Pa. ex-pastor charged with killing 2nd wife in ‘08; 1st wife’s death in 1999 being re-examined

Pa. pastor charged with killing wife in 2008

TANNERSVILLE, Pa. — A Pennsylvania pastor whose first wife died under suspicious circumstances was charged Monday with killing his second wife and staging a car accident to cover it up. The accusations have prompted police to re-examine the first wife’s death.

Arthur Burton Schirmer, 62, was arraigned Monday in Tannersville on criminal homicide and evidence-tampering charges in the 2008 death of his 56-year-old wife, Betty. He did not enter a plea and was jailed without bail.

Betty Schirmer’s death was initially ruled an accident, but police said they reopened the investigation after the November 2008 suicide of a man whose wife was having an affair with Arthur Schirmer.

Police concluded Betty Schirmer was already injured before the car crash. Investigators said they later found her blood in the garage of the Reeders United Methodist Church parsonage, where the couple lived.

Police in Lebanon County said Monday they are now re-examining the 1999 death of Schirmer’s first wife, Jewel, who was reported to have died in a fall down a flight of stairs.

A phone message left Monday afternoon for Schirmer’s attorney, Brandon Reish, was not immediately returned.

According to a police affidavit supporting charges in Betty Schirmer’s death, Arthur Schirmer told investigators he was driving her to the hospital at 1:50 a.m. on July 15, 2008, so she could be treated for jaw pain. He told police a deer crossed their path, causing him to lose control of the car.

Arthur Schirmer was unhurt in the crash and there was minimal damage to the car, but his wife suffered multiple skull and facial fractures and died at the hospital, according to court documents.

In a column published in the Pocono Record in October 2008, Schirmer wrote, “About three months ago my wife, Betty, died in an automobile accident. She was my best friend. I miss her. The congregation, Reeders United Methodist Church, misses her.”

But police took a second look in November 2008 following a suicide at Reeders United Methodist, where Schirmer was pastor at the time. Authorities determined that Schirmer had been having an affair with his secretary, the suicidal man’s wife.

Police experts also determined Schirmer’s car was only going about 20 mph when it crashed and that Betty Schirmer was already bleeding.

A forensic pathologist and the Lehigh County coroner reviewed the case and “confirmed that the severe injuries sustained by the victim would not have been a result of this low-speed crash,” state police said in a news release.

Police said they also found the victim’s blood in the garage of the church parsonage — and that someone had tried to clean it up.

Schirmer was pastor of another church, Bethany United Methodist in Lebanon, Pa., when his first wife died on April 24, 1999.

Jewel Schirmer died at Hershey Medical Center from a traumatic brain injury, “from an alleged fall down a flight of stairs at a parsonage they shared,” according to the police affidavit.

Schirmer reported discovering his first wife’s body in a pool of blood at the bottom of the basement steps, according to the affidavit. She suffered a fractured skull and as well as injuries to her face, upper body and arms, the affidavit said.

The manner of her death remains undetermined.

The Lebanon County district attorney’s office announced in a statement Monday that it was reopening the investigation into Jewel Schirmer’s death “as a result of new information that has been received by this office.”