was missing from a desk in the study, gold and jewelry as long with a house key were also gone. Police took note that the kitchen phone was hanging from its cord, off the hook. They were side eyeing this a bit – wondering, did Neil forget to hang up the phone after calling 911, or was it something else?

The news of the assault and murder was stunning to the quiet community of wilkes-barre. Glen was a successful dentist and Betty volunteered for many local charities. Both were well-liked and didn’t have any known enemies. They were well known. Betty was outgoing and popular in town and though Glen was quiet, he was the handsome dentist that townspeople supported wholeheartedly.

Glen was sometimes compared to a young Tom Selleck as he often sported a mustache and was so handsome. There had been a string of recent burglaries in the wolsiefffer’s neighborhood. Since things were missing from the home, robbery was considered a motive. As for the ladder used by the intruder, it was actually the wolsieffer’s.

They stored it outside on the side of their house so it was within easy access to anyone. A partial palm print was found on the inside of the windowsill which didn’t match anyone in the family or the police. Betty’s autopsy showed no evidence of sexual assault and the cause of death was strangulation which we know takes a lot of time and effort. It can take from 3-5 minutes and there had been a fierce struggle.

Betty had fought back with everything she had. The medical examiner said he was sure she had left her attacker with marks for certain. Blue fibers and a speck of blood under her nails verified that she had been in close contact with her murderer. However, despite the relentless beating, there was no blood on Betty’s nightgown and very little blood on her face. It would be all but impossible to avoid getting blood on her nightgown.

The killer had washed her face and changed her nightgown. Police searched the house, in the yard and even the surrounding neighborhood and river for her bloody nightwear, but they didn’t find anything. BREAK Betty’s body had been lying in front of a fan in the bedroom which made her time of death more difficult to gauge.

But, the ME determined she had been killed between 2:30 and 4:30 in the morning. 2-4 hours before Glen said he heard the intruder. Something else that was strange… Doctors at the hospital noticed injuries on the back of Glen’s neck even though he said he was strangled from behind. It can’t happen that way unless someone pulled from the front. Investigators discovered from friends that Glen often wore a gold chain.

If he had been in a struggle where someone was under him in a prone position, the chain being pulled by the person on the floor would have been the way that injury was possible. Police began looking into Glen’s dental practice and discovered Glen was in a relationship with his dental assistant. The relationship was more personal than professional. So much so, that in fact, they were carrying on a full-fledged affair and had been doing so for 5 years.

She told investigators that Glen had planned on leaving Betty for her. But, the dental assistant’s dreams of a fairy-tale ending with Glen were dashed when she found out he was carrying on another affair with an aerobics instructor in town that he met at “Aerobic World”. In fact, when police tracked down hotel receipts from the Red Roof Inn, they discovered Glen would sometimes have trists with both women on the same day before going home to Betty.

So not only was he cheating on his wife, he was also cheating on his mistress at the same time. Police also wondered why after calling for help, Glen’s brother Neil didn’t go upstairs to check on Betty or the couple’s daughter while waiting for police. On the night of the murder, Glen said he was with friends at the crackerbox palace night club and drove home around 2:30. He claimed he went right to bed and slept until the intruder woke him with a loud sound.

But, the police had taken a video all around the house and even the cars on the morning of the murder. It showed that Betty’s car was covered with dew, but Glen’s had none. To figure out why this would be, police called a forensic meteorologist, who then studied the weather patterns on the night of the murder. Dew is condensation that forms on objects outside. The temperature on the day of the murder was 70 degrees.

The dew point temp – when the moisture in the air becomes cold enough to turn from a gas into a liquid, making dew, would have happened when the temperature reached 50 degrees. That night before the murder was clear and cool – the temp dropped and reached 50 degrees at 11pm. There was little to no wind.

Glen had said he’d been home since 2:30 am, so there should have been plenty of time for dew to collect on his car before the temperature heated enough for it to dissipate. But, there was none on it when police arrived at 7am. The lack of dew meant that someone had driven the car sometime between the time Glen claimed he got home and 7 am, evaporating the dew that had been present.

The dew point also had produced dew on the roof, yet there were no signs of anyone walking on the roof. No foot or handprints when the police arrived. Another giant red flag – the ladder had been placed against the roof backwards with the steps facing the wrong way. A veteran police officer also pointed out that burglars fear ladders, feeling like they could be trapped in a home. They much prefer to kick in a door that they could just as easily exit out of.

As for the palm print that couldn’t be identified, it did help corroborate Glen’s story. And remember that phone that was off the hook? Police found that and neil’s behavior suspicious since he didn’t check on the rest of the family. Neil denied any involvement in the crime but when asked to take a lie detector test, he refused. Lots of people began to think that Neil knew what happened. That maybe his brother asked for his help in making up a story to help keep him out of police’s focus.

They also wondered if Neil could have been the one to knock down and choke Glen to help him with an alibi. Police asked Neil to come in for further questioning. When initially questioned, Neil was shaking and crying. They noticed he was very nervous and they decided he needed to be further interviewed. On his way to the 2nd interview, Neil made a decision that would change the investigation.

The time when he was supposed to show up came and went. The investigators continued to wait until one left the room and came back in with some disturbing news. Neil Wolseiffer was dead. BREAK On his way to the interview, Neil passed the courthouse in his Honda, drove another 5 miles then swerved at full speed in front of a dump truck. His car was absolutely crushed. He was killed and his death was ruled a suicide.

The driver of the truck told police that Neil’s car seemed to deliberately cross into his path What Neil may have known about the murder, he took with him to the grave. Before her death, Betty told friends that she knew all about the affairs and that she was planning to confront Glen. FBI analyst analyzed the debris under Betty’s nails and found blue cotton denim fibers – the color in the dye was consistent with the denim shirt and jeans that Glen was seen wearing at the night club earlier in the night.

Head hairs found near Betty’s body were also studied and found to have been forcibly removed. They ended up being consistent with Glen. On nov 5 1990, Glen was charged with first degree murder, which he claimed to be not guilty. Police think Betty had confronted glen after which a violent argument broke out.

During the fight, Betty had grabbed Glen’s hair and pulled at his gold chain while he choked her. After the murder, he removed her bloody nightgown and washed her body as a means of washing away his own guilt at having killed his wife. Prosecuters think Glen gathered up the bloody clothing and towels and drove away in his car to dispose of them which dried the dew off of his car. When he came back, he staged the scene to look like a robbery.

The telephone receiver left off the hook was either a mistake or Neil just forgot to hang it back up. Also, Someone had damaged the window screen on the second floor from the inside — whereas an intruder would have broken in, not out.

The jury found glen guilty of 3rd degree murder and was sentenced to 8-20 years in prison. But, Glen with treated better than his victom. He was allowed to go free on $200,000 bail while he appealed the verdict. He went to Virginia where he lived for 2 years as a free man waiting for his sentencing. He lived with Carol, one of his girlfriends he’d been cheating on Betty with.

From information that was very vaguely mentioned, it seemed he had a daughter with her as well before he was sent to prison. In May of 2005, after serving thirteen years of his sentence, and being denied parole five times, Glen was parolled.

Apparently, each previous time he faced the parole board, he continued to deny killing Betty. Some reports mentioned him not taking responsibility or expressing remorse. They would ultimately deny parole and recommend a program through the prison in one area or another. When he met with the board in March of 2005 he admitted murdering his wife. His family, including his mother, sister and daughter had continued to proclaim his innocence. Most believe that he simply admitted committing the crime, and feigned remorse so that he could get out of prison. The weather helped solve a mystery that could possibly have stayed unsolved without the information it provided.

Sources: forensicfilesnow.com, apnews.com, timesleader.com, http://truecrimediscussions.blogspot.com, the forensics file episode called Dew Process