A 23-year-old woman with the mental age of 15 was raped, stabbed and burned alive by two men she considered friends, after she told her family she was leaving for a New Year's Eve party. Ashley Kline suffered brain damage from lead poisoning as a child and was described by relatives as 'happy and loving but naive and overly trusting'.
The horrifying crime began to unfold on New Year's Day 2014 when a jogger in Pennsylvania woodland discovered a pink Ugg boot and a small pink handbag belonging to Ashley. She had been reported missing on December 30 after leaving home, supposedly to help a friend prepare for a party. Instead, she had agreed to meet family friend Ryan Matthew Schannauer, 20, who had lured her into his car under the pretence of going to the cinema.
Schannauer and his accomplice Adam Morning Star Lynch, 21, drove Ashley to the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, where they forced her from the car, stabbed her repeatedly, doused her with petrol and set her on fire while she was still breathing. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lechner told Lancaster County court: 'Schannauer admitted he doused her with gasoline and she was breathing when he did it.'
Both men initially blamed each other for the murder. Lynch was arrested after CCTV showed him filling a jerry can with petrol near the crime scene. Damning evidence included a broken necklace belonging to Ashley found under a seat in Lynch's car and the print of her pink Ugg boot on the inside of a window. The breakthrough came when Lynch's girlfriend told police the pair had returned to the scene on January 8 to make a second attempt to burn Ashley's body.
Prosecutors said Schannauer's frustration at Ashley's rejection of his advances had turned to jealous rage, and the pair had plotted her murder for months. District Attorney Craig W. Stedman called it 'one of the most horrific crimes we have had in our history'. Both men pleaded guilty and received life sentences, avoiding the death penalty. When asked why he had killed a woman he had known since childhood, Schannauer replied: 'I don’t have an explanation for it.'
