Williamsport, Pennsylvania is a quaint, picturesque town that is best known for the Little League World Series. The area is safe & averages one to two homicides annually, making it a typically good area to live & to be a police officer. However, there is one case that has befuddled investigators in this sleepy town. Two officers have spent years trying to figure out who murdered a woman that didn’t appear to have an enemy in the world.
In 1991, Richard Illes met Miriam Zambie while working as a resident at St. Louis Medical Center where Miriam worked as a perfusionist. A perfusionist operates a heart/lung machine that artificially replaces a patient’s heart & lung functions during surgery. The couple got married in 1991 & within a few years, they welcomed their son, Richie, into the family. This was when they relocated to Williamsport where the couple worked side by side.
Richard went on to become a heart surgeon & they purchased a spectacular mansion that sat high on a hill. Richard & Miriam were one the city’s most prominent couples. Richard recalls that the community embraced their family & he feels he was compensated probably more than he was worth. Richard was respected as one of the best doctors in the area & the Illes family initially felt their time in Williamsport was wonderful.
After Richie was born, Miriam made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom when her son was two. She quit her job & never looked back, adoring her new role. Richard said that Miriam was a fantastic mother & he couldn’t have hoped for anyone better to care for their son.
Miriam kept herself busy with volunteering for her church & the symphony. She had a dynamic personality & was someone who made friends easily wherever she went. Despite being one of the most wealthy people in the area, Miriam was always down-to-earth & approachable. She never flaunted her status & had no issues driving her green van & shopping at the dollar store.
Miriam’s friends indicated that they rarely saw Richard & when they did, their overall impression of him was not a positive one. It was their belief that he was becoming increasingly distant & controlling. Richard had expectations that were unattainable & he always expected their house to be in perfect order & dinner to be ready, on the table at his requested time. Friends felt that Miriam was miserable with the emotional distance from her husband & in 1998, she hired a divorce attorney despite the fact that it wasn’t truly something that she wanted.
During this time, Miriam’s friends say she was also growing suspicious, believing that Richard was having an affair based on his actions. Both Miriam & her lawyer soon discovered that her suspicions were correct & Richard was having an extramarital affair with his assistant, Katherine Swoyer, whom Miriam had actually hired. Their relationship quickly became a scandal at Williamsport Hospital.
Despite the pain that Miriam was experiencing, Richard on the other hand, looks back at this time of his life with fondness. “I had a pretty perfect life there for a little while. I had a girlfriend who I loved. And we had a great time. I had a beautiful son who was being taken care of by his mother, who was the best mother in the world. There’s no doubt about that, everyone will tell you that. And I have my freedom.”
The affair was the final crack in their marriage & Miram soon moved out with Richie, who was 5-years-old at the time. Richard refused to leave the home so Miriam made the decision to leave in late March 1998. Her friends felt that she would have been willing to put in the work to rebuild their relationship, but Richard had no interest in doing so. Richard comments on this by saying, “I wasn’t interested in the beginning. But, as time went on, the thoughts occurred in my mind. You don’t talk about them, of course, because your girlfriend that you’re having a relationship with certainly isn’t going to appreciate those thoughts.” During March of 1998, at the time of their separation, Miriam withdrew $300,000 from their joint account.
In the meantime, many people that knew Richard & Miriam could attest to the fact that their divorce was extremely tumultuous. On many occasions, Richard could be overheard speaking of Miriam in a very disparaging way. One woman even heard him say, “I wish the b!tch were dead, my life would be a whole lot easier.” Miriam had also spoken of a confrontation between herself & Richard when he got in her face & said that she could die. On another occasion, during a social gathering in late summer or early fall of 1998, Miriam spoke to a woman named Leslie Smith. Miriam told Leslie that if she were to get a dime of child support, Richard would kill her. If she got custody of Richie, he would also kill her.
On January 7 there was a contentious court hearing between Richard & Miriam in regards to their finances & one week later, Miriam was found murdered in her own home.
On Friday night, January 15, 1999, Miriam’s sisters, Romaine & Sue had spoken with Miriam & Romaine said that Miriam was pleased that Richard’s girlfriend wasn’t going to be around for a few days. It was Miriam’s hope that the distance would be just the thing for Richard to realize that the relationship with Katherine wasn’t what he wanted afterall. Maybe he would see the light & come back to his family.
During their conversation, Miriam mentioned that Richie wasn’t home as he had just left with Richard at 5 pm for a weekend visit with his sister who lived three hours south of Williamsport.
When Miriam failed to show up to teach Sunday school on January 17th, her neighbors became worried & came over to check on her. When she didn’t answer the door, they peered through the kitchen window & were horrified by what they saw.
After neighbors contacted the police, they gained entrance into the house by kicking in the door. That’s when they discovered Miriam lying face down on the kitchen floor with a cordless phone laying near her body, between her head & shoulder. There was glass on the kitchen counter & a bullet hole in the kitchen window. Miriam had been shot once in the back. Soon after, Richard arrived to drop Richie off after their weekend out of town.
This was when two police officers came out to inform Richard that his wife had been killed. According to Richard, he immediately asked the officers how she had been killed which was when he discovered she had been shot. According to police, however, one of Richard’s first questions was, “What evidence was found?” They found this question to be very interesting at this point.
The autopsy showed that the bullet entered Miriam’s upper back, went into her chest & destroyed multiple vital organs & she would have died within seconds to minutes.
At the time, police were tasked with combing through the evidence & didn’t give much thought to Richard’s question at the time. They found a cigarette butt behind the house as well as what appeared to be a homemade silencer & footprints from a size 14 Reebok basketball shoe.
Investigators first theorized that the murderer snuck along the drainage ditch in order to enter the property through the back. They stopped at the area where the cigarette butt was found, about 70 feet from the house & the killer fired their gun through the only window that had the blinds open. The killer then fled the scene, leaving the silencer behind. Footprints were easily seen in the deep snow on the ground & showed that the killer stopped by a small tree where they would have had a perfect view through the kitchen window where Miriam stood, 73 feet away. Based on the footprints, it could be determined that the shooter was right handed. The tracks started & ended from the road & proved that only one person was involved.
Police went back to the clue of the cordless phone that had been found near Miriam’s body & learned that she had been in the middle of a conversation with a friend who lived in Montana when she was murdered. Her friend was very confused when Miriam suddenly stopped speaking at exactly 10:37 pm according to phone records. Miriam’s friend Mary had called her at 10:10 pm eastern time & the two spoke for twenty five minutes. Suddenly, Mary heard a background noise that sounded like a dish or glass breaking. She then heard Miriam say, “Oh my God” followed by loud moaning. Mary asked Miriam if she was okay, but got no response. It was Mary’s thought that the sounds could have been caused from a third party breaking into their phone call. Mary hung up & when she tried to call Miriam back, she was met with a busy signal & assumed the lines had gone down due to bad weather. Mary called Miriam back the next day & left her a message on her answering machine.
Without that call, investigators would not have been able to determine Miriam’s exact time of death & this ended up being one of the best clues found. It’s likely that the killer had been completely unaware of the fact that Miriam was on the phone at the time of her murder which ended up being a fatal error.
Police now knew exactly when the killer had fired their deadly shot, but now it was time to find out who the killer was. Richard realized that he was a suspect immediately & said that he had a solid alibi for the weekend. He also said that he had no motive to murder Miriam. This was an idea that investigators absolutely did not agree with since money would have been a very strong motive. The couple had yet to begin dividing the property, but already by this time, a judge had ordered Richard to pay Miriam $13,000 per month; $5,500 in child support & $7,800 in spousal support.
Richard claimed that this amount of money was simply no big deal & there was plenty more to go around. In addition to facing financial losses, Richard was also at risk of losing custody of his son. Police knew that as a renowned surgeon, Richard was used to having control in his life & this time, he had lost control of Miriam & his finances.
Richard told police that he & Richie had been on the road at the time that Miriam was murdered. Investigators videotaped & timed the route that Richard said he had taken in both good & bad weather conditions & the numbers were not adding up. Richard stopped at a McDonald 35 miles away from the crime scene. Witnesses confirmed seeing him there but the exact time was unclear. Richard planned to drive to his sister’s house that night, but said that due to the snowy conditions, they stayed at a Hampton Inn on Route 283, arriving at 1 am. He then stayed at his sister’s house on Saturday night & then went to his father’s home on Sunday morning before heading home with Richie.
The one person who may have known the exact truth was 5-year-old Richie who wasn’t interviewed for two years because Richard insisted he had a fear of police. When police did speak with him, Richard insisted that a child psychologist be present & Richie provided little information. One investigator theorized that it was possible that Richard, being a physician who had easy access to narcotics & sedatives, could have medicated his son to sleep as he circled back to Miriam’s house.
This could not be proven & was only speculation as the evidence was lacking. Other than the silencer, cigarette butt & three hairs found in the silencer, there was little else. Those items had been sent off for DNA analysis. One of the earliest leads came from Miriam herself who had made a video inventory of the household possessions in anticipation for the divorce.
Police took note of Richard’s workshop which contained drill presses, saws, grinding & woodworking tools that would have worked perfectly to construct the particular silencer found at the scene of the crime. Richard admitted that he absolutely could have made a silencer but if he had, it would have been far better than the “amateurish” silencer that police found.
After police obtained a search warrant of two homes & a cabin that Richard owned, they found traces of material in his workshop to make even an amateurish silencer. On his nightstand, they also found a book, “They Wrote Their Own Sentences. The FBI Handwriting Analysis Book.” Investigators found this a strange choice of reads for a doctor to have, but the case took an even stranger twist when anonymous letters began arriving.
The first letter was sent to Richard’s attorney & claimed that they killed Miriam, not Richard & they had done so because Miriam was a racist. The letter was signed, “Soldier of God, Soldier of Equality, Soldier of Death.” Miriam’s friends insisted that the idea of Miriam as a racist was absolutely untrue.
Investigators found the letter suspicious & felt that the timing was very coincidental. It had been postmarked four days after Richard found out what police had taken from his home. The letter was also written just as the book found on his nightstand had suggested – in pencil since unlike ink, pencil cannot be tracked. It was also written in block printing which can’t be tied to a person’s other writings.
Four months after the murder, another letter arrived in May of 1999 & this time, the writer talked about themself. The description fit that of Richard’s partner, Dr. Zama. However, Dr Zama had a rock solid alibi & had also been a very good friend of Miriam’s. On top of that, he had absolutely no motive for murder.
It was the police’s belief that the writer was someone whose goal was to methodically leave false clues. One of the letters arrived with a hair stuck to the flap of the envelope & it appeared as if it had been placed there. Both the stamp & the envelope were wetted & not licked. Armed with warrants, police were able to take a sample of Richard’s DNA which did not match the hair from the envelope, the silencer or the cigarette butt. None of the hairs on the silencer matched the other which meant they had all come from different people. The hair attached to the anonymous letter came from someone else as well which added up to five sources of people that were potentially involved in this crime. This led the police to believe that someone was clearly planting evidence to confuse the case.
In the summer of 1999, investigators finally got a break.
It was June 4, 1999 when a fisherman named Matt McKay was walking about 15-20 feet off the road along the route that Richard said he had driven in rural Lycoming County near Route 15, on the night that Miriam was murdered. As Matt walked along the bank of a stream in search of minnows, he tripped over what he initially believed was a piece of driftwood, but on closer inspection, he realized it was a gun. Once investigators were notified, they had no doubt in their minds that this was the murder weapon.
The weapon was a rare savage 23D rifle with the serial number wiped away. The gun was last sold in 1949 before records were kept. It was loaded with a sawed off barrel & stock. Now investigators had to see if the rifle could be tied to Richard, who had a long history with guns. By the fall of 1999, investigators were sure that it was Richard who had used his hunting skills to murder his wife.
One year after the rifle was found, investigators came across a photo of Richard’s late grandfather, Joe Kowalski, who had taught Richard how to hunt. After Joe’s passing, he left many guns to Richard. In the photo, Joe was holding a groundhog in one hand & a rifle in the other. The rifle he held looked just like the murder weapon which ended up being the biggest break in the case.
Two months later, police found a pair of Reebok basketball shoes in the woods which matched those of the prints that were found at the crime scene. They were very close to where the gun had been found which were both a quarter mile from the route that Richard said he took that night.
The DA still felt that there just wasn’t enough evidence to arrest Richard, who, six months after Miriam was murdered, married his girlfriend. In November of 2000, Richard relocated to Laredo, Texas for a job as a heart surgeon in a hospital very close to the Mexican border. When this job didn’t pan out, Richard moved to Spokane, Washington where he applied for a position at a heart surgery practice.
The administrator of the practice, Cathy Austin, received an anonymous package that was filled with newspaper articles & a letter warning anyone of hiring Richard. Basically any place of employment where Richard was trying to work, received this package. Cathy turned Richard down for the position. Some believe that these may have been sent by Miriam’s family.
Soon, Richard’s wife divorced him & he seemed to fall off the grid within the world of heart surgery until he resurfaced in Spokane, now as a cosmetic surgeon. In the meantime, Spokane police were tracking Richard both day & night at the request of Pennsylvania investigators. In December of 2002, investigators believed that they had sufficient circumstantial evidence to make an arrest.
The plan was for plainclothes detectives to quietly make the arrest while Richard was at his office, but Richard was initially able to elude his pursuers. He was soon spotted again & followed onto the freeway; as Richard entered downtown Spokane, he pulled over.
Four years had passed since Miriam was killed when Richard was sent back to Williamsport & charged with Miriam’s murder.
During the trial the prosecution presented that the motive for murder was for Richard to avoid a messy divorce where he was at risk of losing both money & his son. Richard felt that the evidence clearly pointed to someone else since the murderer wore a size 14 shoe while he wore a size 9.5. He also pointed out that the DNA on the cigarette didn’t match him nor would he have left the silencer at the crime scene as evidence. He also said he would have never written the anonymous letters for fear of leaving DNA behind.
Richard also claimed to have never seen the gun. However, when his Spokane home was searched, a manuscript was located on his computer that was titled, “Heart Shot: Murder of The Doctor’s Wife.” The characters in the book even had the same names as those in the real murder investigation. In the manuscript, Richard described his life with Miriam & also alluded to potential suspects for the murder. He spoke about the killer & speculated about their thought process. The story describes that the killer had gone to Miriam’s house multiple times & was waiting for the right time. It wasn’t until the seventh night that the killer had gone to Miriam’s house that she was murdered. He even described what the killer had done that night; steadied the rifle on the limb of the tree as Miriam spoke on the phone, having ten minutes to flee the area, his car being parked down the street & even discarding the cigarette butt in the snow before the shooting.
When Richard was questioned as to why he would write the book from the killer’s perspective, he said he felt that it would generate more interest & widespread knowledge of the actual facts of the case. During the trial, the jury learned that Richard had been given the rifle through an inheritance in the summer before Miriam’s murder.
Richard never took the stand during his five week trial. After 2.5 days of deliberation, the jury came back with their verdict. Richard Illes was found guilty of first-degree murder. Investigators were thrilled since this point was five years in the making. Richard was sentenced to life in prison.
The investigators on this case acknowledged that Richard was an exceptionally intelligent man, likely smarter than any single individual on the case. However, he was not smarter than all of them together.
One week after his conviction, Richard attempted suicide by gouging his wrists with a paper clip. He has since made numerous appeals, all of which have been denied. Richie went on to live with relatives & has no contact with his father.
There is no happy ending in this case, but Miriam’s family is thankful that they have resolution & justice in this case & Richie would be provided an opportunity for a bright future where he is supported & loved.
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