The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 2

FIRST A2 THE MORNING CALL. SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 1988 'Maniac' Theory Under Probe-on March 10. "Police Clear Parents of 2 Slain Children" on March 16. "Mystery Man with Tan Coat Figures in Hunt for Killer" on March 20. But after a while, there was nothing more to report.

The stories got smaller. The headlines echoed the lack of progress. The month concluded with "Schultz Murder Probe Produces No Developments," "Schultz Murders Appear Headed for Unsolved List" and "Murder Probe to be Carried On Indefinitely." Police, meanwhile, had been interviewing anyone they thought might be able to advance the investigation. After neighbors and train crews and everyone else connected with the scene had been queried, police set out to methodically contact every "logical suspect" within a radius of several counties. Clockwise from top, investigators search for clues at scene of murder; victims' caskets are carried to graves; Gail Schultz's glasses, found nine days after the killing; and father Paul Schultz (wearing glasses) helps support his wife Claire after she collapsed at gravesite.

Mystery of deaths unsolved Continued From Page A1 along Black Rock Creek for a walk from which they would never return. The stream ran behind the neat neighborhood of matching Cape Cod nouses in a subdivision called East Lawn Gardens. They left the house around 2 p.m. and walked to a friend's nearby. But when their friend could not come out, they went to the creek by themselves.

Several people would later recall having seen the brother and sister there. Then, they were found dead. Gail was a homebody. She seldom dated. She didn't have a job.

Since her graduation the previous June from Nazareth High School, she had been devoting her days to the care of her brother, Paul. Gail's father, Paul had been married once before to Gail's mother. But she died when Gail was small, and Gail was raised by her stepmother, Claire Burke. The couple had had a child of their own, Paul Gail's half-brother. 1 I s'iK '1 I I I i i ii i iii i 1 the future county commissioner and Northampton County executive, meanwhile, had trouble catching up with the bodies that night.

He went first to the Nazareth fire hall. By the time he arrived, the bodies were already on their way to the funeral home. he opportunities for mentally "TT handicapped children were scant in those years, so peo ple like Paul never got a chance to attend school. But after Gail graduated, she took on the task of teaching Paul. That's why she liked to walk with him along the creek to look for rocks.

Indeed, her parents had moved to the subdivision the year before from an older neighborhood in the center of town so Paul would have that kind of open space in which to play. Around 4:30 that Saturday, Claire Schultz became concerned about Gail and Paul's long absence. The afternoon was waning and the temperature was dropping, and she couldn't understand why they hadn't come in. She asked her husband to go out and call them. Paul Sr.

was a 47-year-old draftsman at Binney Smith, the crayon killer's trail was more than seven hours old. It was already dark, and, before morning, a couple of inches of snow would hide everything until it melted later in the week. In the meantime, the doctor, the ambulance driver and others connected with the rescue had driven their vehicles over the surrounding fields, obliterating footprints or marks of struggle that might have told police about what had happened atop the wet ground. In addition, a throng of curious people from nearby homes had been drawn to the site by the tragedy, and police would always wonder whether someone, even unknowingly, had carried some vital piece of evidence from the scene. In any case, the murder weapon was never discovered.

Even Gail's glasses remained unnoticed for nine days, though they wereonly 40 feet from where the bodies were found. Police did find a plastic-handled chisel, but its shank was so free of rust that police wondered if it had been planted at the scene. Anyway, its shape could not have made the kind of cranial wounds that had been revealed by the autopsies. Indeed, the only hard evidence ever recovered from the scene was the bodies and even they had been touched long before the police were called. And hardly anybody remembered seeing a thing nothing, at any rate, that led police to an arrest.

A railroad man from a passing Delaware, Lackawanna and Western freight train thought he saw a man wearing a tan raincoat on the tracks around the time of the murders. A plant engineer from Hercules Powder across the creek, had seen a light-colored car in the vicinity around the same hour. One couple from the neighborhood recalled that a teen-age boy carrying a grass whip had walked through the area that afternoon. I rom the start, investigators had operated under the assumption that the two were killed as part of a sex crime, although there was never any evidence to support the theory other than the lack of evidence to explain any other motive. Neither victim's clothes had been disturbed, and there was no medical evidence that Gail or Paul had been sexually assaulted.

But when all other leads proved empty, Cook's team began tracking down anyone with a criminal record who had been involved in a past sexual offense. They even went as far as Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Eventually, 124 "deviants" were questioned. At another point, the investigation focused for a few days on Willis R. Keck, a 38-year-old bachelor who lived with his 73-year-old, semi-invalid father a few doors from the Schultzes on Mitchell Avenue He had come home from work shortly after noon that Saturday and had remained indoors until 8:30 that evening.

The problem was that nobody believed him. Nor did he have any corroboration of his movements that day. Investigators thought it peculiar that Keck, alone among his neighbors, had remained inside during all the excitement out by the creek that evening. The newspaper, meanwhile, was surprised that Keck had not known the names of the victims, "although they had been near neighbors for a year." Indeed, Capt. Cook was inclined on March 19 to tell reporters that Keck was "a good suspect." He was held for 48 hours.

During that time, he submitted to a lie detector test and an examination by the superintendent of Allentown State Hospital. But after two days of questioning, police accepted his innocence and let him go. aul Schultz Sr. died the next year. He suffered a heart attack while driving to Easton and died later that evening at home.

Strangely enough, Capt Cook had died unexpectedly about six weeks earlier. By then, the threads of the investigation had become the responsibility of Harold Schaffer of the state police. In fact, he was in the middle of an interview with a Phillipsburg man in connection with the case when word reached him that Schultz had been stricken. Nothing came of that inquiry, either. Not long after, Claire Schultz sold the home on Mitchell Avenue and moved to Buffalo, N.Y.

A son by a previous marriage had been living there. The family who bought the home had lived a hundred miles from Nazareth when the murders occurred and didn't know anything about them until after they moved in. State police subsequently lost track of Claire Schultz. They heard a few years ago that she had died in an institution, but they were unable to verify the information. She would now be 76 years old.

The last time the Schultz murder file was updated was in October. That was when a "concerned citizen of Nazareth" wrote a letter to the state police. It reminded them that the 35th anniversary of the murders was near. ment officials tried unsuccessfully to persuade Mejia to step aside as a candidate for the ruling party, Salvadoran officials say. American officials, including some senior Reagan administration officials, also pushed in recent days to have Duarte act on the case, according to several officials.

The American ambassador, Edwin Corr, is in Washington for consultations, and has discussed this issue with administration officials. Duarte promised party officials on Friday that Mejia would be dropped as a party candidate. But Alejandro Duarte defended him and insisted that he remain a party candidate, officials involved in the case say. Morning Call file photos county commissioners, from Binney Smith and from the Easton Express. The newspaper even paid to hire a private investigator and for a prominent criminologist from Chicago to be brought in to review the case.

The death of the pair touched a public nerve, and interest in the case for a time was intense. Things like this weren't supposed to happen in nice communities, so the slayings came to represent every parent's worst nightmare. All the local newspapers provided you-are-there coverage and reported each new development with determined industry. Capt. Cook began holding press conferences at 11 a.m.

each day, and newsmen began staking out Mitchell Avenue. When the bereaved couple left for their first interview at state police headquarters on the day after the killings, photographers captured the drama of the moment. One reporter thought he perceived that "both showed signs of great strain." The press covered the double funeral that Wednesday. There were photographers to capture the graveside tears, and reporters got close enough to record Claire Schultz's farewell cry, "Oh, goodbye, my kids." When she collapsed against her husband moments later, the photographers were able to get heart-wrenching shots of her being led to the car. Day after day, big headlines were published.

by the United States. They said Mejia was informed of these suspicions earlier this year, as was Duarte. Mejia resigned as director of the agency three months ago after strong pressure from the U.S. Embassy, according to several officials here. But Duarte let Mejia become a party candidate for the National Assembly in elections March 20 on the recommendation of Duarte's son, according to party officials.

Mejia did not answer repeated telephone calls to his office over the last three days. But government officials said he has privately denied the charges. A presidential spokesman said Duarte would have no comment on the case. On Friday night, senior govern administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The ambulance crew, too, had a hard time believing there was no hope.

The volunteers took the victims to the Nazareth Fire Company, where more efforts were made to revive them. The attempts were futile. Autopsy reports would later determine that both had died around 2:30 p.m. Although there would be some confusion later about who was called when that night, the hour by then must have been past 5:30. Still, no one realized that the they had been murdered.

Although a gash had been noticed on Gail's head, everyone thought she must have bumped it on a rock after her brother had fallen in the creek. It wasn't until Easton funeral director John C. Kalinis was preparing the bodies for embalming, hours later, that he noticed head wounds too severe to have been caused by a fall. Indeed, evidence gathered at the autopsy ordered for the next day revealed that Gail had been struck in the head seven times with a blunt object Paul had been hit three times. The wounds looked like they had been caused by a hammer.

One was laid on with such force that it had penetrated the boy's skull. A compound fracture.on Gail's thumb led officials to theorize that she had tried to deflect at least one of the blows with her hand. The coroner, Martin J. Bechtel, lord of the murders spread quickly. Still, it wasn't until 9:40 that state police 'were informed.

Even then, the call came from a newspaper reporter looking for information. District Attorney Ellis W. Spengler was brought into the case an hour after the police. The following Monday, Capt. Cook said he was hoping for an early break in the case, but that was never to be.

Whether the outcome might have been different if the police had been called first and had been able to secure the site is a point that would be debated for years. The fact is, however, that by the time police began looking for evidence along Black Rock Creek, the ut nothing ever came of the sightings, and police were clearly frustrated. Said Cook after a week of empty inves tigation: "It seems preposterous that it could have happened in full view of all those East Lawn homes on a clear Saturday afternoon without someone spotting something out of the ordinary." A big reward was eventually offered with contributions from the manufacturer in Easton. He repaired television sets on the side. In fact, that's what he was doing that afternoon in his basement shop with a helper named Robert Howells when Claire called to him.

Paul Sr. went to the back yard and shouted for Gail and Paul Jr. When he received no answer, he walked out to the creek. That's where he came upon the two, lying face down in 10 inches of water. "When I found them, my first impression was it was literally an impossible thing it just couldn't be," Paul Sr.

told a newspaper reporter the next day. Claire had been watching from the kitchen window. She saw her husband bend over. She watched as he extracted the boy from the water. It was the first inkling she had that something was wrong.

Schultz's helper, meanwhile, had gone outside to return tools to his car. He heard the man's cry of discovery from the rear of the property and saw him lift the child out of the water. Seeing the emergency, Howells went to the phone and called the family's doctor, John Fraunfelder. He also called the Nazareth ambulance. omeone should have called the police, but no one, at that point, realized that they were the victims of anything other than a freak accident.

In fact, no one was willing to believe that they were dead. When Dr. Fraunfelder arrived, he found Schultz trying to had said that this expression of territory for peace is not accepted by The senators said they do not expect Israel to give up all the territory gained in its 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, nor does the United Nations resolution require Israel to do so. "On the other hand," the letter said, "peace negotiations have little chance of success if the Israeli government's position rules out territorial compromise." The letter was circulated by Sens. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and Rudy Boschwitz, a Minnesota Republican.

Probe focuses on Duarte candidate Senators say Shamir may be blocking peace Continued From Page A1 nied the charges. Officials at the U.S. Embassy declined comment The American assistance believed to have been stolen was part of a $10 million program to assist war-torn areas, according to Salva-doran and American officials. When properly administered, it appears to be one of the government's most effective programs to help poor Salvadorans and win their support against leftist guerrillas. American and Salvadoran officials say they suspect that Mejia, the former director of the National Commission for the Restoration of Areas, known as Conara, and several other officials were involved in the misuse and theft of funds provided Continued From Page A1 approach.

The senators said they supported Shultz's latest "effort to break the dangerous Middle East stalemate, a stalemate that has led to the current cycle of violence and counterviol-ence." Noting that Shultz's strategy is based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, the senators said the resolution "can be summarized in three words: land for peace." "Accordingly, we were dismayed lo read in The New York Times of Feb. 26 that Prime Minister Shamir LOTTERIES Also signing the letter were such strong supporters of Israel as Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Alan Cranston, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Howard M. Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, and Frank R. Lautenberg, The other signers were Lowell P.

Weicker George J. Mitchell, Brock Adams, Thomas A. Daschle, J. Bennett Johnston, D-La Donald W. Riegle Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Warren B.

Rudman, Bob Kasten, J. James Exon, Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vermont; John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, William S. Cohen, Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo; Christopher J.

Dodd, Dennis DeConcini, Kent Conrad, John Glenn, Timothy E. Wirth, Wendell H. Ford, D-Ky and Bob Graham, D-Fla. Advertising Classified 820-6565 Display 820-6633 The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use or republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper, as well as all AP news dispatches. THE MOANING CALL (ISSN 0884-5557) is puDmhed daily Dy The Morning Call.

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