In the late summer of 1979, the quiet community of Monaca, Pennsylvania, was shaken by a brutal crime. On September 1st of that year, the body of 23-year-old Catherine Janet Walsh, a white female, was discovered in her duplex apartment. Her father, Peter J. Caltury Sr., had gone to check on her after she failed to show up for work. He found a horrifying scene: Catherine was lying face-down on her bed, her hands bound behind her back with the cord from her bathrobe.
A handkerchief was tied tightly around her neck, which the Beaver County coroner would later determine was the instrument of her strangulation.
The initial investigation by the Monaca Police Department and Pennsylvania State Police suggested that robbery was not a motive, as the doors to the apartment were locked and there were no signs of a struggle. This led investigators to believe that Catherine likely knew her killer. Among the individuals questioned was her estranged husband, Scott E. Walsh, from whom she was in the process of divorcing. Another person of interest was a local man named Gregory Scott Hopkins, who was known to be having an affair with Catherine. Despite their suspicions, authorities were unable to gather enough evidence to make an arrest, and for decades, the case went cold.
The passage of time, however, brought with it significant advancements in forensic technology. In 2010, investigators decided to resubmit evidence from the crime scene for modern DNA analysis. This proved to be the breakthrough the case desperately needed. In January 2012, the Pennsylvania State Police announced that DNA evidence found on Catherine's nightgown, a bedsheet, and the rope used to bind her hands was a positive match to Gregory Scott Hopkins. Hopkins, then a 65-year-old former Bridgewater borough councilman, was arrested and charged with criminal homicide.
During his trial, Hopkins acknowledged the affair with Catherine but vehemently denied any involvement in her murder. He claimed he had not been to her apartment for several weeks prior to her death. However, the DNA evidence presented by the prosecution told a different story. In November 2013, a jury of five men and seven women found Gregory Hopkins guilty of third-degree murder. The verdict brought a sense of long-awaited justice and closure to Catherine's family, who had endured 34 years of not knowing who was responsible for her death. In February 2014, Gregory Scott Hopkins, then 67, was sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison for the 1979 murder of Catherine Janet Walsh.
