QUACKERY

Woman Charged With Husband’s 1987 Murder After ‘Goose Bite’ Claim Finally Crumbles

Judith Jarvis, 76, claimed blood on her pajama sleeve the night of her husband’s death was from an unrelated goose attack.

A Pennsylvanian woman has been charged with the murder of her husband, 35 years after she was ruled out as a suspect, claiming that blood on her arm following the incident was actually her own—from a goose bite. Judith Jarvis, 76, claimed that her deceased husband, Carl Jarvis, had shot and killed himself one August night in 1987 after a late-night rampage that left her feeling scared enough to call state troopers to the couple’s Millerstown home. “Carl Jarvis would not have been capable of walking or performing any voluntary/directional movement following that brain trauma,” wrote state police in an affidavit, noting that the 42-year-old had been shot in the back of the head with a .22-caliber revolver with a two-inch trigger guard found at the scene. “Doctor Mihalakis [an Allentown forensic pathologist] concluded that it would be essentially impossible for the victim to shoot himself in the manner in which the body was found.” But charges in the case wouldn’t be filed until decades later, when advancements in DNA technology would connect the blood on Jarvis’ pajama sleeve to her dead husband.