The brutal killing of Roy Rogers Restaurant manager Terri Brooks in 1984 not only shocked the Bucks County community, it went unsolved until 1999 – some 15 years later.
With help of Falls Township police, along with experts from the Vidocq society.
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On Wednesday night, nationally renowned TV network – Investigation Discovery – will tell the story of the gruesome murder as part of its hour-long “Dead of Night” program. The show begins at 9 p.m.
“It was great to be able to bring the case to a close, and we hopefully gave the (Brooks) family some peace,” noted former Falls Township police Chief Arnold Conoline, who had ordered the case reopened in 1998 on the belief new DNA evidence techniques would help solve the case.
The break in the case came when police analyzed the DNA found on cigarette butts found in the trash can of Alfred Scott Keefe, then-37, of Warminster, who had previously dated the victim but could not initially be connected to the murder.
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Keefe’s DNA matched with DNA evidence found at the crime scene.
According to police, Brooks in Feb. 1984 was the night manager of Roy Rogers Restaurant, located at the intersection of Lincoln Highway and Oxford Valley Road. Brooks remained behind in the restaurant that night to do some paperwork, after other employees went home at about 1 a.m.
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Brooks apparently locked the door, then called her boyfriend, whom she planned to marry that summer.
Her body was found the next morning by the arriving day manager. Her body was face up on the kitchen floor – she had been severely beaten and repeatedly stabbed with a knife from the restaurant. Her shoes and keys were found near her body and her pocketbook was thrown under a counter in the kitchen.
Police had initially suspected robbery due to the fact that the previous night’s receipts, about $1,200, were missing from the restaurant’s open safe.
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About 15 fingerprints found at the scene did not match any on file at law enforcement agencies.
Investigators eventually discovered that Brooks had previously dated Keefe, and that Keefe had attended the young woman’s funeral.
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The InvestigationDiscovery TV show will highlight how investigators were eventually able to solve the crime.
Others who helped in the 1998 investigation included: Falls Township Lt. Nelson Whitney, former Montgomery County coroner Hal Filinger and former Bucks District Attorney Alan Rubenstein, who is now a county judge.
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The Vidocq society is an organization named after a famous French investigator. It is made up of many former and retired police officers, pathologists, profiling experts, and evidence experts..
