The Murder of Lisa Ziegert
Warning, this case does discuss murder and sexual assault.
For this case, I watched an episode of Forensic Files 2. It’s season 2 episode 1, titled ‘The Obsession.’
A young woman disappears from her night shift job.
Background
The Ziegert family lived in Agawam, Massachusetts. They had 3 daughters and 1 son. Lisa was the 2nd born, and always had dreams of getting married and raising a family. At the time of her murder, she was 24-years-old, 5’2,” with blue eyes and curly brown hair.
Lisa had a degree in education, and was working as a teacher’s aide. She also took a 2nd job at a card shop called Brittany’s to earn extra money. She worked nights and weekends there. Lisa was a people person according to her mom, Dee, and loved both of her jobs.
Lisa Ziegert
The Disappearance
On April 15, 1992, Lisa was working her usual 5-9pm shift, and was working alone. A customer entered the store, and found it to be empty. All of the lights were still on and the door left open. The next morning, an employee named Sophia Maynard found the store unlocked. Lisa’s car was still in the parking lot and her belongings were still inside the store. It was unlike Lisa to have left the store unlocked as she was very responsible.
The police were called, and they entered the back room of the store. They found that boxes had been pushed down, like something had been on top of them. There was also blood splatter on the some of the boxes. Blood splatter was also found on some of the greeting cards just outside the back room.
The news of Lisa’s disappearance had spread very quickly.
A Brutal Crime
On Easter Sunday 1992, just a few days after she had disappeared, Lisa’s body was found in a wooded area. It was just 3 miles away from the card shop.
Lisa had struggled during her murder. She had been found partially clad, and her clothing on her upper body had been pulled down. She had been stabbed several times, and had wounds to her shoulder, throat and leg. The murder weapon wasn’t found at the scene.
Lisa had been sexually assaulted, and the DNA of her killer had been collected.
The police were able to determine a timeline of Lisa’s known movements. The last purchase made at the card shop was at 8:20pm. At 9pm, the customer entered and found the lights on.
A fresh set of tire tracks had been found at the scene. The tire tracks had been made from a set of Cooper tires. The police were able to look through records and find the driver of the vehicle with similar tires. The suspect showed the police pictures of his car from 3 days before when he had been out 4 wheeling with friends. However, it ended up not being significant.
The Tip
A witness came forward, and said they had seen a Bronco SUV in the area of where Lisa’s body had been found, and around the time of the murder.
This tip led a local woman to call the police. She said her boyfriend at the time was ex-military and had a fascination with knives. She said his vehicle was very similar to the one that had been seen. She said he came home on the day of the murder with blood in his truck and dashboard kicked in. This man told the police that he had sold his truck. The truck ended up going to New York, and then to Russia.
The police in Massachusetts reached out to Interpol and investigators in Russia to have the truck examined. Sadly, nothing was found.
The police were desperate for answers, and hired psychics and hypnotists. This didn’t lead to anything, and Lisa’s case went cold.
The DNA
In 1993, the police had received a tip that later was reviewed in 2016. A woman was sure that her ex-husband had killed Lisa. She said he had seemed very interested in the case whenever Lisa’s case was mentioned. The man’s name was Gary Schara. He was still living in Agawam, and called the police when he learned that his ex was speaking to them. He said he had learned that he was a suspect in Lisa’s case, and wanted to know if it was true. The police wanted to speak to him, but he lawyered up.
Gary was put aside. The police learned that there had been a man who was killing and raping women in card shops in states like Virginia and Maryland. However, this turned up to be a dead end.
The police still had the DNA. It was repeatedly entered into DNA databases, even international databases. It was estimated that the DNA was tested against 16 million profiles, but there was no match. The police started to believe that the killer was either dead, and had never given their DNA sample, or was a one time killer.
The police turned to a new cutting edge way to use DNA. It was developed by Parabon Nanolabs. They developed a program called Snapshot. This new technology was able to create a phenotype. The phenotype was able to tell anyone the ethnicity, hair and eye color of the suspect. Parabon also has a forensic artist on staff.
Parabon released two images of the alleged killer. The first approximated what Lisa’s killer looked like in 1992. The second was an estimated guess of what the killer looked like 20 years later. It looked very similar to Gary Schara. Gary had refused to give the police his DNA. Gary even told the police that he had actually been afraid of cloning.
The composite sketch of what Gary may have looked like in 1992
Justice For Lisa
In 2008, the police had recorded their interaction with Gary. He had stayed away from the table and wouldn’t put his hands on anything. He also wouldn’t take a drink of his water. He denied that he had ever read anything about Lisa’s murder, and said he usually just “scanned the headlines” of newspapers and “read the sports page.”
The information in Lisa’s case was presented to the grand jury. They had 11 men who were told that they needed to provide the police with their DNA.
The Massachusetts State Police went to Gary’s home, but he wasn’t there at the time. Gary’s roommate was told to tell Gary that they had important paperwork for him. Gary was found in a nearby hospital after a failed suicide attempt. His DNA was a match to the DNA recovered from the crime scene.
In 2019, Gary Schara pled guilty, and was sentenced to life without parole.
It’s believed that he had become obsessed with Lisa after buying a music box from the card store. This music box was found in his possession more than 20 years later.
It’s believed that Gary was able to overpower Lisa, put her in his car, and assaulted and killed her in the woods.
Gary never committed another crime like this, which surprised the police.
Gary Schara
Other
In 2017, Gary wrote in a letter that he had always been obsessed with abduction and bondage. He also wrote that he knew that the police were after him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The police had known for a long time who the killer was. Instead of having tunnel vision, they also looked into several other people, but all of the evidence led back to Gary. Oh by the by way, he had a son. It’s a terrifying thought that someone like this could have a child.
Lisa seemed like such a sweet person. She was just trying to earn extra money, and Gary preyed on her because he knew she worked alone. Lisa’s mom, Dee said she hopes that all cases can be solved with this new DNA technology and I agree.
Sources
https://www.thereminder.com/LOCALNEWS/agawam/gary-schara-admits-to-1992-murder-of-lisa-ziegert-/
https://www.wwlp.com/news/local-news/hampden-county/cold-case-murder-closed-after-27-years/
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/06/22/noelle-deslauriers/
