Junkman’s find could raise ques­tions about mur­ders that riv­et­ed nation
By Laird Leask and Pete Shellem 

March 29, 1992

The Patriot News

A box removed from the attic of the lead inves­ti­ga­tor in the famed Susan Reinert mur­der case has yield­ed evi­dence that seems to raise seri­ous ques­tions about the case and could clear con­vict­ed killer Jay C. Smith.

A dupli­cate of the comb that con­nect­ed Smith to the crime scene, inves­tiga­tive notes that con­tra­dict pros­e­cu­tion tes­ti­mo­ny and a let­ter from an author offer­ing an inves­ti­ga­tor $50,000 before arrests were even made were found in a box that Trooper Jack Holtz was apparently discarding.

All evi­dence from Smith ​‘s tri­al is sup­pos­ed­ly sealed by court order and stored by the state attor­ney general’s office.

William C. Costopoulos, the Lemoyne lawyer rep­re­sent­ing Smith, a for­mer Upper Merion High School prin­ci­pal who was sen­tenced to death for Reinert’s mur­der, filed papers in Dauphin County Court late Friday ask­ing Senior Judge Robert L. Walker to put all evi­dence from the case in the care of a court-appointed custodian.

Costopoulos also asked that the judge order the pros­e­cu­tion to explain why the evi­dence was not turned over to the defense, and to allow him to ana­lyze some evidence.

Smith and William S. Bradfield Jr., Reinert ​‘s fel­low English teacher at Upper Merion, were con­vict­ed of killing Reinert and her two chil­dren in 1979 to col­lect $750,000 in insur­ance in a case that evolved into a nation­al best sell­er and a high­ly rat­ed CBS minis­eries. The bod­ies of the two chil­dren, ages 11 and 10, were never found.

Wellsville flea mar­keter Mark A. Hughes said he stum­bled across the box in mate­r­i­al he col­lect­ed after being hired by Holtz to clean out the attic and base­ment of the troop­er’s Lower Paxton Twp. home.

Hughes turned the evi­dence over to Costopoulos on March 17, believ­ing it showed a police cov­er-up in the case. Hughes was the sub­ject of a brief theft inves­ti­ga­tion ini­ti­at­ed by Holtz after the troop­er learned of the box.

Hughes was ques­tioned for more than two hours by state troop­ers Thursday, but Dauphin County District Attorney Richard A. Lewis said he will not be charged.

Chief Deputy Attorney General M.L. ​“Skip” Ebert Jr., who is han­dling the Smith case, said he was wait­ing to see what evi­dence Costopoulos has before assess­ing its impact on the case.

However, he said all the evi­dence was ordered sealed by the court at the close of the 1986 tri­al and is sup­pos­ed­ly in sealed box­es in the pos­ses­sion of the attor­ney general’s office.

“The evi­dence that was pre­sent­ed in the tri­al in Dauphin County was sealed by the court and those con­tain­ers are with me,” Ebert said. ​“Once the mate­ri­als are turned in, then, in the pres­ence of the court, maybe some of these box­es will be opened and we’ll find out what’s in them.”

State police offi­cials would not return repeat­ed phone calls from The Patriot-News. Holtz was unavail­able for comment.

Smith received three death sen­tences in the 1979 mur­ders, but was grant­ed a new tri­al in December 1989 by the state Supreme Court. Costopoulos is now argu­ing that a sec­ond tri­al would con­sti­tute dou­ble jeop­ardy because of mis­con­duct by prosecutors.

Hughes’ dis­cov­ery will fur­ther strength­en that argu­ment, Costopoulos said.

He said the most crit­i­cal piece of evi­dence found in the box is a comb marked 79th USARCOM Smith ​‘s reserve unit. During the tri­al, an iden­ti­cal comb was intro­duced by pros­e­cu­tors and alleged to have been found under Reinert ​‘s body when it was dis­cov­ered in the trunk of her car at a Swatara Twp. motel.

Sealed in an evi­dence bag with fin­ger­print lifters and marked with FBI lab iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers, the comb is not the same one that was pre­sent­ed at tri­al, accord­ing to Costopoulos’ petition.

The comb police used to link Smith to the crime scene at the 1986 tri­al was labeled as a tri­al exhib­it and the comb in the evi­dence bag is not, Costopoulos said.

Furthermore, based on Ebert’s com­ments, the comb pre­sent­ed at the tri­al should be sealed with oth­er evi­dence in the attor­ney general’s office.

In addi­tion to the comb, a Jan. 29, 1981, let­ter from author Joseph Wambaugh — who wrote ​“Echoes in the Darkness,” a best-sell­ing book about the case — shows he offered Holtz’s late part­ner, Sgt. Joseph Van Nort, $50,000 for infor­ma­tion before there were any arrests, accord­ing to the petition.

“P.S. Since I would start the leg work imme­di­ate­ly we should be very care­ful about being seen togeth­er for the sake of your job,” Wambaugh wrote. ​“As far as wit­ness­es would know, I received all my infor­ma­tion from news sto­ries and anonymous tips.”

Efforts to con­tact Wambaugh for com­ment were unsuccessful.

The box also con­tained 23 num­bered and dat­ed note­books pre­pared by Holtz, with the excep­tion of num­ber 13. Costopoulos claims the 13th
note­book cov­ers a time peri­od when Holtz was deal­ing with jail­house infor­mant Raymond Martray, who tes­ti­fied Smith admit­ted killing the three.

Costopoulos has long chal­lenged whether there was a deal with Martray to tes­ti­fy. He alleges in the peti­tion that Holtz wrote in anoth­er note­book that Martray quot­ed Smith as say­ing he ​“did not” kill Reinert .

In an inter­view with anoth­er jail­house infor­mant, Holtz’s notes state that alleged co-con­spir­a­tor Bradfield admit­ted that he act­ed alone in the slay­ings, accord­ing to the petition.

Further, Holtz’s notes show that wit­ness­es told him Reinert’s daugh­ter, Karen, wore a blue pin with the let­ter ​“P” on it, like one that was found in Reinert ​‘s car, the peti­tion states. One wit­ness tes­ti­fied at Smith ​‘s tri­al that she wore a green pin like one that was alleged­ly dis­cov­ered in Smith ​‘s car a year after the mur­der while the for­mer prin­ci­pal was incarcerated.

Costopoulos had lit­tle com­ment about the new twist in the case, say­ing the peti­tion ​“speaks for itself.”

“Normally excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence comes from the com­mon­wealth,” he said. ​“This is the first time I got it from a junkman on the way to the incinerator.”

Costopoulos’ peti­tion blasts what he calls the error-laden pros­e­cu­tion of the case, which has tak­en new turns near­ly every year since Smith ​‘s conviction.

Costopoulos ini­tial­ly attacked the con­vic­tion after it was dis­cov­ered that rub­ber evi­dence lifters con­tain­ing sand report­ed­ly tak­en from Reinert ​‘s feet were found in an evi­dence lock­er dur­ing the final days of the tri­al. They were not revealed to the defense until more than a year later.

The lifters sup­port Costopoulos’ alle­ga­tions that Reinert was killed at the New Jersey shore by Bradfield.

He also notes in the peti­tion that hair and fiber evi­dence that the pros­e­cu­tion used to link Smith to the slay­ing was lost from 1983 until the mid­dle of the tri­al in 1986, receipts that refut­ed Bradfield’s ali­bi are miss­ing, the 911 tape alert­ing author­i­ties to the dis­cov­ery of Reinert ​‘s body was mis­tak­en­ly destroyed, Reinert ​‘s body was acci­den­tal­ly cre­mat­ed, and the autop­sy audio tape was lost until after the trial.

“In this case, the com­mon­wealth has con­sis­tent­ly con­cealed or ​‘lost’ mate­r­i­al,” Costopoulos charges in the petition.

“Until a judge tells me what to do with it, I intend to keep the box I got from the junkman,” Costopoulos said.