Who was Linda Stoltzfoos? Missing Amish teen from Pennsylvania found dead, covered in tarp and buried
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: Officials investigating the case of Linda Stoltzfoos, who vanished in June 2020, said a body they recently found, while searching for her, has been identified as the missing teen. The 18-year-old Amish girl was last seen on June 21 last year as she participated in a church service in East Lampeter Township. However, after the service, she never returned home. It has been said that a 35-year-old man, named Justo Smoker, is responsible for her kidnapping and murder.
The tragic discovery was made in a rural area in the eastern area of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, April 21, after an intensified search operation was launched, which included the FBI, the East Lampeter Township Police Department, and Pennsylvania State Police. Lancaster County DA Heather Adams said that they found the remains covered in a tarp and buried over three feet deep behind Smoker's former workplace, Dutchland Incorporated. After the grisly finding, investigators think that Stoltzfoos was killed soon after being abducted. They also feel that she was initially buried on the 3100 block of Harvest Drive.
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As per reports, authorities found a buried bra and stockings believed to be of Stoltzfoos, at a separate location, where the suspect was seen roaming around earlier. Also, one of the stockings which were found had DNA “attributable to Smoker”. Investigators said the girl was later taken to the wooded area along with a dress, bonnet, and shoes matching what she was wearing during the time of her disappearance.
Adams said, “While the coroner's office has not yet made a positive forensic identification, based on all of the information currently known and available to us, we strongly believe and are comfortable saying, that the remains are those of 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos.”
Formal identification and probe into the cause and circumstances regarding Stoltzfoos’s death will now be done by the county coroner's office. An autopsy will be conducted on Friday, April 23. The girl’s devastated uncle told CBS 21, “I'm still in shock and never ready for news like this.” A local resident named Debbie Matteoda said, “For the family I feel terrible because they keep all this hope all this time that maybe she will show up, but then again it's a closure.”
After Stoltzfoos went missing in June 2020, Smoker was taken into custody for kidnapping and misdemeanor false imprisonment the following month. In December that year, he was pressed with homicide after prosecutors said his “complete cessation of all routine activities” and the time period that went by suggested that the teenager had died and Smoker was behind it.
Lead investigator, East Lampeter Township police Detective Christopher Jones, said that several Amish women stated that a man similar to the accused had been stalking them the day before Stoltzfoos vanished. Even Smoker’s cell phone records and surveillance cameras indicated that he and his car were in the area from where the teenager disappeared while wearing a “tan dress, white apron and white cape.”