The Skeleton Key Chronicles

8 hours ago

A Pennsylvania father who disappeared while making DoorDash deliveries on October 22nd is still missing, and his family is searching for answers. Zachariah Schuck, 32, had recently lost his job, and with a newborn baby, he was doing what he could to support his growing family.

Zachariah lived in North Sewickley Township with his wife and child. He had previously worked as a manager for Penske, overseeing truck leasing branches in Pennsylvania and Ohio. That evening, Zachariah texted his wife to reassure her that he'd be home after finishing his deliveries. According to police, he completed his final DoorDash delivery just before 7 p.m. at a residence in Beaver, Pennsylvania. But Zachariah never made it home.

Police have also estbalished that Zachariah's vehicle was last seen along Route 51 in the Monaca area sometime between 7:30 and 8 p.m. Around 8 p.m., a doorbell camera on Croxall Avenue in Hopewell Township captured someone parking Zachariah's black Chevrolet Impala, getting out and walking down the road. The footage was taken from a distance, making it impossible to tell whether the person was Zachariah or someone else. His phone also stopped transmitting its location around that time.

Zachariah's wife used Life360 to locate him near the Vanport Bridge that evening. She met Pennsylvania State Police in the area, and officers searched around the bridge but were unable to locate his phone. When Zachariah failed to return home, she also contacted his father, Carl Schuck.

On October 24th, police received information about Zachariah's abandoned car. The keys were still in the ignition, and the gas tank was empty. Investigators searched the surrounding neighborhood and nearby woods with drones and search dogs, but found nothing. His phone hasn't been recovered, and there has been no activity on his credit cards.

Carl has been trying to make sense of what happened to his son. He has wondered whether someone else could have been driving the car, but without knowing who was captured on that doorbell camera, there's no way to be certain. He says Zachariah had no known enemies, and although losing his job had been a difficult change, his family hadn't noticed anything that suggested he was planning to leave. According to Carl, police have also cleared the customer who received Zachariah's final delivery. North Sewickley Township police are continuing to investigate and haven't ruled out foul play.

Details👇 … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

When Tina Herrmann didn't show up for work at a Dairy Queen in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on November 10th, 2010, her coworkers became concerned. Tina lived in nearby Howard with her two children, Sarah Maynard and Kody Maynard. She had recently separated from her longtime boyfriend, Greg Borders, and was looking for a new apartment with help from her friend Stephanie Sprang, although she and Greg were still living together. By the following day, authorities had discovered evidence that something terrible had happened inside Tina's home, and all four were missing.

As investigators searched for Tina, Stephanie and the children, Tina's pickup truck was discovered near Kenyon College in Gambier, prompting a campus lockdown. The investigation eventually led authorities to Matthew J. Hoffman, a 30-year-old former tree trimmer who lived in Mount Vernon. On November 14th, officers entered Hoffman's home and discovered something extraordinary. The house was filled with leaves, some piled across the floors and others stuffed into bags. Down in the basement, they found 13-year-old Sarah alive on a makeshift bed of leaves and blankets. She had been missing for four days.

But there was still no sign of Tina, Kody or Stephanie. Four days after Sarah's rescue, information Hoffman provided through his attorneys led investigators to a wooded area near Fredericktown, where the three were found concealed inside a large hollow tree. Hoffman later admitted that he had entered Tina's home intending to burglarize it and was surprised when people returned. He pleaded guilty in January 2011 and received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The discovery of Sarah inside that leaf-filled house became one of the most unusual details of the investigation, but the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Tina, Kody and Stephanie were far more than a strange crime scene. Three people lost their lives, and a 13-year-old girl survived an ordeal that would change her life forever.

More info 👇 … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

Nearly 50 years after two young women disappeared just six months apart in Washington County, Pennsylvania, DNA has finally identified the man responsible. And investigators believe there could be more cases connected to him.

It started the night before Thanksgiving in 1976. Susan Rush had recently earned her beautician's license and was hoping to find work in that field. In the meantime, she was working at a G.C. Murphy store near the Washington Mall. On November 24th, she finished her shift and was supposed to meet her family at church for Thanksgiving Eve dinner. But Susan never showed up, and when she didn't come home that night, her family began looking for her. The following morning, one of her brothers found her car parked along North Avenue, about a quarter-mile from the store. Susan was inside the trunk. She was just 19 years old.

Six months later, on May 18th, 1977, Brenda Ritter was leaving her boyfriend's house around 10 p.m. after they'd been out to dinner. A thunderstorm was passing through, and her boyfriend and his mother made sure Brenda had locked her car doors before she pulled away. When Brenda didn't come home, her mother assumed the storm had knocked out the phone lines and that she'd stayed with her boyfriend's family. But when she called their house the next morning, she learned Brenda had left the night before. Her car was eventually found abandoned along a rural road, and a police helicopter searching the area located her on a nearby hillside. Brenda was only 18.

Investigators had noticed similarities between the cases, but they couldn't establish who was responsible. In 2008, DNA recovered from Brenda's case was entered into the FBI's database, where it was checked against new profiles week after week without a match. Then, in May 2025, new testing finally connected the evidence from Susan's case to Brenda's. After all those years, police knew they were looking for the same person.

Earlier this week, Pennsylvania State Police announced that additional forensic work had identified him as James Richard Clark Sr. He was only 19 when Susan disappeared and 20 when Brenda died. Clark lived in the Washington area at the time and later worked as a long-haul truck driver. His name had never come up as a suspect in either investigation, and he died in 2023, before police ever knew who he was.

Now here's another part of this story that I find particularly interesting. Just five days before Susan disappeared, 30-year-old Barbara Jean Lewis was found behind a civic association building in Churchill, Pennsylvania, about a mile from her home. Then, on June 13th, 1977, just 26 days after Brenda disappeared, Sister Roberta Ann Elam was found on the grounds of a religious retreat near Wheeling, West Virginia. Although Wheeling is in another state, it's only about 30 miles from Washington.

And these aren't connections people are just now coming up with. Back in 2003, investigators were already exploring whether Barbara's case might be related to the Washington County deaths, and Roberta's case had also been considered in comparisons involving other unsolved cases in the region. In 2021, Paul Holes and Billy Jensen revisited all four women's stories together, looking at whether there might be connections.

Neither Barbara nor Roberta has been linked to Clark through DNA, and investigators have explored other leads in both cases over the years. But now that Susan and Brenda have finally been connected to the same man, there's a new reason to look closely at Clark's past. Pennsylvania State Police are investigating whether there could be other cases involving him, especially considering that he spent years working as a long-haul truck driver.

Details👇 … See MoreSee Less