Kawinkidink Alert! 🕵️‍♂️

Okay, let’s get serious.

There’s a super curious connection between two unsolved cases that has my inner Scooby-Doo—Mystery Machine brain working overtime. One happened deep in the stacks of the library at Penn State in 1969, and the other just a couple of blocks away from the library at the University of Arkansas in 1971. We’re talking about the tragic stories of Betsy Aardsma and Pauline Storment.

Now, I know, it might seem like a far stretch, but hang on, gang! These two cases have more in common than you might think.

The Silent Library Slaying 😱

Betsy’s story kicks off on November 28, 1969. She was a 22-year-old grad student just trying to get some research done in Penn State’s Pattee Library. She was wearing a bright red dress—which, in a tragic twist, actually masked her wound because the first responders thought she had just fainted!

She was stabbed right in the chest, through the heart, and didn’t even make a sound. Two mysterious men told a desk clerk a girl “needed help” and then just vanished into thin air. Talk about a ghost story that’s actually real.

The Fayetteville Echo 🌙

Fast forward about seventeen months to April 12, 1971. Pauline Storment, a 27-year-old sophomore, was doing the same thing—studying at the University of Arkansas main library. She left to walk home to her apartment on South Duncan Avenue around 9:30 PM.

Unlike Betsy’s silent attack, Pauline’s was violent and vocal. Neighbors heard her screams under a full moon. She managed to tell people that someone hit her in the chest and that her attacker ran back toward campus. Sadly, she passed away during surgery later that night. Her roommate, Alice Pat Murphy, wondered if something prompted her to leave the library early—maybe an uneasy feeling of being stalked?

Here’s where it gets extra spooky… 👓

Both cases involve studious young women targeted in or near their sanctuary of books. But check this out: in the Storment case, witnesses described the attacker as wearing glasses. While a lot of people wear glasses, it’s a detail that pops up in descriptions of suspects for both incidents.

And then there’s the “Serial Killer” elephant in the room. Some people point the finger at Ted Bundy, since he was known to be at Temple University around the time of Betsy’s murder and had family in Arkansas. While experts like David DeKok (who literally wrote the book on Betsy) and law enforcement don’t see a solid link, the “what if” still haunts the community 52 years later.

The Mystery Machine Verdict 🚐

What’s even more mind-boggling is the irony of their composite sketches. When you look at the sketches—even accounting for faulty memories—there are some striking similarities that make you wonder if the same “calculated predator” was traveling the campus circuit.

Whether it was a “surgical” strike like the one that took Betsy or a frenzied attack like the one that took Pauline, both killers used the chaos of the campus environment to disappear.

What do you think, gang? Is it a coincidence, or was there something much darker moving through the stacks in the late 60s? 🕵️‍♀️