Aimee Willard

A Delaware County Court judge denied the latest death-penalty appeal from Arthur J. Bomar, who was convicted of killing college athlete Aimee Willard in 1996, the district attorney announced Tuesday. Judge Frank T. Hazel issued a 213-page opinion addressing 22 claims by Bomar in his appeal, making any future appeals on the same grounds more difficult. The case has already been appealed to the state Supreme Court. District Attorney Jack Whelan on Tuesday called Bomar "every parent's worst nightmare.

Suggestions were made yesterday during Arthur Bomar's murder trial that Aimee Willard may not have been raped and beaten to death. A fleeting glimpse was caught of how Bomar may defend himself during defense attorney Mark Much's questioning of the Philadelphia medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Willard's battered body. Much appeared to be cutting several alternative routes to the prosecution's contention that Bomar abducted Willard, raped her, then bludgeoned her to death.

Arthur Bomar, charged last week with killing college athlete Aimee Willard, yesterday got a new attorney and a new date for a preliminary hearing. The date is Jan. 9, at the Delaware County Courthouse; the attorney is Mark P. Much, 35, a lawyer in Media who was assigned to the case yesterday morning by Judge Frank P. Hazel, who will oversee the Willard matter. Much met Bomar, 38, at the courthouse yesterday, shortly before a 2-minute hearing before District Justice David Lang.

Investigators in the Aimee Willard murder probe are searching for a second tow-truck driver, sources said yesterday. The driver, described as a white man operating a gray tow truck pulling a white van, was seen parked from 6 to 8:30 a.m. on the Route 1 north ramp to I-476, opposite the one where Willard's car was abandoned, on the morning of her disappearance. It is yet another avenue investigators are pursuing in the nearly seven-month-old murder, but it is not new information, the sources said.

A Delaware County judge yesterday declared Arthur Bomar competent to stand trial in the murder of Aimee Willard and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Friday. Judge Frank T. Hazel made his ruling after a five-minute court session in which Bomar's lawyer, Mark P. Much, said he had no objections with the findings of court-appointed psychiatrist Robert L. Sadoff. "I attended the examination, I'm familiar with Dr. Sadoff, and I'm comfortable with the recommendation that he made," Much said later.

A bill named after slain college athlete Aimee Willard and designed to keep murderers and other violent offenders from early prison release was introduced in the U.S. Senate yesterday by Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.). Called Aimee's Law, it would provide financial penalties for states that release a criminal who then commits a violent crime in another state. Willard, 22, of Brookhaven, a lacrosse and soccer star at George Mason University in Virginia, was abducted, raped and murdered in June 1996 by Arthur Bomar, who was on parole for murder in Nevada.

Investigators in the Aimee Willard slaying case want to talk some more to Upper Providence Police Officer David Buggy about his activities on the morning of her death, sources close to the investigation say. Buggy recently told the township police chief and investigators that early on June 20, he stopped near an ambulance crew that had parked next to Willard's car, which appeared to have been abandoned on the southbound off-ramp of Exit 3...

Arthur Bomar's fate will be decided by a jury brought from Westmoreland County, outside Pittsburgh, the state Supreme Court has ordered. The order, which was released yesterday, comes after a ruling by Delaware County Court Judge Frank T. Hazel that the jurors should be picked from another county because of extensive publicity. Bomar's attorney, Mark Much, had sought to have the trial held elsewhere. Instead, the Westmoreland jury, once selected, will be brought to Delaware County to hear the case.

Arthur Bomar, the suspect in the slaying of Aimee Willard who tried to hang himself at Delaware County Prison Tuesday, improved from critical to stable condition yesterday in his heavily guarded room at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland. Delaware County District Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said yesterday that law enforcement officials planned to move Bomar out of intensive care as soon as state police determined what kind of security measures to use while Bomar remained in the hospital.

Andrew Kobak, the prime suspect in Aimee Willard's murder, says he's not the killer. Hours after cops finished an eight-hour search of his family's Main Line mansion and took blood and hair samples under court order, his lawyer called the media to his Center City office to correct what he called "inaccuracies" in the feverish murder coverage. Kobak didn't kill Aimee Willard, 22, the star athlete from Brookhaven whose battered body was discovered in a North Philadelphia lot last week, said lawyer Anthony Petrone.

A Delaware County Court judge denied the latest death-penalty appeal from Arthur J. Bomar, who was convicted of killing college athlete Aimee Willard in 1996, the district attorney announced Tuesday. Judge Frank T. Hazel issued a 213-page opinion addressing 22 claims by Bomar in his appeal, making any future appeals on the same grounds more difficult. The case has already been appealed to the state Supreme Court. District Attorney Jack Whelan on Tuesday called Bomar "every parent's worst nightmare.

A Delaware County Court judge denied the latest death-penalty appeal from Arthur J. Bomar, who was convicted of killing college athlete Aimee Willard in 1996, the district attorney announced Tuesday. Judge Frank T. Hazel issued a 213-page opinion addressing 22 claims by Bomar in his appeal, making any future appeals on the same grounds more difficult. The case has already been appealed to the state Supreme Court. District Attorney Jack Whelan on Tuesday called Bomar "every parent's worst nightmare.

THE PRETTY little girl fell for one of the ruses that sex offenders use to lure their prey into the horror of their creepy passions. Jesse K. Timmendequas, a convicted sex offender, told the 7-year-old girl who lived across the street from him in Hamilton Township, N.J., that he wanted to show her a puppy. Megan Kanka went into the man's house on that warm Friday night in June 1994 to see the nonexistent puppy and was brutally raped and savagely murdered. Sometime during the attack, the feisty little girl managed to bite Timmendequas on his right hand with enough force that it was still swollen when police questioned him. That bite mark became a crucial piece of evidence at Timmendequas' trial when forensic dentist Haskell Askin demonstrated to a Mercer County jury how the bite mark was made by Megan's teeth.

YOUR RECENT report that nearly one in four high school graduates can't pass the Army's basic exam for math, reading and problem-solving is only the tip of the iceberg for recruiting in Philadelphia. Philadelphia's high dropout, obesity, and juvenile-crime rates have made most of the city's young people (80-90 percent) ineligible for service. As a former chief of staff of the Army Recruiting Command, I know firsthand how few young Philadelphians who seek to serve are actually eligible to do so. This is not only a tragic loss of opportunity for potential recruits who are ready, willing, but unable to serve - it's also a future recruitment concern and thereby a threat to national security.

A Philadelphia man has been charged with harassing and stalking the family of Aimee Willard, the Delaware County woman killed in 1996 on a Blue Route off-ramp. Eric Jorgensen, 39, of the 600 block of Gerritt Avenue, has allegedly been harassing the family of the college lacrosse star since she was killed. In December, according to court papers, Jorgensen allegedly made harassing phone calls to Gail Willard, Aimee's mother, wishing her a merry Christmas and indicating he had taken pictures of her grandchildren.

SPOTLIGHT Watch out for the Irish While Germantown Academy gained the No. 1 ranking in The Inquirer's preseason top-10 poll, do not count out Notre Dame in the race for the Inter-Ac League crown. The Irish, 28-3 overall and 10-2 in the league season, have wing guard Kate Kuester returning. The 5-foot-10 senior, headed to St. Joseph's, is a solid three-point shooter and one of the league's top athletes. She averaged 11 points a game last season. The big question for Mary Beth McNichol's squad is whether point guard Devon Kane can return from knee surgery.

A death warrant was signed yesterday for Arthur Bomar, convicted of the slaying of 22-year-old college lacrosse and soccer champion Aimee Willard. Bomar, 45, was sentenced to death six years ago for the 1996 kidnapping, rape and murder of Willard, who disappeared while heading home to Brookhaven from a Main Line bar. The warrant, the 17th signed by Gov. Rendell, orders Bomar's execution by lethal injection on June 10. The state Supreme Court upheld Bomar's death sentence in 2003 but ordered a lower court to resentence Bomar on convictions of rape, kidnapping and abuse of corpse.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Arthur Bomar, who murdered college athlete Aimee Willard in 1996, prompting calls for tougher federal and state parole guidelines. The justices unanimously rejected Bomar's appeal, which claimed, in part, that Delaware County discriminates racially when seeking the death penalty. The decision, dated Friday, was released yesterday. Bomar, 44, was convicted five years ago of kidnapping, raping and murdering Willard, 22, of Brookhaven.

In a scathing report that all but calls the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole dysfunctional, Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. accused the board yesterday of putting communities in danger by its lackluster supervision of those under its watch. During the two-year period studied by his office, Casey said, the parole board lost track of 1,560 paroled prisoners, was inconsistent in sanctioning parolees, failed to enforce threatened punishments, and had a poor record in collecting a $25 monthly supervision fee. That resulted in a $14 million gap between what the board was owed and what it recovered.

Mark Keenan, 46, a detective who helped crack several high-profile murder cases during a 25-year police career with Lower Merion and Montgomery County, died of cancer Tuesday at home in Villanova. Known among colleagues for an affability and charm that helped comfort crime victims and pry confessions out of suspects, Mr. Keenan worked his way up from Lower Merion patrolman to Montgomery County homicide detective assigned to some of the agency's toughest murder cases. He helped solve the mysterious deaths of lawyer Stefanie Newman Rabinowitz, who was killed by her husband, Craig, in their Lower Merion home; student Aimee Willard, murdered by a drifter; and Jim Webb, proprietor of the General Wayne Inn, who was killed by his business partner, Guy Sileo.