Cold Case Solved: The Confession That Finally Ended David Reed’s Mystery
Cold Case Solved: The Confession That Finally Ended David Reed’s Mystery
December 15th, 1985. Schoolill Haven, Pennsylvania. Two police officers knock on the door of 508 Caldwell Street, expecting a routine call about some found bones in the woods. Nothing unusual. Probably animal remains. Maybe a deer that didn’t make it through hunting season. But when Robert Howard opens the door and invites them inside, the officers stop dead in their tracks.
There on the kitchen table, sitting between a salt shaker and a coffee mug, is a human skull. Staring back at them with empty eye sockets. It’s been there for hours. Robert brought it down from the woods himself, carried it into his house like it was an interesting rock he found on a hike. The officers exchange a glance.
This isn’t routine anymore. Within minutes, they’re hiking up a steep embankment behind Howard’s house, following him into the woods, where he found the rest of the remains. Bones scattered across the frozen ground, a white t-shirt with faded writing, blue jeans, a single sneaker, and as they piece together the clothing, as they see that Pottsville Republican logo on the shirt, a horrible realization sets in.
These aren’t just any remains. This is the boy who vanished 4 months ago. The boy the entire town has been searching for. The boy whose bicycle was found abandoned by the railroad tracks on a summer evening that now feels like a lifetime ago. This is David Wellington Reed. And he’s been lying here in these woods less than a 100 yards from where people live the entire time.
But to understand how David ended up here, we need to go back back to August 21st, 1985. Back to a summer evening when a 13-year-old boy kissed his mother goodbye and rode away on his beloved bicycle, promising her the same thing he promised her every single day. I love you, Mom. I’ll be back. August 21st, 1985. Early afternoon in Swilk Haven, Pennsylvania, a tiny cold town of just 5,000 people, buried deep in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, about 25 miles northwest of Reading.
The kind of place where everybody knows everybody, where children ride their bikes freely through the streets, where neighbors look out for each other, a safe place, a simple place. Or at least that’s what people thought. At 18 Penn Street on the peaceful south side of town, 13-year-old David Wellington Reed is getting ready to head out for one of his afternoon bike rides.
He grabs his favorite shirt, that white Pottsville Republican t-shirt he wears all the time because he’s so proud of his paper route. He’s a newspaper boy and everybody in town knows him. That’s David Reed, they say when they see him coasting by on his tent speed. the kid with the bright smile who waves at everyone.
But there’s something different about David today. Something that makes him more vulnerable than usual. A few weeks ago, David lost his glasses while swimming down by the dam at Lake Winona. Those thick coke bottle glasses he desperately needs to see. Without them, David is practically blind. He can barely make out faces from more than a few feet away.
The world is just a blur of shapes and colors. His mother, Joan, has been meaning to get him a new pair, but money is tight. It’s always tight. Joan is raising three kids on her own. Well, not entirely on her own. She has a boyfriend living with them now, and they have a 10-year-old together. But the house at 18 Penn Street is tiny, cramped, and there’s never quite enough money to go around.
David’s father died in a car accident when David was only 17 months old. His older brother, Ronald, died of what everyone believed was a diabetic attack in his late 20s. This family has known tragedy. They’ve known loss. They’ve known what it feels like when someone you love just disappears from your life without warning. But David is resilient.
He’s had a tough childhood. Kids at school bully him mercilessly because of those thick glasses and because he’s a little heavy for his age. They call him Davyy Barrel. They mock him. They make his life hell. And because of that, David skips school sometimes. There’s not much supervision at home. Not many consequences.
Joan loves her son, but she’s dealing with her own demons, her own unresolved grief from losing her husband and her oldest boy. She drinks more than she should. And David, well, David is pretty much left to his own devices. But despite all of that, David is a good kid. He dreams of being a pilot one day.
He loves airplanes, loves the idea of soaring above everything, free and untethered. He collects stickers with his cousins, Skeletor, Spider-Man, Elmer Fud, scratch and sniff stickers. simple pleasures for a boy who doesn’t have much. And that bicycle, that 10 speed he rides everywhere, that’s his pride and joy. His older brother Joe helps him work on it, trick it out, change the seats, add new parts.
That bike is like David’s right arm. He would never abandon it. Never leave it behind. So when David waves goodbye to his mother that August afternoon, when he says those words, he always says, “I love you, Mom. I’ll be back.” Joan has no reason to worry. This is what David does. He rides around town, delivers his newspapers, hangs out with friends.
He always comes home for dinner. Always. But as the afternoon bleeds into evening, as the clock ticks past 7, then 8, David’s seat at the dinner table remains empty. Joan stares at the untouched plate. Her stomach twists into knots. This isn’t like David. This isn’t like him at all. She picks up the phone and starts making calls.
Friends, neighbors. Has anyone seen David riding around town? No one has. She calls the hospitals. He hasn’t been admitted anywhere. Her worry turns to panic and she sends David’s older siblings out into the darkening streets to search. They know she will kill Haven like the back of their hands. They check all of David’s usual hangouts, the train tracks, the bank wall, every corner where the local kids gather.
The bank wall is an old stone structure, maybe 20 or 30 ft long, sitting at the edge of a parking lot in the center of town. Railroad tracks run right beside it. It’s high enough to sit on, perfect for teenagers to hang out after school, smoke cigarettes, catch up on gossip. If David is anywhere, he’d be there. But there’s no sign of him.
No sign of anyone who’s seen him. It’s as if David Wellington Reed has simply vanished into thin air. After hours of desperate searching, his siblings return home empty-handed. Joan can barely breathe. She picks up the phone with trembling hands and calls the police. When officers arrive to take her report, Joan describes what David was wearing.
His white Pottsville Republican t-shirt, blue jeans, blue sneakers. She tells them he should have his wallet with about $2 or three dollars inside. And then her voice cracks when she mentions the glasses. Those thick glasses he lost a few weeks ago and has been without ever since. Without those glasses, David can barely see.
He’s vulnerable, exposed, practically blind. The Schoolill Haven Police Department doesn’t hesitate. This isn’t some big city where missing kids are a daily occurrence. This is a small town where everyone knows everyone. And when a 13-year-old boy doesn’t come home for dinner, people pay attention. They immediately enlist the help of the local fire department.
Within the hour, searchers are combing through every nook and cranny of this postage stamp-sized town. They check the bank wall. They peer inside the old train cars scattered along the tracks, places where kids are known to hang out. According to police reports, searchers check everywhere from the Croona yard and Croona crossing all the way to the iron bridge at Miller’s Pond.
But David Reed is nowhere to be found. His family insists he’s no runaway. David didn’t have it bad at home. Yes, his childhood was difficult. Yes, the family struggled. But David loved his mother. He loved his siblings. This isn’t teenage rebellion. This is something else, something darker. And everyone who works missing person’s cases knows the statistics.
Everyone knows the clock is ticking. In the first 24 hours after a child goes missing, there’s about a 90% chance of recovery. Most of these cases are runaways or kids who got lost and couldn’t find their way home. 48 hours, that number drops to 50%. The risk of foul play triples after a week, less than 1%. The case goes cold.
The chances of ever finding that child alive become almost non-existent. David Reed has been missing for less than 24 hours. There’s still hope. There’s still time. But that time is running out fast. And then on the second day, investigators get their first real clue. The one they were dreading. Family and friends who joined the search make a discovery that turns every parent’s worry into absolute terror.
There, in the weeds, next to the railroad tracks that run through the center of town about a 100 yards down from the bank wall, they find David’s beloved bicycle. It’s just lying there, partially hidden in the tall grass. When police examine it, there’s no damage, no signs of a struggle, but fingerprints are useless.
The bike has been sitting out in the open overnight, exposed to the elements, potentially handled by anyone who walked by. But the message is clear, crystal clear. David Reed would never abandon this bike. Not willingly, not carelessly. This bicycle was like his best friend. his constant companion. The one thing in his life he could always count on.
Finding it here, discarded in the weeds, can only mean one thing. Something terrible has happened to David. Police spread out and begin a neighborhood canvas. They knock on every door, question anyone who might have seen or heard something unusual. But they hit a wall. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Everyone says the same thing.
Oh yeah, David Reed. Good kid. We see him riding his bike around town all the time, paper boy. But beyond that, nothing. Another day passes, then another. And every hour that ticks by is another hour of hope slipping through their fingers like sand. And then on the night of August 23rd, at exactly 11:54 p.m.
, police get a phone call that could crack this case wide open. A local woman named Kathy Shaw has information. And what she tells them is about to turn this investigation in a direction no one expected. Kathy is what you’d call a towny. Someone everyone in Skookill Haven knows. She’s always out and about, always in the middle of things.
She used to be tight with David’s older sister, Jenny, but she’s better known around town for her colorful reputation. The police even have a nickname for her, Mrs. Ginsu. Why? Because she once stabbed an ex-boyfriend with a Ginsu 2000 knife. But reputation aside, what Kathy tells police stops them cold. She says that two days ago on no August 21st, the very day David disappeared.
She was out riding her bike around 5:00 in the afternoon when she saw David on his bicycle with two other boys. David had a couple dollars in his pocket and he asked if she would buy him some beer. It’s 1985 in smalltown Pennsylvania. Nobody bats an eye at that kind of request. So Kathy agreed. She went into DND bar and bought him a bottle of Yuangling, then went on her way.
Strange enough, a 13-year-old buying beer through an adult. But it gets stranger. Much stranger. Kathy tells police that later that same evening, sometime between 6:00 and 7:00, she saw something that made her blood run cold. A light blue cargo van was traveling down Main Street, heading east toward the Penn State campus about a mile outside town.
She’d never seen this van before. Never seen it in School Kill Haven. Never seen it anywhere in the area, and she hasn’t seen it since. The van had distinctive features. A dark blue stripe running along the side and across the back doors, windows, but no curtains. And in the 1980s, that’s unusual. Most vans had those little curtains you could close for privacy, but this one didn’t.
The driver had dark, curly hair and was wearing sunglasses, even though it was evening, even though the sun was going down. But here’s the detail that makes every investigator’s heart stop. As this mysterious van drove past Kathy Shaw, she looked through the passenger window, and there, sitting in the passenger seat, was David Reed.
and he was waving at her. Was it a friendly wave? A casual acknowledgement like, “Hey, I’m going for a ride. Or was it something more desperate? Something pleading?” The police report doesn’t say. Kathy doesn’t elaborate, but the image is chilling. A missing 13-year-old boy. A boy who can barely see without his glasses.
Waving from the passenger seat of a strange van that no one in town has ever seen before and will never see again. Kathy provides one more crucial detail. She was close enough and the van was moving slowly enough that she managed to get the license plate number 010 035. She’s certain of it. She repeats it multiple times. 0 1 0 035.
This is huge. This is exactly the kind of lead investigators dream of in missing person’s cases. A vehicle description, a driver description, and most importantly, a license plate number. Police immediately broadcast this information across the county. Officers begin stopping every blue van they see.
They start asking around town about blue vans. Has anyone else seen this vehicle? Does anyone know who owns it? Finally, they have something concrete to work with. Finally, they have a direction to pursue. But when they run the license plate number through their system, 0100035, it comes back with nothing. No hit, no match. The plate doesn’t exist.
Not in Pennsylvania, not anywhere. Either Kathy Shaw was lying about what she saw or she was completely mistaken about those numbers. Maybe she transposed a digit. Maybe she misread an eight for a zero, a B for an 8. They try running variations. They try every possible combination. Nothing.
And just like that, the biggest lead in the case evaporates into nothing. Police are left exactly where they started with a missing boy, an abandoned bicycle, and absolutely no answers. The days begin to turn into weeks. The weeks turn into months. Summer fades into fall. The leaves change colors and fall from the trees. Fall surrenders to the bitter cold of a Pennsylvania winter.
Search efforts continue, but they become less frequent, less urgent. Tips still come in, but they lead nowhere. The town of Schoolill Haven begins to accept a horrible reality that no one wants to voice out loud. David Reed might never be found. His mother, Joan, refuses to accept it. She can’t. She won’t. In December of 1985, she appears on the local news and what she says breaks the hearts of everyone watching.
She’s bought Christmas presents for David, wrapped them carefully. They’re sitting under the tree, waiting for him to come home, waiting for a miracle. The image of those wrapped presents, sitting there untouched, while a mother clings to hope that’s fading with each passing day, haunts everyone who sees it. And then, just 10 days after that new story airs, the miracle arrives.
But it’s not the miracle anyone was hoping for. December 15th, 1985, 3:30 in the afternoon, police get a call from Robert Howard at 508 Caldwell Street. He lives there with his girlfriend, Kimberly Spencson, in a row of just four or five houses tucked away on a desolate road on the outskirts of town.
Robert and Kimberly have been having problems with neighborhood cats getting into their garbage, tearing it apart. So this afternoon they decided to walk up into the woods behind their house to see if they could find these cats and return them to their owners. They didn’t find any cats, but they found something else.
Something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Human remains. Scattered bones partially covered by leaves and the first snow of winter. Tattered pieces of clothing clinging to the skeletal remains. And among those bones, lying there in the frozen Pennsylvania woods, a human skull. Now, here’s where the story takes a turn into the truly bizarre.
Because Robert Howard didn’t just find the skull and immediately call the police. He didn’t leave everything undisturbed at the scene like you’re supposed to. No, Robert Howard picked up the skull, carried it home, and placed it on his kitchen table. When officers arrive at 508 Caldwell Street and walk through that door, they find themselves face to face with a human skull sitting on a kitchen table like a macabra centerpiece.
Immediately, Robert Howard becomes a suspect. This is not normal behavior. This is not what innocent people do when they stumble upon human remains. Is this some kind of sick trophy? Is Robert somehow responsible for what happened to those remains? But Robert cooperates fully.
He insists he had nothing to do with it. He just found the bones and thought police should see them. He didn’t think about leaving them where they were. He just acted on instinct. And when he offers to take officers back up into the woods to show them exactly where he found everything, they have no choice but to follow him. The location is about 50 yards up a steep embankment behind the houses on Caldwell Street.
It’s not an easy climb. It’s incredibly steep, densely wooded, not somewhere anyone would normally go or needs to be. The fact that Robert found these remains at all is almost miraculous. If he hadn’t been searching for those cats, God only knows how long the body would have remained hidden in these woods. When investigators finally reach the scene, what they find is heartbreaking.
Bones scattered across two main areas about 24 ft apart from each other. Sun bleached, frozen to the ground, leaves and dirt stuck to them. Clearly been here for months, exposed to the elements, disturbed by animals. There are gnaw marks on the bones, little teeth marks where scavengers have been feeding.
But among those bones, investigators find pieces of clothing that make their hearts sink. A white t-shirt with a faded logo, blue jeans, a single blue sneaker. Just one. The other is missing. And on that t-shirt, partially obscured but still visible, is writing a logo. The Pottsville Republican. The exact shirt David Reed was wearing the day he disappeared.
They found him. After four months of searching, four months of hoping, four months of Joan Reed buying Christmas presents and keeping them wrapped under the tree, four months of a community holding its breath, waiting for news. Any news? They found David Wellington Reed. And he’s been dead this entire time, lying in these woods, less than a hundred yards from where people live their daily lives.
Close enough that if someone had shouted, the neighbors might have heard. But finding David’s remains doesn’t answer the question that everyone desperately needs answered. How did he die? Police spend the rest of that winter afternoon carefully collecting every bone, every piece of evidence they can find. It’s painstaking work. The remains are frozen.
They have to be careful not to damage anything. Every bone matters. Every fragment could hold a clue. Meanwhile, other investigators spread out to interview the neighbors who live at the base of this hill. There are only four or five houses on this desolate stretch of road. Surely someone saw something, heard something, knows something.
One of those houses belongs to a man named Joe Guyger. And when police knock on his door and tell him that human remains have been found in the woods behind his property, Joe has a very interesting story to tell. He’s calm, almost eerily calm. He invites the officers in and explains that he has two big, mean dogs.
He keeps them tied up outside on a rope. But these dogs, they’re clever. They always managed to chew through that rope and disappear into the woods for hours at a time. And over the past few months, ever since late summer, actually, they’ve been bringing things back. Bones. Lots of bones. Joe paws and there’s something in his eyes.
Something the officers can’t quite read. He says he assumed they were animal bones. Maybe from a deer. Maybe from some other woodland creature. The dogs would take these bones down to the basement, down to that dingy area by the coal stove where Joe keeps his supplies, and he just let them be. Dogs in their bones, right? That’s what dogs do.
But now, seeing what’s happening up on that hill, seeing police swarming the woods, extracting human remains from the frozen ground, Joe realizes something. Those might not have been animal bones after all. He tells the officers to wait, disappears into his house, and goes down to the basement, down to that dark, dingy space by the coal stove.
And he retrieves the bones his dogs have been collecting. The bones he’s been keeping in a little coal bucket. When he comes back up, he’s holding something that makes the officer’s stomachs turn. A human jawbone. Joe Guyger hands it over without hesitation. No guilt in his expression, no nervousness, just a man handing over bones that his dogs found, like he’s returning a neighbor’s misplaced garden tool.
Soon, the local news crews arrive. They want to interview this man who’s been living with human remains in his basement for months without knowing it. And Joe Gger stands in front of the cameras, calm and collected, and tells his story in a tone that’s almost casual, like he’s chatting with a neighbor about the weather.
They came back to the house and they were chewing on bones, Joe says. His voice is steady, matter of fact. And at the time, I didn’t think nothing of it. That interview will be played over and over in the coming years. And every time people watch it, they’ll wonder the same thing. How could someone not know? How could someone have a human jawbone in their basement and not realize what it was? But for now, in December of 1985, Joe Guyger is just a neighbor who made a gruesome discovery.
Just a man whose dogs found something terrible in the woods. The remains are sent to Pottsville Hospital for examination. And within days, dental records confirm what everyone already suspected. These are the remains of David Wellington Reed. The boy who left home on his bicycle 4 months ago, promising his mother he’d be back.
The boy who dreamed of becoming a pilot. The boy who loved collecting stickers with his cousins. The boy who delivered newspapers with that bright smile on his face. The boy who was protective of his friends even though he couldn’t protect himself. The boy who told his mother, “I love you.” every single time he left the house. David Reed is finally coming home.
But not the way anyone wanted. Dr. Richard Bindy stands over the bones of David Wellington Reed at Pottsville Hospital, knowing that whatever he finds in this examination could determine whether this is a murder case or a tragic accident. The problem is there’s not much to work with, just bones. Sunble bleached, gnawed by animals, scattered across the woods for 4 months.
No soft tissue, no organs, no blood, just the skeleton of a 13-year-old boy who should still be delivering newspapers and dreaming of flying planes. Dr. Bindy begins his examination methodically, looking for any sign of trauma, any indication of what might have killed this child. And almost immediately, he finds something unusual.
There’s a small hole in David’s sternum, clean, circular. And Dr. Bindy’s first thought sends a chill down his spine. Bullet wound. Was David shot? Was this a murder after all? But as he examines the hole more closely, something doesn’t add up. The edges are smooth. When a bullet passes through bone, it creates something called beveing.
Rough splintered edges where the projectile tears through. This hole has none of that. And there are no traces of lead residue around it. No gunpowder burns, nothing that would indicate a bullet passed through here. Dr. Bindy consults his medical references and arrives at a different conclusion.
David had a condition called sternal foromin, an anatomical abnormality where a person’s sternum naturally has a tiny hole in it. It’s rare, but it happens. It’s not a bullet wound. It’s just a quirk of anatomy. So, that’s a dead end. Dr. Bindy continues his examination, checking every bone, looking for fractures, breaks, anything that might explain how David died.
But there’s nothing obvious. No crushed skull, no broken ribs, no clear signs of violence. And that’s when Dr. Bendy begins to consider a possibility that no one has thought of yet. He pulls out a medical study he’d read years ago. Sudden and unexpected deaths after the acute onset of diabetes malitis. The title alone sends his mind racing.
By all accounts, David Reed was a healthy young man, active, riding his bike every day, delivering newspapers. But what if David had something he didn’t know about? What if he had undiagnosed juvenile diabetes? Dr. Bindy knows from his medical training that juvenile diabetes can be a silent killer.
It can go undiagnosed for months, even years. And when a person with undiagnosed diabetes experiences a sudden drop in blood sugar, the results can be catastrophic, disorientation, lethargy, anxiety, confusion, and in severe cases, a diabetic coma. And here’s where it gets even more interesting. Remember that tip from Kathy Shaw? She said she bought David a bottle of Yangling beer that afternoon.
Alcohol and undiagnosed diabetes are a deadly combination. Alcohol can dramatically worsen a diabetic episode, accelerating the crash, making it impossible for the person to help themselves. So, the theory begins to take shape. Maybe David was up in those woods for some reason, though why he’d be in such a difficult to access location remains a mystery. Maybe he drank that beer.
Maybe his blood sugar crashed. Maybe he became disoriented, stumbled around, collapsed, and died alone, unable to call for help, unable to save himself. It’s a theory that fits the evidence, or rather, the lack of evidence, but it doesn’t explain everything. It doesn’t explain why David’s bike was found a 100 yard away from where his body ended up.
doesn’t explain how a practically blind 13-year-old boy without his glasses managed to climb up that steep embankment into the woods. It doesn’t explain the shallow grave, the attempt to conceal the body. Still, without any other proof, without any clear signs of violence, this is the best explanation Dr. Bindy can offer.
But police aren’t satisfied. They want more answers. They need more expertise. So on January 21st, 1986, about a month after David’s bones were discovered, the remains are shipped off to the University of Pennsylvania, where two of the most respected forensic anthropologists in the country will examine them. Dr. Alan Man and Dr.
Janet M. If anyone can find answers in these bones, it’s them. Dr. Mge examines the skull carefully. looking for any signs of trauma that might have been missed. And she finds two things worth noting. First, there’s a tiny fracture above David’s right eye, just a small crack in the bone. But here’s the problem.
This could be an old injury from childhood. Kids fall off bikes. They run into things. They get hurt. David was only 13, so this fracture could have happened years ago and healed him properly. There’s no way to know for certain. Second, she notices several breaks in the back of David’s skull. But again, the problem is age.
David was so young that his bones were still developing, still fusing together. These breaks could just be unfused suture lines, completely normal for someone his age. Dr. Mange examines every angle, runs every test available to her in 1986. But in the end, she reaches the same frustrating conclusion that Dr. Bindy did. She can’t determine how David died.
The injuries could be from an attack. They could be from a fall. They could be from something that happened years before David ever went missing. Without soft tissue, without context, without knowing the circumstances of David’s death, these bones can only tell part of the story. And so, after months of investigation, after all the searching and hoping and praying, the official cause of David Reed’s death is listed as undetermined.
Undetermined, the most frustrating word in all of law enforcement. Because an undetermined cause of death means there’s no crime to prosecute, no murderer to hunt, no justice to seek. It means that even though a 13-year-old boy is dead, even though his body was found in a shallow grave in the woods, even though every instinct tells investigators that something terrible happened here, legally, they have nothing.
David Reed’s family is devastated. They know their boy didn’t just wander into those woods and die of natural causes. They know something happened to him. But without proof, without evidence, there’s nothing anyone can do. The case officially goes cold. But the police don’t give up entirely. They continue investigating because even though they can’t prove how David died, they know something isn’t right.
And they keep coming back to one detail that bothers them more than anything else. That blue van. That mysterious light blue van that Kathy Shaw claimed to have seen. The van with the dark blue stripe. The van with no curtains. The van that was never seen in Schwillkill Haven before that day and hasn’t been seen since. Could there be truth to Cathy’s story after all? Police decide to dig deeper into Kathy Shaw’s background and what they find is complicated.
Kathy has quite a reputation around SWill Haven. When investigators start asking people about her, they get similar responses from multiple sources. Though the police reports contain some colorful language that’s better left unprinted. Let’s just say Kathy was known to be very promiscuous. Very.
She slept around a lot and she wasn’t shy about it. But more than that, Kathy had another reputation. She liked to insert herself into investigations. She liked being in the middle of things, being important, having information that other people didn’t have. She was a known drug user who ran in the same circles as a lot of the town’s sedier characters.
And police begin to wonder, did Kathy really see David in that van, or was she making it up to get attention? Was she trying to throw investigators off the trail? Did she know something she wasn’t saying? There’s also the matter of that license plate 01 035. Kathy insisted she was certain of those numbers. But when police ran every possible variation, transposing digits, swapping letters for numbers, checking every database they had access to, nothing came up. The plate doesn’t exist.
So, either Kathy made up the entire story or she genuinely saw something but got the details wrong. Maybe it wasn’t David in that van. Maybe it was someone who looked like David. Maybe the whole thing was a case of mistaken identity. Or maybe, and this is what some investigators suspect, Kathy knew exactly what happened to David because she ran in the same circles as the people involved.
And the van story was her way of protecting someone, of redirecting police attention away from the truth. Police bring Kathy in for multiple interviews. They press her. They question her story. They try to find holes in her account, but Kathy sticks to it. She saw David that day. She bought him beer. She watched him drive away in a blue van with a dark-haired driver wearing sunglasses.
That’s all she knows. And without any evidence to prove otherwise, without any witnesses to contradict her, there’s nothing police can do. So, the investigation continues to stall. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. Months turn into years. David Reed is laid to rest at Squilkill Memorial Park Cemetery in a tiny white coffin with angel wings on it.
A coffin meant for an infant because that’s all that’s left of this 13-year-old boy. Just bones, just fragments. The funeral is heartbreaking. David was a tall, husky kid, and seeing him buried in something so small, so inadequate, breaks everyone who attends. His mother, Joan, can barely stand. She’s supported by family members on both sides, her face twisted in grief, her body racked with sobs.
She wanted answers. She needed answers. But all she got was undetermined. And that word, that terrible, insufficient word, will haunt her for the rest of her life. David’s sister, Jenny, Virginia Reed, stands at the grave with tears streaming down her face, and she makes a silent promise. She’s not going to let this be forgotten.
She’s not going to let it be swept under the rug. Someone knows what happened to her little brother, and she’s going to find out who. But the leads dry up. The tips stop coming and Shulkill Haven begins to whisper. In the absence of facts, rumors fill the void. Some people think David joined a cult. Others believe he became a carney, ran away with a traveling circus.
Some wonder if this was the work of a train hopper, someone who rode into town on the rails, committed a crime, and left before anyone even knew they were there. None of these theories make any sense. None of them explain the abandoned bicycle, the body in the woods, the shallow grave. But people need answers. And when the truth isn’t available, they’ll create their own.
5 years pass, then 10, then 15. And with each passing year, the weight of David’s unsolved death crushes his family a little more. Joan Reed never recovers. The woman who lost her husband to a car accident, who lost her oldest son to a diabetic attack, who bought Christmas presents for her missing boy and left them wrapped under the tree.
Joan turns to alcohol to numb the pain. She drinks more and more. She can’t cope with not knowing, can’t cope with the uncertainty, can’t cope with the fact that her 13-year-old son is dead. and no one can tell her why. In the year 2000, 15 years after David disappeared, Joan Reed dies of cerosis of the liver.
Her body finally gives out after years of abuse, years of grief, years of unanswered questions. She dies without ever knowing what happened to her son. And David’s sister, Jenny, struggles with her own demons. She turns to drugs and alcohol, too. Trying to escape the endless loop of questions that haunt her. Trying to numb the pain of losing her little brother.
Trying to forget the sight of that tiny white coffin being lowered into the ground. But despite her struggles, Jenny never stops fighting. She calls the Sheilkill Haven Police Department every single month, sometimes multiple times a month. She presses them. She urges them. She begs them to take another look at David’s case.
Someone knows something, she tells them over and over. Someone out there knows what happened to my brother. But the years keep passing. And the case stays cold until 2005, 20 years after David’s remains were found. 20 years after that devastating undetermined ruling. 20 years of a family living in limbo, trapped between grief and uncertainty.
And that’s when a young corporal with the Pennsylvania State Police walks into his supervisor’s office and asks a simple question that will change everything. Do you have any cold cases I can look into? His name is Robert Betnar. He’s been on the force for 6 years and has just fulfilled a lifelong dream of breaking into the homicide unit.
Betnar is 30 years old, eager, driven, and he loves solving puzzles. He loves taking something broken and making it whole again. He’s a rookie in this unit, but he’s fearless. He wants to make a name for himself. He wants to prove he belongs here. and his supervisor without hesitation reaches for one particular file. The David Reed case.
One of Squealkill Haven’s oldest and most troubling mysteries. A case that has weighed on the department’s conscience for two decades. A case that everyone knows deserves better than undetermined. Betnar takes the file home that night. He spreads it across his living room floor. crime scene photos, witness statements, autopsy reports, evidence logs, everything.
And for the next several weeks, he does nothing but read. He absorbs every detail, every interview, every dead-end lead, every heartbreaking conversation with David’s family. And the more he reads, the more he realizes something crucial. His colleagues back in 1985 did everything right. They turned over every rock. They followed every lead.
They interviewed everyone. They did their jobs. And they did them well. But they missed something. They had to have missed something. Betnar approaches this case differently than his predecessors. He doesn’t see it as a sprint, as something to be solved quickly and checked off a list. He sees it as a marathon. Cold cases require patience.
They require dedication. They require a willingness to take the work home with you literally and figuratively to let it consume you until you find the truth. And Betnar makes a promise to himself. He’s going to be responsible for giving the Reed family hope again. He’s going to reaffirm their faith in law enforcement. He’s going to find out what happened to David Reed, no matter how long it takes.
The first thing Betnar does is pick up the phone and call Virginia Reed. Jenny, the sister who’s been fighting for 20 years, the woman who calls the police department every month like clockwork, refusing to let anyone forget about David. When Betnar tells her he’s reopening the case, Jenny breaks down, crying on the phone.
She can barely speak through the sobs. I thought nobody cared anymore, she manages to say. I thought everyone forgot about him. But Betnar hasn’t forgotten. And he’s not going to stop until he finds answers. He tells Jenny he wants to put out a news story to let people know the investigation has been reignited. And he wants Jinny to be the face of this renewed effort.
He wants people to see her pain, her determination, her refusal to give up on her little brother. Jenny agrees without hesitation. The news story airs across Pennsylvania. And there’s Jenny Reed, now in her 40s, flanked by state troopers and county detectives, looking over evidence from her brother’s case. Her hands shake as she holds up a photo of David.
That bright smiled boy on his beloved bicycle. The interviewer asks her what she thinks happened to David. Jenny’s voice cracks. Tears stream down her face. I think he was murdered, she says, barely able to get the words out. I do. And I know somebody knows something and they just ain’t saying it. That interview plays across the state and slowly people start coming forward.
Betar begins the painstaking process of reintering every single person who was questioned back in 1985. every suspect, every witness, every friend of David’s, everyone. And one of the first people he wants to talk to is a man named Andy Basinski. Everyone called him Bass. Back in 1985, Bass was a hard-nosed bluecollar guy with a bad reputation around town.
He was into drugs, into trouble, and he had a connection to the Reed family that made investigators suspicious. Bass had dated David’s sister, Jenny, for a short time, but there was a problem. Bass was married. He played that classic game, telling Jenny he was going to leave his wife, stringing her along until Jenny finally got tired of the lies and ended it.
As she told police back then, I didn’t want to be a third wheel. The theory at the time was simple. Maybe Bass was angry at Jenny for dumping him. Maybe hurting her little brother was his way of getting revenge. When police first approached Bass back in 1985, he was working at a construction site and he completely stonewalled them.
He had zero interest in discussing David Reed or anyone else. He basically told investigators to get lost. Bass was a known drug dealer at the time, or at least he ran in those circles. The assumption was that he simply didn’t want police sniffing around his business. But now it’s 2005. 20 years have passed. People change. When Betnar tracks down Bass in Pottsville on March 15th, 2005, he finds a very different man from the one police encountered two decades ago.
Bas is older now, softer. The tough guy exterior has faded with age, and the first thing he does when Betnar approaches him is apologize. I was caught off guard back then, Bass says, and there’s genuine remorse in his voice. That was so long ago. I was into some bad stuff. But those days are behind me now.
He tells Betnar he’s ready to cooperate, ready to help however he can. And more importantly, he has information. Information that could break this case wide open. Bass tells Betnar about a man. They’ll call him Fred because he’s likely still alive and his identity is being protected. According to Bass, Fred was a goofball who used to run with a bartender at Sandy’s Bar in nearby Minersville.
Fred lived on a farm up in Branchale with this bartender. But Fred’s goofball status isn’t what worries Betnar. It’s what Bass says next that makes his blood run cold. Fred had what Bass calls a pension for animals. Bass pauses clearly uncomfortable and a pension for young children. Betnar leans forward.
What do you mean? Bass explains that Fred was arrested for molesting children. He would babysit kids as a way to lure them in, then get them drunk and high. And he did this to his own children, too. Betar immediately starts digging into Fred’s background, and what he finds confirms the worst. Between October of 1984 and March of 1986, a man matching Fred’s description was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of statutory rape, two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and indecent assault. He did serious
jail time, somewhere around 17 years. Fred is a predator, a monster. And if he was capable of doing those horrific things to children, could he have killed David Reed? But Bass isn’t finished. He drops one more detail that makes everyone in the investigation sit up straight. “Back in the day,” Bas says slowly.
Fred drove a light blue van. Betar feels his heart skip a beat. The same light blue van that Kathy Shaw claimed to have seen David riding in on the day he disappeared. The van with the dark blue stripe. The van that no one had ever seen before and hasn’t seen since. Could Kathy Shaw’s story have been true all along? Could Fred have been the one driving David around that evening? Betar’s mind races through the possibilities. This could be it.
This could be the break they’ve been waiting for. He’s about to launch a full investigation into Fred, about to start pulling every thread he can find when something absolutely unbelievable happens. Fred walks into the police station on his own. Betnar can’t believe it. Of all the coincidences, of all the random chances, Fred walks through the front door of the Pennsylvania State Police barracks the same week Betnar starts investigating him.
At first, Betnar thinks this is it. Fred must have heard the case was reopened. Maybe he’s here to confess. Maybe the guilt has been eating at him for 20 years and he’s finally ready to come clean. But the truth is far more mundane. Fred didn’t come to talk about David Reed. He came because he just moved to Squeilkill Haven.
And under Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law, registered sex offenders are required to update their address whenever they relocate. Fred is just here for his annual registration. It’s routine. It’s bureaucratic. It’s a wild, unbelievable coincidence. But Betnar isn’t about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. He brings Fred into an interview room and starts asking questions about David’s case, and Fred agrees to talk.
Later, Betnar will describe that interview to colleagues. Fred wasn’t nervous, he’ll say. He appeared honest and forthcoming. When I brought up his past, it was clearly painful for him. It bothered him. Fred admits he remembers David Reed. Of course, he does. Everyone in the area remembers that case, but he had nothing to do with David’s death, and he can prove it.
He was in federal prison on those rape charges beginning in 1984, a full year before David even went missing. Betar checks the prison records. Fred is telling the truth. He has an airtight alibi. He was locked up when David disappeared. It’s a crushing blow. For a brief shining moment, it seemed like everything was coming together.
The blue van, the sex offender, the timeline. But now that led is dead, and Betnar is back to square one. He sits at his desk that night staring at the case file, wondering if maybe the original theory was right all along. Maybe David really did die from some kind of medical emergency. Maybe there was no crime.
Maybe there was no killer. But something still doesn’t sit right. And Betnar keeps coming back to one name. One person who keeps appearing in the whispers and rumors that have circulated through Schoolill Haven for the past 20 years. Joe Guyger. The man who found David’s bones. The man whose dogs brought a human jawbone back to his house.
The man who stood in front of news cameras and calmly, too calmly, explained that he didn’t think anything of it when his dogs were chewing on human remains. And as Betnar digs deeper, as he reins more people, Joe Guyger’s name keeps coming up over and over again. One witness tells Betnar about a party that happened sometime between when David went missing and when his body was found.
The party was at a neighbor’s house on Caldwell Street. That same strip of houses where the remains were eventually discovered. And at this party, the witness saw Joe Guyger sitting on the railroad tracks, crying, shaking, a complete mess. He kept repeating the same words over and over. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him.
I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Those words spoken by Joe Guyger at a party two decades ago echo in Robert Betnar’s mind as he continues to dig deeper into the case. Another witness comes forward with an even more chilling story. This witness was hanging out with Joe Guyger by the bank wall one day before David disappeared.
It was a normal afternoon. Kids riding bikes, people going about their business in small town Shukill Haven. And then David Reed rode past on his bicycle as he did every single day. That bright smile on his face, waving to people as he coasted by. The witness remembers Joe Guyger watching David ride past.
And then Joe did something that made the witness’s blood run cold. Joe pointed at David and said, “I hate that kid. He’s messing with my pot plants. I’m going to get him. A direct threat. Clear as day. Witnessed by someone who’s now willing to come forward and testify. And suddenly, pieces begin falling into place in Betnar’s mind.
Joe Guyger wasn’t just some random neighbor who happened to find David’s body. He was growing marijuana plants in those very woods where David’s remains were discovered. And according to multiple witnesses, Joe believed that David was stealing those plants. In fact, there’s another story that circulated around Skulkill Haven for years.
A story that people dismissed as drunken rambling, but that now takes on a sinister new significance. At parties throughout the late 80s and 90s, Joe Guyger used to tell people something. He’d get drunk or high. And he’d lean in close and say with a smirk, “If you want to murder somebody, do it in school county because you can get away with it.
” People thought he was joking. They thought it was just Joe being Joe. Dark humor, trying to sound tough, trying to seem dangerous. Now they’re not so sure. Betnar runs a background check on Joe Guyger. The man who was 20 years old in that 1985 news clip. The man who calmly explained how his dogs brought home bones is now 40 years old.
Still living in Schwulkill Haven. Married, has a young son. It’s time to bring him in. On June 26th, 2005, Betnar contacts Joe Guyger by phone. Joe is surprised to hear from police after all these years, but he agrees to talk. Betnar keeps the conversation short and casual. He’s feeling Joe out, trying to gauge his reaction, trying to see if there’s any nervousness or evasion.
Joe’s story is simple. He only saw David read a couple of times, just a kid riding around on his bike. He vaguely remembers something about a van, that story everyone was talking about back in the day. But beyond that, he doesn’t remember much. Betnar tells him it would be helpful if he could come down to the station to answer a few more questions.
Nothing urgent, just tying up some loose ends. Joe says he’s a little busy right now, but he can come in a day or two. Sure. No problem. Betar hangs up the phone and makes a note of Joe’s demeanor. calm, cooperative, maybe a little too calm. But then, just a couple of hours later, Betnar’s phone rings. It’s Joe Guyger calling back.
And this time, he’s a completely different person. He’s crying, blubbering, his words tumbling over each other in a panicked rush. He starts rambling about the bones that were found behind his yard, about his dogs getting loose, about the terrible stench he remembers from back then. He keeps circling around the subject, unable or unwilling to get to the point.
He says he always assumed there was a dead animal back there. That’s what the smell was. Just a dead animal. But then his voice drops to almost a whisper. It’s been haunting me, Joe says. All these years, it’s been haunting me. He tells Betnar he wants to come in as soon as possible.
He needs to clear things up. He needs to talk. 3 days later on June 29th, 2005, Joe Guyger walks into the Pennsylvania State Police Skill Haven barracks. He’s there to speak with Betnar and another detective named Tony Carroll. And for hours, the conversation goes in circles. Joe talks about his dogs. He talks about barely knowing David.
He talks about how David used to hang out with his older siblings. Sometimes he drops little breadcrumbs of information, then backs away from them. He’s testing the waters, trying to figure out how much the police know. But Betnar has had enough. He spent months on this case. He’s read every report, interviewed every witness, followed every lead, and he knows Joe Guyger is hiding something.
So Betnar decides to lay all his cards on the table. He confronts Joe with every inconsistent statement he’s made. The ones from 1985, the ones from the phone calls, the ones from this very conversation. He tells Joe about all the witnesses in Squealkill Haven who are pointing the finger directly at him. The people who heard him threaten David, the people who saw him break down at that party crying and saying he didn’t mean to hurt someone.
the people who heard him brag about getting away with murder in school county. Joe’s face goes pale. His hands start shaking and Betnar can see it happening in real time. The walls are crumbling. The carefully constructed story is falling apart. And that’s when Joe Gerger cracks. I know what happened to David, he says quietly.
I was there when he died. Betnar feels his heart pounding in his chest. 20 years. 20 years this family has been waiting for this moment. But I didn’t do it, Joe adds quickly, looking Betnar straight in the eye. I know who did. Joe tells his story. And it goes like this. He was with David and another friend named John Fry on August 21st, 1985.
Joe and John bumped into David while he was riding his bike, and they asked if he wanted to hang out, get high in one of the old caboosees down by the railard. The tracks ran right by Joe’s house. It was a spot they’d hung out before. David agreed. Why wouldn’t he? These were older kids, and David was always looking for people to connect with.
The three of them went inside the caboose. They smoked some weed, drank a little, just hanging out the way teenagers do. But then, according to Joe, things took a turn. David and John Fry stepped outside the caboose for a private conversation. Joe stayed inside, but he was watching through the door, and what he saw was John Fry confronting David about Joe’s missing marijuana plants.
An argument broke out, voices raised, and then John Fry took a swing at David. One punch right to the face. According to Joe’s statement, David fell backward, tumbling 3 to four feet, and struck the back of his head on an angle iron, a piece of metal near the wheel well of the train car. David wasn’t moving.
Joe and John panicked. They didn’t know what to do. So, they ran. They went into town trying to act normal, trying to convince themselves they’d just knocked the kid out. Maybe he’d wake up. Maybe he’d be fine. They went to a local convenience store called Broker Cells, bought some iced tea, walked around, tried to calm down.
But the whole time, Joe says he was thinking, “What the hell did I get myself into?” After maybe an hour, they couldn’t take it anymore. They had to know. So, they went back to the caboose, and David was still there, still not moving. “I didn’t think he killed him,” Joe says in his statement. We thought he was knocked out, but when we went back, he wasn’t moving at all.
And I thought I thought he might be dead. Betar listens to all of this, taking detailed notes. But he knows something Joe doesn’t know yet. He knows that as soon as this interview is over, he’s going to call John Fry, and he’s going to see if Jon’s story matches Joe’s. Joe continues. He admits that instead of calling for help, instead of getting medical attention for a 13-year-old boy who might still be alive, he and John made a choice.
They decided to hide the body. We dragged him, Joe says, his voice flat now, emotionless. John Fry held him by the shirt and I carried his feet. They took David’s body up into the woods behind Joe’s house to the area where Joe grew his marijuana plants and they left him there. We knew the cats would conceal the smell, Joe explains.
There were always dead things up there. It’s a chilling confession. Cold, calculated. These weren’t two teenagers who made a split-second decision in the heat of the moment. They knocked a kid out or worse, left him in a train car while they went to buy iced tea, came back, found him still unconscious or possibly dead, and then spent time moving his body.
hiding it, covering it up. They had multiple opportunities to do the right thing, multiple chances to call for help, multiple moments where they could have saved David’s life, and they chose not to. Betar thanks Joe for his cooperation and ends the interview, but he knows this isn’t over because he has a feeling Joe’s story isn’t entirely true.
As soon as Joe leaves the barracks, Betnar picks up the phone and calls Jon Fry. Jon doesn’t live in the area anymore. He moved away years ago, tried to build a different life. But when Betnar presents him with Joe Guer’s version of events, Jon’s response is immediate. “That’s bullshit,” Jon says. Joe’s lying. Jon admits he was with Joe and David that day. “Yes, they were in the caboose.
Yes, they were smoking weed. But according to John Fry, Joe Guyger was the one who punched David, not him. Joe is the one who killed David Reed. And now Betnar has a problem. A big problem. Two men, both admitting they were present when David died. Both pointing the finger at each other. One of them is lying.
But which one? Betnar knows he needs more evidence. something concrete, something scientific that can prove who’s telling the truth. And there’s only one way to get that evidence. He needs to exume David Reed’s body. It’s a drastic measure. It’s emotionally devastating for the family. But Betnar picks up the phone and calls David’s relatives. He explains the situation.
After 23 years, they finally have confessions. They finally know what happened. But to bring criminal charges, to get justice, they need to prove this was a homicide, not an accident. And the only way to do that is to dig up David’s remains and have them examined by the best forensic experts in the country.
The family agrees. They sign the exumation order. And in January of 2008, 23 years after David’s remains were first discovered, his tiny white coffin with angel wings is pulled from the frozen ground at Skullkill Memorial Park Cemetery. It’s heartbreaking to watch. Some of David’s family members are there standing in the bitter cold, watching as workers carefully remove the earth from around that small casket.
That coffin meant for a baby, holding the bones of a 13-year-old boy who should have had his whole life ahead of him. Betnar knows he needs the absolute best to examine these remains. He does his research and finds Dr. Anthony Falsetti at the University of Florida, one of the most respected forensic anthropologists in the country.
On January 24th, 2008, Robert Betnar boards a plane to Gainesville, Florida. Sitting in the seat next to him, secured carefully, is David Reed’s small casket. And what happens on that flight is something Betnar will never forget for the rest of his life. As passengers board the plane, they see the casket. They’re curious.
They ask what’s in the box, and Betnar tells them the truth. It’s a little boy’s body. This is a homicide investigation. We’re taking him to Florida to have his remains examined. The reaction is immediate. People stop. They listen. They want to know more. Betnar and his colleague, Corporal Kevin Bronnan, tell them about David.
About the 13-year-old boy who went missing in 1985, about the family that’s been waiting 23 years for justice, about the detective who made a promise to solve this case. The plane takes off. The seat belt light turns off. And then something extraordinary happens. A line begins to form in the aisle.
40, 50 people, one after another, waiting their turn. They’re not in line for the bathroom. They’re not waiting for drinks. They’re forming a funeral procession at 30,000 ft. One by one, passengers approach David’s casket. They ask if they can touch it. Betar says yes. They place their hands on the small white coffin. They bow their heads. Some of them cry.
Many of them pray. Complete strangers moved by the story of a boy they never knew. Taking a moment to honor his memory, to show respect, to acknowledge that this child mattered. We saw the very best of humanity that day. Betar will later recall we really did. And one of David’s family members, when they hear this story later, will say something beautiful.
David wanted to be a pilot. He dreamed of flying. And in that moment, 30,000 ft in the air, surrounded by strangers praying for him, David finally got his wish, he finally got to touch the sky. On January 25th, 2008, Dr. Anthony Falsetti examines David’s remains at the University of Florida. But this time, he has something the previous examiners didn’t have.
He has context. He has the police report. He has Joe Guyger’s confession and John Fry’s counterstatement. He knows that David was allegedly punched in the face with enough force to knock him backward, causing him to strike his head on metal. With that information in mind, Dr. Falcetti examines the small fracture above David’s right eye and the breaks in the back of his skull.
And this time, with the story to guide his analysis, he reaches a different conclusion. These injuries are consistent with blunt force trauma. The fracture pattern matches what would happen if someone was punched in the face hard, enough to knock them backward, causing their head to strike a hard object with significant force.
This wasn’t an old childhood injury. This wasn’t unfused adolescent bones. This was evidence of violence. Dr. Falcetti writes up his findings and sends them to Betnar. But Betnar wants a second opinion. He wants to be absolutely certain. So he contacts Dr. Janet M, the same anthropologist who examined David’s bones back in 1985.
Dr. Mge reviews Dr. Felcetti’s findings. She takes another look at the evidence herself, and she agrees. She admits that her initial assessment was incomplete. back in 1985. Without any clear indication of what happened, these injuries could have been interpreted multiple ways. But now, armed with the confessions and the context, it’s clear David Reed was murdered. Dr.
M even participates in interviews about the case later, calling it an incredible teaching moment. It’s extremely rare to examine remains once and then get to examine them again 20 years later with new information. She’ll say this case taught me how important context is in forensic anthropology. The cause of death is officially changed from undetermined to homicide.
And for the first time in 23 years, police can make an arrest for criminal homicide in David Reed’s case. But Betnar still has one crucial question to answer. Was it Joe Guyger or John Fry who threw that fatal punch, and that’s when investigators noticed something they’d observed during Joe’s interview, but hadn’t yet connected to the physical evidence.
When Joe Guyger was filling out paperwork, signing documents, he used his left hand. Joe Guyger is left-handed. They know John Fry is right-handed. They confirmed it with him. And David’s fracture, the injury that killed him, was on the right side of his face. If two people are facing each other and one throws a punch, a fracture on the right side of the victim’s face would most likely come from a left-handed attacker.
It’s not ironclad science. It’s not a smoking gun. But combined with all the witness statements, the threats Joe made, the confession at the party, the dogs with the bones, it’s one more piece of evidence pointing directly at Joe Guyger. When confronted with this evidence, Joe Guyger finally stops lying. He admits it.
John Fry didn’t punch David. He did. Joe Guyger killed David Reed on August 21st, 2008. Exactly 23 years to the day after David disappeared, Joe Guyger is arrested without incident at his home in Shill Haven, he’s charged with thirdderee murder, voluntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence. But in February of 2009, prosecutors face a difficult reality.
They have limited physical evidence. They have witnesses who are still intimidated by Joe Guyger even decades later and they have a legal system that requires them to sentence Joe under 1985 guidelines. So they strike a deal. Joe Guyger pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter and in exchange he receives a sentence of 1 to two years in prison.
With time already served he could be parrolled in just a few months. two years for taking a 13-year-old boy’s life. For hiding his body in the woods, for letting him die when medical attention might have saved him. For causing 23 years of agony for David’s family. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.
David’s family is given a choice. Accept the plea deal or risk going to trial. where Joe might be acquitted, where he might walk free, where David’s death might be ruled an accident and no one held accountable. They accept the deal because something is better than nothing. And as part of the plea agreement, Joe Guyger is required to tell the court exactly what happened in that train car on August 21st, 1985.
Joe stands before the judge and explains he was growing marijuana plants in the woods. He discovered that David was stealing them. It made him furious. So when he and John Fry found David near the caboosees on the railroad tracks, Joe confronted him. An argument broke out and Joe punched David in the face. When David fell backward and hit his head. Joe started crying. They panicked.
They went downtown hoping it would all just go away. But when they came back, David was still there and Joe thought he was dead. Rather than calling for help, Joe says flatly. I took the coward’s way out. I hid his body. At the sentencing, members of David’s family speak. His cousin Pam stands up, her voice shaking with anger.
I’m totally disgusted with him. It’s not something that can be forgiven. Another cousin, Rhonda, says what many people are thinking. I think he’s sorry he got caught. Not sorry for what he did. And a close friend of David’s stands and says, “Joe took away my friend. He took away my cousin. I wish David had the opportunity to grow up as I did. It just seems so unfair.
I’m so sorry that his life was cut so short.” Joe Guyger shows no emotion, no remorse. He’s silent throughout the sentencing. The judge sentences him to no more than 2 years behind bars. David Reed was 13 years old when he died. He loved stickers and airplanes. He dreamed of being a pilot. He delivered newspapers with a smile.
He told his mother, “I love you.” every time he left the house. And all of that was taken away over some stolen marijuana plants. Joe Guyger served his time and was released. He became a recluse after that, locking himself away from the world. Whether that’s guilt or shame or just a desire to avoid judgment, no one knows. But the damage was done.
Joan Reed died in 2000 without ever knowing what happened to her son. She drank herself to death, unable to cope with the uncertainty. and Jenny Reed, the sister who fought for 20 years, who became the face of the investigation, who called police every month, refusing to let anyone forget about David. Jenny died before Joe Gger was ever arrested.
She passed away from a drug overdose just months before the breakthrough in the case. Her son found her on the couch, gone. The drugs and alcohol she used to numb the pain of losing David had finally taken her life. When Betnar got the news of Jenny’s death, it devastated him. He had made a promise to her.
He promised he would solve this case. And he did. But Jenny never got to see it. 10 out of 10 times when I pictured the day we arrested David’s killer, Jenny was there. Betar later said there would be that moment of victory, that moment of closure. And when I lost that, yeah, that hurt. It always will. But Betnar kept his promise. He solved the case.
He got the confession. He changed David’s cause of death from undetermined to homicide. He arrested Joe Guyger. And he made sure that at the very least, the truth came out. The truth is that David Wellington Reed deserved better. He deserved a better childhood. He deserved better friends.
He deserved a chance to grow up, to become a pilot, to live the life he dreamed of. But Joe Gger took all of that away. And the two years he spent in prison will never be enough to balance the scales. Still, there’s something to be said for the truth, for persistence, for detectives like Robert Betar who refuse to let cold cases stay cold.
For sisters like Jenny Reed who fight for justice even when it costs them everything. For witnesses who finally find the courage to come forward. For forensic experts who can find answers in bones that have been buried for decades. Because without these people, David’s story would have ended in those woods. Joe Guyger would have gotten away with it forever, and the truth would have died with Joan and Jenny.
Instead, we have the truth. We have justice, however imperfect. We have David’s memory. David never got to fly a plane in life. But on that flight to Gainesville, in a small white casket surrounded by strangers who placed their hands on it and said prayers for a boy they never knew, David finally rose above the clouds.
He finally got to touch the sky. And maybe, just maybe, in that moment, his dream came true. Rest in peace, David Wellington Reed. You are remembered. You are loved. And your story will make sure that no one ever forgets the boy who dreamed of flying. The boy who left on his bike one summer evening, promising his mother he’d be back.
The boy who never came
