Vehicle crash research helps to uncover truth in Schirmer murder case

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. When former Pennsylvania pastor Arthur Schirmer was convicted in January of murder in the 2008 death of his second wife, a Penn State vehicle crash expert's analysis had helped sort out the facts of the story. Schirmer, a former pastor from Reeders, in northeast Pennsylvania, had claimed that he was driving his wife to the emergency room for treatment of jaw pain when he swerved to avoid a deer and hit a guide rail. Prosecutors had argued that Schirmer struck Betty Schirmer on the head, loaded her into their PT Cruiser and staged a low-speed accident. "I've seen hundreds of crashes at 50 to 55 miles per hour. The findings indicated that the speed of Schirmer's vehicle was in the neighborhood of 15 miles per hour, and definitely no more than 25." - More than a year after the case was closed, police received a tip that the accident warranted a closer look. Authorities contacted Zoltan Rado, director of the Vehicle Systems and Safety Program at the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute at Penn State.