An 18-year-old college soccer player was stabbed to death by her boyfriend eight days before her first game, and then her body was stuffed in the back of her own Jeep and driven to a library parking lot while his mother tailed the car to make sure the job was done. Karoline Heintz had just graduated high school in June. She never got to play a single minute of college soccer.
How the Night Ended
According to Pennsylvania State Police, Heintz had spent the evening at a family party before meeting up with her boyfriend, Royce Mosher, at his father's home in North Strabane Township. The two sat in her Jeep Cherokee and talked about what their relationship would look like now that she was heading to college. That conversation, as State Trooper Rocco Gagliardi told reporters, went "a little bit south."
Mosher allegedly told Heintz he had something for her, used that line to excuse himself, walked into his father's kitchen, and grabbed a large knife. He came back out and stabbed her in the chest. She fell out of the car. He stuffed her into the back hatch of the Jeep and drove to his mother's house in Beallsville, Pa.
He needed help. And according to police, his mother provided it.
Mom Gets Involved
CBS News Pittsburgh reports that Mosher told his mother a "demon" had taken over and commanded him to stab Heintz. Whatever Rachel Mosher, 57, made of that explanation, she apparently decided the right move was to assist rather than call 911.
Trooper Gagliardi laid out what happened next: the two tried to clean Mosher's clothes, scrubbed the car for blood, and then drove the Jeep — with Heintz's body still inside — to California Borough, with Rachel Mosher following behind in a separate vehicle. They abandoned the blood-stained Jeep outside the California Borough Library and left.
Heintz's family had been waiting for her to check in when she returned to her dorm. When she didn't, they called police for a wellness check. Officers tracked her phone's last location to just outside that library, where they found her body in the back of the car at around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
The Arrests
Royce Mosher was charged with criminal homicide, two counts of tampering with evidence, two counts of abuse of a corpse, and obstruction. The New York Post reports he was stone-faced as police walked him out of the station Thursday evening, handcuffed and wearing a white prison jumpsuit.
Rachel Mosher was charged with tampering, obstruction, hindering the apprehension of a fugitive, and abuse of a corpse. She kept her head down as reporters surrounded her on the way to a police car. Video from WTAE captured her saying, "I'm sorry. That my son took a life." She also stated, for whatever it is worth, that she "did not" do it.
She didn't stab Karoline Heintz, no. But she drove to a library parking lot at midnight to help make a murdered girl disappear. The legal system will sort out exactly what to call that.
Who Karoline Heintz Was
Heintz had graduated from Peters Township High School in June, just two months before her death. She had committed to play Division II soccer at Pennsylvania Western University, and the team's first game was scheduled for August 29, eight days after she was killed.
PennWest University released a statement expressing condolences to her family and everyone affected. Trooper Gagliardi said it plainly: "It is more of an unfortunate event, 18-year-old girl, young soccer star ready to explore life, ready to start college, now can no longer get to do that."
That is a remarkably restrained way to describe what happened to her. But the facts speak for themselves without any help from us.
The Dingo Take
A mother helped her son clean a murder victim's blood out of a car and then drove behind that car in the dark to make sure the body got dumped somewhere it might not be found. That is not a family in crisis making a split-second bad call. That is a cover-up, coordinated and deliberate, carried out on behalf of a kid who grabbed a kitchen knife and came back out to a girl who trusted him.
The "demon made me do it" line will almost certainly become the spine of a mental health defense, and that conversation is worth having carefully and seriously in a courtroom. What is not worth debating is what Rachel Mosher did. She wasn't in that car when the knife came out. She made choices afterward, in the dark, with full knowledge of what her son had done, and every one of those choices was aimed at protecting him rather than the dead 18-year-old in the back hatch.
Karoline Heintz's team plays its first game on August 29. There will be an empty roster spot. Her family spent Thursday night calling police for a wellness check instead of hearing about how move-in went. The people who did this to her are in custody, which is the only remotely decent thing about any of this.
Comments