One of the pervasive questions in the Beth Barr case is how someone driving a car with Ohio license plates, possibly from out of state, would have stumbled upon the relatively hard-to-find Restland Memorial Cemetery area as a place to bury Beth’s body. People, both investigators and those who have followed the story through the years, have speculated it was likely someone familiar with the area who killed her.
That lends some credence to the possible suspects in the stories I’ve told so far, including the grandfather in “A Woman, a Car and a Search,” the pedophile in “Another Grandfather, Another Car, Another Possibility,” the pastor in “Suffer the Little Children,” and the man parked on the street in “Theories and Thoughts.”
But what if Beth had been kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer?
Given the number of murders in Southwestern Pennsylvania in the late 1970s, and the coincidences between Beth’s murder and a few others at the time, that notion has some merit. Beth seemed an unlikely target for serial killer Edward Surratt, who was suspected of at least 18 murders in Ohio and Pennsylvania during that time period.
I have a professional Facebook page where a lot of those interviewed for this series have first contacted me. I hadn’t checked it for awhile when I found a message in Fall 2014 from a cold case investigator from Great Falls, Mont.
John A. Cameron had received a number of calls and emails regarding Beth’s murder after he appeared on Coast to Coast AM, a nationwide talk radio show, about a book he’d written about a serial killer.
John A. Cameron’s book about serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards
Cameron’s book, “It’s Me, Edward Wayne Edwards, The Serial Killer You Never Heard Of,” unravels the facts and evidence that point to Edwards as the “most prolific unknown serial killer in modern times.” Edwards’ own book, “Metamorphosis of a Criminal,” is a written puzzle that intricately links him to various murders through clues hidden in the stories he tells.
By the time I contacted Cameron, he had already found ties that might link Edwards to both Beth’s murder and that of Barbara Lewis, 30, of Penn Hills a year earlier in 1976. As I pointed out in previous posts, there were a number of strange ties between Barbara’s and Beth’s murders, though Barbara’s death didn’t fit with the police profile that Beth’s killer was likely a pedophile.
Edwards, as a suspect, would answer why. He killed to kill, indiscriminately targeting men, women, couples and children.
John Cameron sent this photo of Edwards, who is standing, back row, center. Cameron wrote: “I love this 1970 Christmas picture of him and the relatives he despised. It sums up how he could get into anyone. He was such a nice family guy.” (Photo courtesy John A. Cameron)
“(The) Beth Barr case would be really high up there on my list as being committed by Edwards,” Cameron wrote in an email. “I have never reviewed the police reports and any court records on it, but if ever given the opportunity would do it. In every case that I obtained the “discovery documents,” Edwards was throughout in anonymous letters, phone calls and emails directing the case like the conductor of the orchestra. He was a very intelligent serial killer who killed 24/7, (who) every waking moment was planning murder and using his family as a ruse.”
According to Cameron, all the ties are there on both the Beth Barr and Barbara Lewis murders. Edwards was a ritualistic killer, and Cameron’s investigation into hundreds of murders has turned up lots of similar anniversary dates of murders he’s suspected of committing, methods of disposal and descriptions of the suspect.
“Thanksgiving in 1960 in Portland, Ore. was the first sign that he was a ritualistic killer,” Cameron wrote.
Edwards had been looked at as a person of interest in the slayings of two teenagers on a lover’s lane in Portland as well as a naval officer on Nov. 26-27 that year. In Cameron’s book, Edwards is also listed as a suspect in the murder of a woman on Nov. 28, 1969 in State College, Pa.
Most interesting is that Edwards lived in Doylestown, Ohio at the time Beth was killed and had just gotten off parole in 1977. He made the rounds preaching to various denominations over the years about his life as a reformed criminal. He had been a speaker at Camp Kanesatake in Spruce Creek, Pa., near Altoona, on July 31, 1977. Nine days later, on Aug. 8, he killed a young couple in Ohio.
“That is how he always did it—kill in neighboring states but always return to those states that convicted innocent people,” Cameron said. “He (Edwards) was an informant for an FBI agent for years, telling on his own murders to set innocent people up. Pennsylvania was his main stomping grounds to kill because he was placed in a Catholic Reformatory in Valley Forge in 1947.”
There are a few other reasons that Edwards could be a person of interest in Beth’s murder. She was stabbed in the chest, left fully clothed, and buried in a grave that was more piled than shoveled. That method of disposing of the body was similar to what Edwards had done in other murders, Cameron said.
“Edwards covered the bodies instead of burying. This allowed for quick decomposition,” he said. “Many times, he would cover them one place and transfer them to another location to mess with investigators.”
The fact Beth was left in the woods near Restland Memorial Park is another thing that Cameron can tie to Edwards’ rituals.
“In 1945, at age 12, he walked his cousin Dawn, who was 6-7, into a cemetery and he was going to kill her, but he stopped himself because he knew he would get caught,” Cameron said. “She described the incident to me in 2010. He buried Dannie Boy Edwards (his adopted son, whom he killed) in 1996 behind the Troy, Ohio cemetery. Cemeteries represent ritual and passing the souls onto the afterlife—heaven or hell.”
I asked Cameron if Edwards might have been driving a blue sedan at that time. Of course, living in Ohio, he would likely have had red-and-white license plates.
“Edward’s cars used in his crimes were never really his,” Cameron explained. “He either stole them, swindled them legally or burned them after use. They would never tie back to him personally, but leaving Ohio plates plain to see was a clue to look to Ohio. He did that in 1955, too, just before coming here to Montana.”
In Cameron’s book, Edwards’ daughter April provides a list of the numerous states where the family was living at various times, including Doylestown, Ohio in 1974-78; Zahniser Street in the Crafton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh in 1980-81 (she recounts that her father possibly murdered an African-American boy living nearby with a baseball bat); Portersville, Pa. in 1981; and McConnell’s Mill, Pa. in 1982 (she remembers that a female’s body was found in the state park during that time). I asked Cameron if the initial arrest of a McCandless Township man made in 1977, a few weeks after Beth’s disappearance, could have been a set-up by Edwards. Information on the suspect had come from a less-than-savory source.
“Edwards picked set-ups who had vices,” Cameron explained. “He would get them to sin, hook them up with hookers, pedophiles, drugs, money, etc. … whatever your addiction. (He’d) get to know personal information about you and then kill someone close and steer the evidence to you. Rumors usually came from anonymous letters and phone calls to the press and police, steering the evidence to others by the killer himself.”
From his investigations by analyzing clues in Edwards’ book and evidence, Cameron has pinned Edwards as a suspect in prominent cases ranging from the Zodiac murders in California, JonBenét Ramsey and Adam Walsh to the Atlanta Child Murders and Jimmy Hoffa.
“The first thing you do when you suspect Edwards is to search his book for phrases or evidence that suggests he killed in Pennsylvania,” Cameron says. “It was mentioned nine times in his book with Skippack, Pa. being the very beginning of his killings in 1943-45. He was hanging out with 6-year-old girls then.”
Cameron ranks Edwards as a suspect in many prominent murders of children.
“Beth was 6, JonBenét was 6, Adam Walsh was 6, Suzanne Degnan was 6—and Ed was 6 when they changed his name (after his mother died),” Cameron says. “Beth’s dad was a cop and Edwards had actually lit a cop’s kid on fire in 1955 while the kid was in his crib. Edwards targeted the police to either kill their loved ones and make them live with it—or kill someone close and try to set them up. The most notable setup in court records occurred in 1979 near Butler, Pa.
“Pennsylvania was the beginning and they easily arrested innocent people for some reason,” Cameron added. He also points to the 666 reference to Satanism, which Edwards ties in with his killings.
Cameron’s book blows apart any sense of security in this world. Edwards, while he was killing, hung out with policemen, preached to church groups, appeared on the old TV show “To Tell the Truth” and wrote a book about his own criminal exploits (sans murder).” In fact, if one follows the path Cameron builds in his book, and information from Edwards’ daughter, it’s little wonder the investigation has become a full-time pursuit for the retired cold case investigator.
For those interested in reading more about Edwards, check out Cameron’s website or purchase his book, which lays out the complexities of Edwards as a killer.
What about Beth? Edwards wouldn’t have known she’d be walking alone that day. In the days before Google maps, it might have taken a lot of random driving to come across the area off Johnston Road in Monroeville where Beth’s body was left. What is the likelihood that she met her fate at the hands of a serial killer? At the hands of Edwards?
As with the others, he certainly can’t be ruled out.
Next week: The Case Is Cold, Not Buried
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