Heckel Murder Case: Groves Bound Over to Court
District Judge Frank Mills determined on Tuesday that sufficient evidence exists to have the charges against Groves heard in Common Pleas Court. The Mills ruling followed a day of testimony in the case against Groves who had been arrested in late January, accused of killing Katherine “Kathy” Dolan Heckel of Lock Haven in 1991.
Some 15 members of the Heckel family were in attendance as the case against Groves began. Groves looked at the seated family members as he was ushered into the courtroom but showed no emotion.
The most emotional testimony came from the victim’s former husband, John Heckel. Special prosecutor Clarke Madden from the state Attorney Generals’ office asked Heckel if he killed his wife. “No sir!” Heckel responded.
Attorneys George Lepley and David Lindsay represented Groves. Before Mills directed the case into Common Pleas Court, Lepley had argued there had not been sufficient evidence to move the case forward, stating there was “no direct evidence at all that Mrs. Heckel is deceased.”
The case is unusual in that homicide trials without the finding of the body of the victim continue to be rare in the United States.
That issue had been touched on in the grand jury findings which led to Groves’ arrest: “The Grand Jury considered and rejected any argument that Groves’ success in disposing of Kathy’s body should be an impediment to his prosecution or allow him to escape justice any longer.”
Legal experts have offered their views on the absence of a body in a murder case. Thomas DiBiase, a former federal homicide prosecutor with a background in “no-body” cases, earlier this year had told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review some 435 no-body cases have gone to trial in the US with a conviction rate of about 88 percent.
He said such cases at one time were “incredibly rare,” but now becoming less rare. DiBiase said forensic evidence and confessions to police or family and friends are generally “the building blocks” of no-body cases.
Other witnesses on Tuesday included now retired state police criminal investigator Fredrick Caldwell. He told of the interview process with Groves that began July 16, 1991, a day after Heckel disappeared from her workplace, the former International Paper plant in Lock Haven. Groves was a coworker there.
Caldwell corroborated an earlier grand jury finding that in the hours and days following Heckel’s disappearance, Groves exhibited anxiety and paranoia, interrogating coworkers about whether the police were asking about him.
Carol Smith, a Heckel coworker in the human resources department at the paper mill, testified she was aware that Heckel and Groves were having an affair and became worried when her office coworker did not return from lunch on the day of her disappearance. She said Groves had drastically changed his demeanor when she saw him at work after she had last seen Mrs. Heckel.
Local state police had returned Groves to Clinton County in late January following his arrest; he has been in the Clinton County Correctional Facility since that time with no bail set on the homicide charges.
