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By JIM RUNKLE
LOCK HAVEN – Katherine Dolan Heckel disappeared 25 years ago today, after leaving the International Paper mill at about noon on July 15, 1991.
Since then, state and local police, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have actively worked on that riddle of disappearance for two and a half decades.
That work continues, but has now reached another level and another group of officials since the arrest of Loyd Groves on Jan. 29, 2015.
Groves, 65, a former local man who was living near Pittsburgh, was formally charged with killing Heckel and remains without bail in the Clinton County Correctional Facility awaiting trial.
Williamsport attorney George Lepley and co-counsel David Lindsay of Lock Haven are defending Groves. Both were offered an opportunity to make a statement on behalf of their client. Neither responded in time for today’s edition of the newspaper.
The state Attorney General’s office will be prosecuting the case.
The cold case heated up when the Thirty-Sixth Statewide Grand Jury came to the stark conclusion:
“Probable cause exists to believe that Katherine Heckel was the victim of criminal homicide and that she was murdered in 1991 by a man named Loyd Groves.”
The evidence garnered over two decades proved to be an extensive record of testimony, physical evidence statements and forensics, so much so that the grand jury made a special point of rejecting any argument focusing on the failure to discover her remains.
It wasn’t any single piece of evidence, the panel’s statement said, but the assembled data of years – representing direct and circumstantial evidence, and experts and lay testimony – that led them to their conclusion.
The grand jury concluded that Kathy was alive and well until she left to meet Groves for lunch, an appointment from which she never returned.
Within days, her blood was found in Groves’ van around the area where he inexplicably and hastily removed and destroyed the upholstery in his van. Groves never expressed dismay or concern that his girlfriend was missing, but rather immediately set about recruiting friends and co-workers to help him manufacture an alibi. He could not account for his whereabouts during the period when Kathy disappeared or explain his sudden and total memory loss.
The panel’s findings of fact focused primarily on the investigations conducted by Troopers Curtis Confer and Michael Hutson of the state police at Lamar and Special Agent Kyle Moore of the FBI, who submitted the matter to the grand jury in February 2014.
The panel heard from numerous fact witnesses, law enforcement officials, investigative and scientific experts, and family and friends of Heckel.
According to the testimony, Heckel grew up and spent her life in Lock Haven, graduating from Lock Haven High School in 1969. Thereafter, she took a job at International Paper. In June 1972, she met John Heckel, who eventually was promoted to Command Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army. They fell in love and were married on June 16, 1973.
They had two children, Alicia and John. Every witness who testified described Kathy as a devoted and loving mother.
She was also described as a diligent and well-liked employee in the human resources division of International Paper.
Loyd Groves also worked at International Paper in 1991, as an industrial hygienist and was responsible in part for ongoing asbestos abatement efforts. His work brought him into contact with various departments, and in the summer of 1991, he and Kathy began a romantic relationship.
That same summer, Kathy wanted to end the relationship, and reportedly, Groves didn’t take the news well. The grand jury heard through other witnesses about the anxiety and fear Kathy expressed about trying to free herself of Groves.
The matter came to a head on July 15, 1991, the grand jury said, when Groves murdered Katherine Heckel because she was through with him romantically. After the killing, he disposed of her body in a manner that “caused it never to be found.”
The panel noted that Heckel had a fight with Groves that morning, one that was so loud and riotous that fellow employees remember details of it decades later.
A co-worker said she saw Heckel that morning and watched her leave the plant for lunch and errands. Other witnesses observed Groves leaving at the same time.
Heckel never came back from lunch and nobody ever saw her again.
By evening, according to the testimony, the family members were all expressing concern because the disappearance was so contrary to Heckel’s character as a mother.
John Heckel’s testimony conclusively excluded him as a suspect, as he was in Fort Drum at the time, the grand jury said.
The grand jury panel heard about exhaustive efforts to find Heckel or her body, including searching a 10-mile radius around Lock Haven and on the Groves’ property.
Officers also discovered a note left by Groves for his wife, telling her what to do if he were ever arrested, and efforts by Groves to be allowed back on the paper plant’s property, including efforts to change his appearance to gain entry.
A search of Groves’ van revealed that several sections of carpeting had been crudely cut out and removed from the floor and wall of the van.
DNA tests were eventually conducted on the samples from the Groves van. The tests showed a “mathematical certainty” that the blood found in the van belonged to Kathy Heckel.
As the days and years passed, police continued to monitor Heckel’s credit cards, Social Security number and other resources for any activity that might indicate she was alive.
None was ever found, and seven years later, she was declared legally dead.