Cops solve cold case in rape-murder of 9-year-old girl in church choir loft in 1962

A serial rapist was identified this week as the monster who raped and killed a 9-year-old girl in the choir loft of a Catholic church in Pennsylvania, closing a cold case that vexed authorities and tormented the victim’s family since 1962.

William Schrader, who was 20 when he killed ittle Carol Ann Dougherty, lived not far from the church and had been dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. While he was long considered the primary suspect in Carol Ann’s death, authorities never had enough evidence to put him away for it.

Dougherty was riding her bike on Oct. 22, 1962, on her way to the library to return a pair of books, but she stopped off at St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Bristol to pray. The fifth grader was found by her father, beaten to death.

“I stand before you with profound sorrow but with such gratitude,” said Dougherty’s only surviving relative, younger sister Kay Talanca, at a Wednesday press conference. “Because of you my family has the truth it has sought for six decades. Though nothing can bring Carol back, we can finally let her rest in peace, the truth revealed.”

Talanca thanked a local reporter and a podcaster for keeping the case in the public eye.

Investigators said the evidence they needed to pin the crime on Schrader came a year ago from his stepson, Robert LeBlanc.

Before his 2002 death at 62 in a Louisiana prison, Schrader confessed to the heinous crime during a conversation with LeBlanc, who contacted authorities in the fall of 2024. Schrader claimed he murdered a girl in Pennsylvania, fearful she would report him for the rape if he let her live.

The case was closed through eyewitness accounts, Schrader’s confession, and a recent DNA match on a hair recovered from Carol Ann’s clenched fist, according to Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn.

A grand jury was presented with the evidence and concurred “the investigation only allows the conclusion” Schrader raped and murdered Carol Ann.

“While Schrader passed away in 2002, his name is now definitively linked to the crime that took Carol Ann’s young life, a conclusion reached through the combination of decades-old evidence and recent investigative developments,” said Schorn.

Detectives initially focused their murder investigation on three individuals —  Frank Zuchero, Wayne Roach, and the St. Mark’s pastor, Rev. Joseph Sabadish — who they eventually cleared through verified alibis.

After the Dougherty murder, Schrader moved to Louisiana and got married, but eventually raped his wife’s disabled daughters as well as two girls the couple fostered.

At the time of his death, Schrader was serving a 21-year sentence for a horrific Halloween 1970 manslaughter and arson at the home he shared with his wife, Audrey, in Louisiana.

Schrader attacked his wife during an argument in the home and was kicked out by her in early 1970. He vowed to return and “burn the house down and kill all the bitches inside it,” as he gathered up his things, NBC Philadelphia reported.

He set fire to the home hours later, and one of the couple’s foster children, Catherine Smith, died protecting her younger sister.