LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — Nearly 40 years after the murder of 25-year-old Maryann Bagenstose, the Lancaster County District Attorney's office and Pennsylvania State Police have made an arrest.
On Thursday, PSP Troopers charged 67-year-old Jere Bagenstose, the estranged husband of Maryann, with one count of Criminal Homicide.
"This is not a case solved with DNA. Rather, the arrest of Jere Bagenstose is the result of decades of hard work and dedication by law enforcement personnel, beginning in 1984 with members of the Pequea Township Police Department and continuing with numerous criminal investigators in the Pennsylvania State Police leading up to the present day," said Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams. "An arrest in this 38-year-old case has certainly been long awaited."
Authorities said Maryann Bagenstose disappeared from her home on West Willow Road in Pequea Township on June 5, 1984.
At the time, Maryann was separated from her estranged husband, Jere, and lived at the West Willow Road home with their two-year-old son, and a boarder with whom she had a relationship.
In April of that year, Maryann was granted custody of their son. A formal custody hearing was scheduled for June 15. Maryann did not appear at the custody hearing, and Jere was awarded custody of their son.
Maryann was described as a devoted mother to her son, and people said she would have never left him behind.
Police say they spoke to Jere on multiple occasions, who relayed that he last saw Maryann alive on June 5, 1984, when he arrived at the house that morning to take Maryann in to trade in her car. Jere said he took his son to Long's Park because Maryann was not ready. He claimed when he returned back to the house, Maryann was not there, and had left a note that she had walked to a convenience store on Willow Street and he had not heard from her since.
Additional evidence gathered and relied on over the course of the investigation and cited in the affidavit of probable cause includes the following:
-Records obtained from Jere’s place of employment indicated that he had an unexcused absence for June 5, 1984, the date of Maryann’s disappearance.
-Jere had an unexplained injury to his left arm which was covered by a bandage. He provided inconsistent statements to law enforcement on how and where he injured himself.
-Jere provided multiple inconsistent statements to police on what the note left by Maryann said, why he would have dug a hole in his garage mere days after the victim’s disappearance, why he was present at the house that day, and what Maryann was doing when he arrived.
-The defendant stated that Maryann was having car trouble and walked to a store. Interviews with the victim’s neighbors and acquaintances revealed the car was working fine in the days leading up to the victim’s disappearance.
-An assistant manager at the convenience store stated she had not seen Maryann at the store on the day of her disappearance. Jere told officers during the search warrant that the note did not say she was walking to that particular location, and that he only assumed that Maryann went to that store.
-A Maintenance Supervisor at Long’s Park related he had not seen Jere's vehicle in the park on June 5, 1984, after being provided a picture of the vehicle. Two additional employees also had not seen the vehicle.
-In 1985, Jere told investigators that people had relayed to him they recently saw Maryann. The defendant never reported this information to police.
-Multiple notes and postcards sent to Jere purportedly from Maryann were never relayed to the police by the defendant.
-Witnesses relay that leading up to her disappearance, Maryann was in a good mood and looking forward to getting a new car.
In 2018, investigators with Pennsylvania State Police said they started reworking the investigation by focusing on the note that was seized during the June 13, 1984 search. Investigators obtained public records and other documents to compare the writing of Jere to the note.
That data led to the execution of a search warrant at the West Willow Road home on Sept. 20 of this year.
The body of Maryann has never been recovered in the decades-long investigation.
Jere was arraigned and remanded to Lancaster County Prison without bail.