The Sinister Minister

this part of the story is covered for now He went to Milton High School there, then to Eastern Pilgrim College, Messiah College in Grantham and Elizabethtown College, and by the age of twenty he had decided on the ministry. At Messiah he met Jul Vera Bainey, a preacher's daughter from Klein Feltersville, Pennsylvania, who was a junior at the college. They married around 1968, two years before 1970, and the wedding reception at the church junior chapel drew 500 guests. Their children were Julie, Amy and Micah.

Shermer became a pastor in the United Methodist Church in 1970 and was caught having an affair within two years of the wedding. Jul told her family what he had done, but the church frowned on divorce and she stayed. Over the following decades Shermer had a series of affairs with women in his congregations, including women who had come to him for marital counselling. One woman later said she had a years-long affair with him after meeting him at church during a vulnerable period, and that they met at a local hotel about three times a year. Jul carried on teaching, directing choirs, running Sunday school and giving private piano and voice lessons. The couple also performed together as a singing duet and made a family gospel album in 1974 called Lord Bring Back the Springtime, recorded by the Shermers on Baldwin Sound Productions. The family travelled to camp meetings, including the two-week Rollinsville Camp Meeting in Lancaster in 1975, and Shermer served pastorates at Bainbridge and Marietta between 1975 and 1978 before being transferred to Bethany United Methodist Church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, in 1978. He later served as chaplain of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

On 23 April 1999 Shermer came home to Skyline Drive in North Lebanon Township at 2.15 p.m. and found Jul at the bottom of the basement stairs in a pool of blood, a shop vac cord wrapped around her ankle. It looked like a fall. She was taken to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center with a fractured skull and a traumatic brain injury; the fracture would have needed about 750 pounds of force. Shermer did not ride in the ambulance. Jul's brother John got to the hospital and was struck by the bruising all over her face and head, and by Shermer laughing and joking with his daughters. Shermer took her off life support and she died on 24 April 1999, aged 50. He declined an autopsy, but her body was autopsied anyway. Her heart had already been harvested for transplant, but Dr Wayne Ross examined tissue slides and found no heart attack. He found fourteen areas of impact on her head, multiple skull fractures and no injuries anywhere below the neck, no broken ribs, pelvis, wrists or hands. He classified the death as undetermined and told police to look further. They did not. A few days later John visited the house and found the basement cleaned of blood; Shermer said paramedics had done it. A paramedic later said they never clean scenes.

In 2000 Shermer was transferred to Readers United Methodist Church, in the part of Jackson Township, Monroe County, known as Readers. details of the account remain covered until revealed Her son met Shermer that year and was told his first wife had died of cancer. Betty and Shermer married on 1 June 2001. Her sisters Tina and Sandy and her mother Jean all thought he was a wonderful match. Meanwhile Shermer began an affair with Cindy Musante, the church secretary and his personal assistant, whose husband Joe was a skilled carpenter and a struggling alcoholic who had come to the church for help. Joe had built Shermer a handmade wooden desk for his office. Cindy later said the affair began after Joe spent his fiftieth birthday, 3 August 2008, drinking at home while she did the shopping.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it On 26 September 2008 she sent Shermer an anonymous email under the name Jean Smith, subject A word of caution, warning him to keep things professional and threatening to report him. Shermer and Cindy called her into the office and told her nothing was going on.

At 2 a.m. on 15 July 2008 Shermer was driving Betty to hospital for jaw pain in their 2007 Chrysler PT Cruiser, north on Route 715 near Tannersville, less than two miles from home. He said a deer ran out, that he swerved, and that the car hit the guard rail at 50 to 55 miles an hour. Betty was not wearing a seat belt. A passing driver, Stan Dickenson, found the car against the rail, called 911 and thought Shermer seemed indifferent. Betty was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital with a wound on the left of her head and two gashes on the right. The doctor said she would never recover, and she was taken off life support and died. The coroner accepted Shermer's account, ruled the death accidental, and the body was cremated within twenty-four hours. Betty's family said she always wore a seat belt and was against cremation. Shermer gave different explanations: that the belt came unclasped, that she had just unbuckled to get comfortable, and that she played a game to see how far they could drive before the warning sounded. He bought an urn decorated with a deer.

Joe Musante grew suspicious. On 16 October 2008 he asked Samantha whether her mother loved the pastor, and she told him the truth. He confronted Cindy, who promised to end it, then later admitted she had not meant it. On 28 October he threatened to kill himself and the children, and Cindy took the children to her sister's. On 29 October the church secretary Marjorie Hickman found the office door glass smashed and Joe dead behind Shermer's desk from a single gunshot to the head, a 380 handgun at his feet. Glass on his shoes, gunshot residue and the blood pattern showed he had shot himself. Hours earlier he had phoned the Reverend Brownwin Yochum to complain that the pastor was sleeping with his wife, and had arranged to sign a formal complaint the next morning.

Joe's sister Rose Cobb would not let it go. She came to Readers for the memorial service, found the house empty of mourners, and heard from Cindy that the marriage was over and that Cindy loved the pastor. this part of the story is covered for now She contacted Bishop Peggy Johnson and the Pocono Township police. Detective Jim Wagner reopened both deaths, and the district attorney, Michael Mancuso, later said his office had never been told of Betty's death because it was listed as an accident. The crash photographs showed light damage, no skid marks, no evasive manoeuvre, airbags that had not deployed and coins still neat in the holder. A reconstruction put the impact at 18 to 22 miles an hour. Blood patterns showed Betty had been bleeding before the crash, and a December 2008 search of the parsonage garage found a cleaned blood trail from the back door to the passenger door of the car, confirmed by DNA as Betty's.

Shermer was questioned for six hours and changed his story, eventually claiming Betty cut herself on firewood; investigators found newspapers from September 2008 under the woodpile, two months after her death. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it ARCCA ran stair-fall simulations with instrumented dummies at the old Lebanon house and found the impact points did not match Jul's fractures, and Dr Ross concluded both women had been struck repeatedly with a long cylindrical object. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed Mancuso called Shermer a wolf in shepherd's clothing. Samantha testified about the affair, the gaslighting and her father's last voicemail. Cindy testified that she loved him. 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 Samantha has no relationship with her mother. Rose Cobb said she was only doing what her brother could not do for himself.