1962 Bristol church murder of Carol Ann Dougherty finally solved. DA reveals killer

The murder of Carol Ann Dougherty in a Bristol Borough church, a case that vexed investigators for 63 years and “haunted a community for decades” is finally solved, the Bucks County District Attorney said Wednesday.

At an afternoon news conference in Doylestown, DA Jennifer Schorn released a grand jury report alleging William Schrader raped and strangled Carol in the choir loft at St. Mark Roman Catholic Church on Oct. 22, 1962. She was 9 years old.

Schrader was 24 in 1962, and lived a short walk from the Radcliffe Street church. He was questioned by police at the time, but fell from their focus as other leads and suspects were pursued. Schrader was described a serial child rapist, who preyed on children with disabilities and those related to him, in the grand jury report.

After murdering Carol Ann in Bucks County, he would go on to rape, assault and sexually assault other children and kill another girl, in an arson fire, before his death in 2002.

The Bristol murder, among Pennsylvania’s oldest cold cases, had been placed before the grand jury in 2024, and finished last week. In a 53-page report, the jury concludes that forensic hair evidence, along with Schrader’s history of sexual violence against pre-adolescent girls, and his confession to a friend that he murdered a little girl in a Catholic church in Bristol, make the case for first-degree murder.

“Although the case went unsolved for decades, that was not for lack of effort, dedication or commitment for pursuing the truth,” Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said. “Three generation of investigators had tried to crack it … We believe it may be the only rape and murder of a little girl in a church in the United States.”

William Schrader, ‘nasty, mean drunk,’ killed Carol Ann Dougherty: grand jury

Short, slight, pale and a “nasty, mean drunk,” according to the report, Schrader was distinguished by two ugly scars on the right side of his face that extended from his chin to his cheekbone. It was chance that he and blonde, blue-eyed Carol crossed paths on a warm, clear October afternoon 63 years ago.

Carol, a fifth-grader at St. Mark school, set off on her bike from home in neighboring Landreth Manor, headed to the Bristol Library to meet friends and return books. On her way, she passed the church and stopped in, likely to pray.

When she didn’t return home for dinner, her parents went looking for her. Spotting her bike outside the church, her father, Frank, went in and found her in the choir loft. She was partially clothed, according to the report.

“Carol Ann was described as a happy girl lucky, good Catholic girl; a good student who loved reading, especially kids mysteries, which she would regularly check out from the library,” the reports reads, noting two mystery books were with her bike outside the church. “… Nuns at St. Mark’s Catholic school encouraged students to stop into the church to pray when they were nearby, and Carol Ann would do so regularly.”

Then-Police Chief Vincent Faragalli had three suspects: Frank Zuchero, a local handyman known as the “town drunk,” the report states, Wayne Roach, a short, slightly built Morrisville teenager who bore a resemblance to Schrader, and Joseph Sabadish, a parish priest.

Zuchero, 60, confessed to the murder, but was released after it turned out he had made the statement under duress after he went through a marathon of questioning by eight police officers.

Sabadish, 44, a dour, pudgy man, became a suspect when he lied to investigators about where he was at the time of the murder. His lie became his alibi. At the time Carol was killed, the priest was in Hulmeville purchasing lingerie for a married woman who he was pursuing romantically.

Roach, then 18, was found after a manhunt, but was released after he proved he was working in Virginia on Oct. 22.

Bristol neighbor tipped police to Schrader in 1963, but no arrest

In January 1963, a suspicious neighbor tipped police to Schrader. Schrader was given a polygraph and passed, but suddenly left town for Florida, the jury report states. Later two men would independently tell police they saw Schrader outside the church around the time Carol Ann went missing, according to the report.

In 1970 he landed in Louisiana, where he was sentenced to 21 years in Angola state prison for the arson killing of a 12-year-old girl. As the years went on the Dougherty case would remain unsolved.

The grand jury heard testimony from investigators, including a handful with over 20 years combined examining and re-examining the case and its files.

“They were able to investigate and rule out a number of potential suspects, all of whom were considered sexual deviants,” the grand jury wrote of the latest investigation. “Ultimately, independently and collectively, they concluded that the investigation only allows the conclusion that William Schrader raped and murdered 9-year-old Carol Ann Dougherty. “

Courier Times series on murder reignites investigation

By the early 1990s Carol’s case had vanished from the headlines. Interest was renewed in 1992 when the Bucks County Courier Times published a series on the murder, based on the police file and interviews with the original investigators. The series, “Murder in a Choir Loft,” prompted a police reinvestigation.

Schrader, long overlooked as a suspect, became the focus of law enforcement. By this time he was already a convicted killer in Louisiana.

The late Judge Alan Rubenstein, then Bucks County’s DA, read the newspaper’s 1992 series.

After Bristol police tagged Schrader as a fresh suspect, Rubenstein extradited him from Louisiana for questioning. A polygraph was given. It showed Schrader was deceptive when asked if he had killed Carol. Placed before a grand jury, Schrader invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he was again asked if he had killed Carol.

He returned to Louisiana and was never charged.

In the mid-1990s, investigators also tested for DNA, but by then the forensic evidence had degraded, having been subjected to years of extreme heat and cold in the attic of the borough municipal building, where it had been stored.

It was to be retested in 2024, authorities said at the time. The Pennsylvania State Police, assisted by the Bucks County District Attorney’s office, submitted DNA then believed to be from the killer to a Texas-based lab that specialized in solving cold case murders, they said.

State investigators in 2024 believed developments in forensic DNA testing, combined with genealogical sleuthing, was their best chance to solve the case. Schorn, at the time, said she was optimistic, but cautious since the DNA was so badly degraded.

Kay Talanca, Carol’s younger sister, has waited years for a resolution, and in 2024 was hopeful the police will identify the killer.

“Maybe today’s science can answer the question,” she said at the time. “I know my parents are at peace because they’ve since closed their eyes and aren’t here anymore. But I would like to know, and my family would like to know.”

Who was William Schrader? Bristol killer had ‘psychopathic personality traits’

Born February 1, 1938, he spent his childhood in Wilkes-Barre. He died from a heart attack at 64 in July 2002.

“During those 64 years,” the grand jury report reads, “he repeatedly perpetrated crimes of violence and sexual violence.”

“Schrader’s criminal versatility … evidenced not just antisocial but ‘psychopathic personality traits,’” the report finds.

The report lists seven documented cases of sexual assault that Schrader committed against pre-adolescent girls or women with learning disabilities who had “a young mental age.”

The attacks on females began in school when he was 8, when he’d stomp on their feet. At 12 he punched little girls in the mouth without provocation, according to the report.

At 15 he stole a car. At 17 he joined the Army but was given an “undesirable discharge” at 18, the report states.

At 20, he was arrested for attempted murder with shotgun. He told a newspaper reporter at the time, “Each day I spend in prison means the victim will live one day longer. The next time I shoot him, I won’t miss,” the grand jury report states.

Even the Luzerne County Prison, where he served his time, didn’t want him.

“The judge at sentencing noted that Schrader’s record (in prison) was so bad the warden and prison employees requested his removal,” the grand report states.

He was sent to Eastern State Prison in Philadelphia. After that, he went to Bristol to live with his brother, Frank, on Lincoln Avenue. There he assaulted his wife, Audrey, and threatened his sister-in-law.

His malevolence ran deep.

“Schrader displayed a pattern of preying on prepubescent children inside and outside his family,” the grand jury report states. He impregnated two family members — a child and an adult with mental disabilities.

Hair and a ‘confession’ from Schrader keys to case

There were two more compelling items that convinced the grand jury that Schrader is the killer: hair samples and his confession to a friend that he did it.

At the crime scene, Chief Faragalli found several pubic hairs in Carol’s left hand. These were improperly preserved for DNA testing, which didn’t exist in 1962.

However, police collected almost 200 hair samples from local men questioned in the killing. They tested 141 of them against the hairs found on Carol, the jury report states.

None matched. However, in every laboratory test of those hairs since the 1990s, analysts concluded that only one hair sample “could not be ruled out” as a possible match — Schrader’s.

Over the last few years, as county Detective Tim Perkins reinvestigated the Dougherty case, he found a 2007 letter in the file of a retired detective. The letter suggested that Schrader had confided to a friend that he had killed Carol.

Robert LeBlanc, who Schrader had met in prison in the 1960s, told his parole officer that Schrader had told him he did it. The parole officer, William Null, sent the information to Bucks County.

“Schrader, shortly before he died, told LeBlanc he raped and killed a little girl in a church in Bristol,” the report states.

LeBlanc, who has since died, confirmed his story to investigators in 2024, the grand jury report states.

LeBlanc said he, Schrader and another friend were drinking at a place called “Devil’s Swamp” when Schrader told them he had “committed the perfect murder” in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and that “he raped the girl on the altar” before killing her to keep her from talking.

According to investigators, Leblanc’s statements provided a crucial breakthrough, according to a news release posted Wednesday by the Bucks County DA’s Office.

“He had no prior knowledge of the case’s specific details, such as Schrader being seen outside the church, his proximity to the crime scene, or the location of Carol Ann’s bike,” the release reads. “This makes his account highly credible, as the details he provided could only have come from a confession by the perpetrator.”

Tormented by the Bristol church murder of a little girl

While Schrader never faced justice during his life for Carol’s murder, the grand jury found evidence that, he had been tormented by the crime.

One night he awoke from a nightmare, his wife told investigators. Schrader told her he saw a ghostly specter of a little blonde girl dressed in white, floating over his bed.

Bristol Police Chief Joe Moors, who provided files and evidence kept by the borough department, praised the team of  key investigators who solved the murder: Pennsylvania State Troopers David Baird, Christopher Cleveland and Jordan Rhodes, along with Bucks County Detective Tim Perkins.

“This case has haunted the Bristol Borough community for years,” he said. “Their pursuit of the truth and teamwork finally delivered answers for Carol’s family and our community … Their pursuit of the truth finally delivered.”