Help Honor Bethann Pyfer and her Baby with a Headstone

Note: This pricing is for a 2ft x 1ft flat marker and includes two standard emblems, foundation, shipping to the cemetery, and installation.

Seventeen-year-old Bethann Pyfer was the victim of a brutal murder in 1986. She never received justice. Here is her story:

Bethann Pyfer was murdered on February 27, 1986. She was last seen alive that night.

Four days later, on March 3, 1986, her body was found under beer cans and leaves near the edge of a 50-foot embankment in a wooded area of a cemetery. Her bloodstained jacket was found hanging on a bush. She had been strangled, stabbed in the chest, and "left to rot," according to police.

Bethann was 7 1/2 months pregnant. The autopsy showed she was carrying a baby girl just under seven pounds.

Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, talking to residents and stopping delivery drivers and cabs to ask if they had seen or heard anything.

Four years later, in April 1990, police charged Bethann's half-brother, Arthur Pyfer, with her murder. He was arraigned on charges of criminal homicide, murder, aggravated assault, and possessing an instrument of crime. Pyfer's arrest came after a bloody "Sir Lawrence" knife was found by children playing near the cemetery, combined with a witness statement. The knife contained traces of human blood the same type as Bethann's, and the stab wound on her body was consistent with the blade. The witness, Candida Salach, told police that Pyfer admitted to "cutting" his sister because he was jealous she wasn't carrying his child. Salach also said that Pyfer threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

In an interview with police, Pyfer admitted to owning the knife but denied killing Bethann. When the trial began in February 1991, Assistant DA William Toal conceded that most of his evidence against Pyfer was circumstantial. Toal stated that Pyfer voluntarily went to the police on the day Bethann was found and blamed the murder on the father of her unborn child, Dean Cahill.

A prosecution witness testified that the last time anyone saw Bethann alive, Pyfer was pushing her into a yellow car behind Cahill's house. Pyfer's attorney, Joseph Grimes, presented a letter that Candida Salach had written to Pyfer on March 17, 1987, more than a year after Salach alleged that Pyfer had confessed to her. The letter concluded with Salach writing, "Love ya," followed by "P.S. Me and Lafferty finally broke up." Grimes noted that the letter's tone was "completely contradictory" to the prosecution's contention that Pyfer confessed to Salach and then threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

Throughout the seven-day trial, the witness stand had been a stage for tales of incest, drug use, murder, and a knifing by a tattooed bald man. Grimes finally suggested another theory: that a large bald man known to be an enforcer for the Pagan motorcycle gang went to an apartment shared by Bethann and Arthur Pyfer. The man, described as "really mad," was said to have cut Arthur's arms as he lay on the couch. Grimes implied that Bethann had been killed by the man as she tried to avenge the attack on her half-brother.

On February 16, 1991, after three days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Arthur Pyfer of killing Bethann. Although police believed that more than one person had been involved in Bethann's murder, they never arrested anyone aside from Pyfer.

Bethann's murder has never been solved. She was 17 years old.

For 39 years, Bethann's grave has been unmarked. We want to change that and finally give her and her baby the remembrance they deserve.

Any and all contributions are appreciated!