In the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 9, 1993, the quiet, residential streets of East Allentown, Pennsylvania, were filled with a sense of dread. Charlotte Schmoyer, a responsible and friendly 15-year-old girl, had vanished while delivering papers for *The Morning Call*. A customer on her route grew concerned after noticing Charlotte's newspaper cart sitting unattended for half an hour and alerted the authorities around 6:45 a.m.
The discovery of her radio headset and signs of a struggle nearby confirmed the community's worst fears: the dedicated high school freshman had been abducted.
Charlotte was a student at Louis E. Dieruff High School, where she was a member of the band and the swim team. Remembered for her smile and lovely enthusiasm, she was a sweet and friendly presence to those who knew her. Her disappearance sent a wave of panic through Allentown, as parents who normally let their children walk home from school began picking them up, terrified of the predator who was stalking their neighborhoods. The search for Charlotte ended in heartbreak later that same day when police, following a bloody trail in a heavily wooded area at the East Side Reservoir, found her body buried beneath a pile of logs.
An autopsy revealed the horrific nature of the attack. Charlotte had been sexually assaulted and brutally murdered, sustaining 22 stab wounds to her back and neck, and a large, gaping wound to her throat. The violence of the crime left the city reeling and intensified the hunt for a killer who had already struck before. This was the work of Harvey Miguel Robinson, a local teenager who would come to be known as "The Monster of Allentown." His reign of terror had begun in August 1992 with the murder of 29-year-old Joan Burghardt and included the rapes and attempted murders of two other victims, one a five-year-old child.
The investigation into the string of savage attacks culminated on July 31, 1993. Robinson had previously assaulted a woman named Denise Sam-Cali in her home, and she had managed to escape. When Robinson returned to her house, an Allentown police officer was lying in wait. After an exchange of gunfire, the wounded Robinson fled but was apprehended hours later at a local hospital where he sought treatment for his injuries. His DNA was a perfect match to evidence collected from all the crime scenes, definitively linking him to the murders of Charlotte Schmoyer, Joan Burghardt, and his final victim, 47-year-old Jessica Jean Fortney, whom he killed in July 1993.
In November 1994, just before his 20th birthday, Harvey Miguel Robinson was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, rape, burglary, and a host of other charges. He was initially sentenced to death for all three murders, making him one of the youngest serial killers ever placed on death row in the United States. Over the years, his sentences underwent several changes due to legal appeals and rulings on juvenile offenders.
His death sentence for the murder of Joan Burghardt was reduced to a life sentence because he was 17 at the time of the crime. In 2012, to spare her family the continued pain of endless appeals, Robinson's death sentence in Charlotte's case was also converted to a life sentence. He agreed to waive his right to future appeals in her case in exchange for the deal, a resolution Charlotte's family approved to find some measure of closure. Robinson remains on death row for the murder of Jessica Jean Fortney, his sentence having been upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He is serving his multiple sentences, including two life terms and an additional 40.5 to 81 years for his other crimes, ensuring he will never be free again.
