A Scary Story On A Quiet Street

In April 1984 Bruce Sharp, 63, and his wife Alice, 59, lived on a quiet street of six houses in Pitman, New Jersey, a small town in Gloucester County about twenty-five minutes from Philadelphia. They had been married for almost forty years. Bruce had just retired after forty years as a mechanic, most recently at the Texas plant in Eagle Point, and Alice was a second-grade teacher at the Sewell School in Mantua, where she had worked since 1962. Their elder son, Bruce Jr., had been the town's first fatality of the Vietnam War, killed in an ambush at Da Nang in 1968. Their surviving son, John, was a PE teacher in Maryland.

On April 30th, 1984, the couple spent the afternoon gardening in their front yard. Neighbours saw Alice there at about one o'clock, and the clippers, rake and bag of grass clippings were still lying out afterwards. Alice did not arrive at school that day. The secretary telephoned the house, got no answer, and then called Susan Sayer, a neighbour on the same street, and asked her to check. Sayer found the cellar and back doors unlocked. She called out, heard nothing and went in. In the centre hallway she found Bruce and Alice lying dead in a pool of blood.

The police found a broken ceramic vase and a fireplace poker near the bodies, no sign of forced entry, and an upstairs bedroom that had been ransacked. The medical examiner, Dr Klaus Speth, found that Alice had more than eighty wounds and that the poker had penetrated her brain; Bruce had been shot. Nothing had been taken from the rest of the house, and no neighbour had heard anything. The only lead was a man seen by Tom Horera, who had been wheeling grass clippings into the Sharps' compost heap. Horera said a man had run into some bushes, fetched a dirty grey bicycle with an orange sticker and ridden away. He described him as having big eyes, long scraggly hair and boots, and the police put the age at between eighteen and twenty-one.

The following day, May 1st, Officer Paul Godman of the Pitman police received a call from his nephew, Carmen Kitaffi. Kitaffi said he thought he knew something about the murders but was afraid to get involved. He agreed to meet detectives from the police department and the prosecutor's office. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He was gone for about two hours.

details of the account remain covered until revealed He was covered in blood. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He then showed them jewellery and cash, both bloodstained, and said he had taken them from the couple. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it On the way they stopped at the Pensauken Mart, where he bought a pair of jeans and threw his bloody trousers out of the car window. They bought three bags of heroin, shot up and returned to Glassboro. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed His elder brother was a Pitman police officer and brought him out of the house. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Detectives Reeves, Wector and Donovan interviewed him from about two o'clock. For the first forty minutes he was relaxed, saying he had spent the day drinking beer at a tavern with friends whose names he would not give. this part of the story is covered for now His manner changed completely. Over the next hour and twenty minutes he repeatedly said that he could not, or would not, talk about the murders. At four o'clock Detective Reeves asked whether Alice Sharp had still been alive when he left the house. details of the account remain covered until revealed

His account was that he had approached the house, been recognised by Bruce as the carpenter who had worked there before, and asked to use the telephone because his car had broken down. Inside, Bruce took him to the basement to show him an antique. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Alice caught him coming down the stairs and began calling for Bruce. He hit her with a ceramic vase in the entryway and kept hitting her until it broke. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed He left on the bicycle and was seen by the man with the grass clippings.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed A footprint in the blood at the scene matched his sneaker, and blood on his sneaker lace matched Bruce Sharp's blood. The Assistant County prosecutor, Stephen Sand, called the circumstances as brutal and as heinous as conceivably possible and announced that he would seek the death penalty.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The court also criticised the prosecution's comments on his failure to testify and the volume of blood-spatter photographs.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it