Narrator: Up next, the quiet of the Pennsylvania countryside
is shattered by gunfire.
You had a murder in a church in broad daylight.
Woman: In my church!!
Shocking. Absolutely shocking.
Narrator: A horrified community
looks for answers and finds none.
It's the kind of stuff that books
and horror movies are made out of.
Narrator: Police have no suspects and few clues.
There was very little forensic evidence for them to go on,
and then they hit the jackpot.
♪♪
Narrator: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran church
in rural eastern Pennsylvania is one of the oldest
and best-preserved churches in the region,
dating all the way back to 1763.
Mullane: Trinity Lutheran predates the revolution.
You can walk through their cemetery
and see the old limestone.
You can barely read the names on it.
And it's still a very active parish,
even after a couple hundred years.
Narrator: The center of the community for generations,
the church is nestled
in the rolling countryside of Bucks County,
a getaway destination for people from New York to Philadelphia
and points in between.
Zellis: It's a throwback to yesteryear.
People didn't worry about any crime.
Neighbors knew each other.
Kids played in the backyards.
Narrator: But that all changed on a January afternoon in 2008.
The church's cleaning lady arrived shortly after 1:00.
Mullane: She opens the door to the church office,
and at first, she doesn't see anything
until she approaches the desk.
There's blood all over the place,
and she places this hysterical 911 call
to Bucks County dispatch.
[ Siren wails ]
Narrator: Even before paramedics arrived,
the cleaning lady gave investigators a potential clue.
In the church office,
paramedics found a woman on the floor,
barely alive, apparently shot at point-blank range.
The fatal bullet or bullets -- police couldn't tell yet --
had been fired at such close range,
they'd actually shredded.
When we heard about the shooting at the church,
it was almost bewildering to imagine something like that
happening at that church in that community.
Narrator: The victim died
minutes after arriving at the hospital.
Her name was Rhonda Smith.
42 years old and single, she was a relatively new member
of the church congregation,
respected and, apparently, liked by everyone.
She came from a nice family, but she had had her problems.
She had suffered from depression.
Narrator: Whoever wanted Rhonda dead
apparently knew where she was going to be and when
and came in with only one purpose -- murder.
Mullane: We know it wasn't a random attack
because there was an execution-style shot
in her temple that was done in anger.
That person, the killer, wanted Rhonda Smith dead.
Narrator: But who? And why?
Was there something about Rhonda Smith
that her fellow parishioners didn't know?
So many questions, but one thing was not in doubt.
A cold-blooded killer was lurking somewhere
in this normally peaceful community.
♪♪
Narrator: Rural eastern Pennsylvania
doesn't see a lot of murders,
and the area around Trinity Lutheran Church
had never seen the type of execution killing
that claimed the life of church member Rhonda Smith.
[ Gunshot ]
Zellis: This was not a robbery situation.
She was specifically targeted, for whatever reason,
and that was the key to finding out who did it --
what was the motive for doing this?
Narrator: The autopsy showed two bullets had been fired
at close range --
so close that Rhonda had attempted to defend herself.
The gun was not at the scene.
But even though the fatal bullets
had shredded upon impact, ballistics experts were able
to determine the murder weapon was a .38-caliber handgun.
The murder happened so fast,
the killer left no clues besides the bullets at the scene,
and in an area this rural, there were no security cameras.
The timing of the murder was key.
They were looking for someone who knew Rhonda Smith
was in that office on that day at that hour.
Narrator: The problem was
that as far as police could determine,
only two people knew --
the church pastor, who was apparently out of town,
and the church council president.
Both unlikely killers, but their whereabouts
for the time of the murder still needed to be checked out.
Zellis: The pastor had a unique background.
He was a golf pro.
He toured around playing golf,
and then he left that lifestyle and became a pastor to a church
located really in the middle of Nowheresville.
Narrator: Police got a possible clue
while trying to determine the time of the shooting.
Rhonda was found shortly after 1:00.
A search of the church computer showed
she was online until around 11:00.
This created a time window for the shooting
and also revealed something about Rhonda.
Zellis: We seized the computer,
sent it to the forensic computer analysts.
They were able to give us exactly what Rhonda was doing
on the Internet in the moments before she was shot.
Narrator: And what she was doing was searching a dating website.
Rhonda's search for romance was something of a new start
after a couple of very difficult years.
She was diagnosed as being bipolar.
She got help for that, but it set her back,
and it was a debilitating mental illness for her
that she fortunately found a church
and found a community that welcomed her with open arms
and actually gave her a lot of assistance,
both financially and also emotionally.
Narrator: Because of that help,
Rhonda had recently moved out of her parents' house
and was on her own for the first time in years.
In fact, the pastor gave her the job as church secretary
to help her with money.
Zellis: Approximately 10 days before her murder,
she got up during church services
and she wanted to thank all the members of the congregation
for what they had done for her and how much it meant to her.
She loved this church, and we loved her.
We embraced her, and she embraced us.
Narrator: A beautiful moment shattered by nagging suspicions
that a church member could also be her killer.
So, the tension in the church after, you know,
the process of elimination and figuring out
that it could be somebody within the community,
somebody within the church, everybody was on edge.
Narrator: Police confronted the pastor
with a pointed question --
was there anyone in his congregation
who might have done this?
There's no question that the pastor
was in a very difficult situation.
Narrator: A situation that would become even more difficult
when police discovered
a long-simmering romantic obsession.
And that's when I think they started to develop the idea
of possibly being a rebuked love interest.
♪♪
Narrator: The only people who appear to know
where Rhonda Smith would be at the time of her murder --
the pastor and the church council president --
had solid alibis.
Still, the church community was reeling.
Mullane: It's not only that it was a murder --
it was probably the worst kind because it was a murder mystery,
and in a small town, nobody knew who among them was the killer.
Narrator: The shocked pastor was asked about concerns
he might have about any member of his congregation.
Reluctantly, he named longtime parishioner Mary Jane Fonder.
Applebaum: Mary Jane had said something to him like,
"I know what's going on between us.
I can feel it. You can feel it, too."
Mullane: And this really freaks him out,
and he asks her to leave the church.
Narrator: Despite this rebuff,
Mary Jane regularly put food in the pastor's refrigerator
and left long, rambling messages on his voicemail.
Zellis: And they would just go on and on and on.
He got to the point he wouldn't listen to them,
and this was just, like, a daily occurrence.
Whatever conversation you started,
she would take down three garden paths
and then make a right turn and continue.
Mary Jane Fonder never had
a meaningful romantic relationship in her life,
and she develops a crush on the pastor.
Narrator: And that pastor was helping Rhonda Smith
by giving her part-time work at the church.
Applebaum: Mary Jane had uttered some disgruntled words about,
"Why is she being favored over me?
I've done all this volunteer work.
I'm the one that's been here,
and no one's done anything for me."
Narrator: But this was hardly proof of murder,
and Mary Jane had no criminal history.
However, she was linked
to yet another extraordinarily strange case.
14 years earlier, her father disappeared without a trace
from the home they shared.
Mary Jane Fonder came on our radar in 1993
with the disappearance of her father
when she reported him missing.
He was 80 years old and had two hip replacements.
He needed a cane to walk.
He didn't walk away.
Narrator: Despite a massive search
with helicopters, bloodhounds,
and even ground-penetrating radar,
no sign of Edward Fonder has ever been found.
Triol: They dug up the basement,
they dug up areas around the house,
to no avail, with nothing found there at the property,
but he's out there somewhere.
Narrator: Back then, police thought Mary Jane Fonder
might have had something to do with her father's disappearance,
but they couldn't prove it.
Now they thought she might have killed Rhonda Smith,
and they had the same problem -- no proof.
In terms of physical evidence, in the church, we have nothing.
All we have is we have a body, and we don't have a gun.
Narrator: But there was one piece of potential evidence --
the missing murder weapon.
Ballistics showed it was a .38-caliber,
and Mary Jane once owned a .38-caliber.
She told police she got rid of it
after people started connecting her
to her father's disappearance.
Mullane: Mary Jane told people that the reporters
and the police started showing up at her house
asking those questions about,
you know, her involvement in her father's disappearance,
and she went to the lake and threw it away.
Narrator: Investigators weren't so sure.
Ultimately, we were able to put together enough
for a search warrant of her car.
Narrator: And that turned up
the first piece of possible evidence --
gunshot residue.
This is created anytime a gun is fired.
The explosion that propels the bullet creates gas
that inevitably blows back
over the hand and clothing of the shooter.
Gunshot residue is comparable to flour that you spill.
You clean it up, but you never clean it.
It's never gone. It seems like it's always there.
Narrator: And sure enough,
there were minute traces of gunshot residue
in Mary Jane's car, but there was a problem.
We did quite an extensive amount of research,
and apparently,
the most prevalent place for gunshot residue,
other than the range where people go to shoot their guns,
is the police station.
Narrator: And since analysts didn't completely clean up
before the search of Mary Jane's car,
the defense could argue
that they put the gunshot residue there,
and that meant the investigation was back to square one.
Until something strange happened --
something many church members later called an act of God.
♪♪
Narrator: Mary Jane Fonder appeared to be
the only person with a motive to kill Rhonda Smith,
who she apparently considered a rival
for the affections of their church pastor.
Rhonda Smith was a single woman.
The pastor was single at the time.
Mary Jane Fonder thought he was hers.
Mary Jane was not right in the head.
Narrator: But despite an intensive investigation,
police still had no solid evidence.
The greatest worry on my part and also on the investigators'
was that we would never be able to solve this case.
And things were looking bleak, to be honest with you.
Narrator: Then, nine weeks after the murder,
a local man was fishing with his son at a lake
just 14 miles from the site of the murder,
when they made an unusual discovery.
Mullane: The boy, he was 7 or 8 years old.
He's walking along the shore of the lake, and he finds a gun.
His father takes it home and calls the police.
They run the serial number, and there you go.
It's Mary Jane Fonder's gun.
Zellis: Analysis confirmed that the gun
was the gun that was used in the murder of Rhonda Smith.
It's a prosecutor's dream.
I mean, they think they have it.
Narrator: With the gun in hand,
prosecutors finally had enough to search Mary Jane's house.
They didn't find any direct evidence,
but they did find something unusual in her day planner.
There was a block for the date of the murder,
and she had written in, "Rhonda Smith murdered."
And underneath that was haircut appointment.
Narrator: As odd as this was, it didn't prove murder,
and Mary Jane stuck to her story
that she threw the gun in the lake 14 years earlier.
Her story was anybody could have gotten that gun
and used that gun to kill Rhonda Smith.
Narrator: In the end, it all came down to the gun.
Prosecutors had to find a way to prove
how long the gun had been in the water
and turned to Dr. David Rusak,
an analytical chemist at the University of Scranton.
The task was to determine the maximum length of time
which the gun could have been exposed to the water.
Narrator: To do this, Dr. Rusak used
a high-speed chemical analysis process
called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS.
A pulsed laser is focused onto the surface of a sample,
and when the laser strikes the sample,
it vaporizes a small portion of it and creates a spark.
Narrator: The laser is so powerful --
more than 10,000 degrees Celsius --
that these tiny sparks expose the unique chemical composition
of almost any sample.
Rusak: And the light from the spark is collected
by a spectrometer and photographed,
and the photograph then gives you an idea
of the composition of the sample that was struck by the laser.
Narrator: In this case, the gun had what's known as blued steel,
a protective coating that gave the gun its black color.
The LIBS analysis showed that the bluing on this gun
was unusually thin.
As a result, if the gun had been in the water for 14 years,
it would show a lot more corrosion.
There's no way that gun
laid in the bottom of a lake for 14 years,
and we know that because there was no signs
of corrosion on the weapon.
♪♪
Narrator: Prosecutors say the tipping point for Mary Jane
was when Rhonda Smith got in front of the congregation
and gave a tearful thank-you for all their help.
That and the church pastor offering Rhonda work
was simply too much,
and Mary Jane put her plan for murder into action.
As an active member of the church,
she had a good idea of when Rhonda worked,
simply drove to the church, walked into the office,
and shot her at point-blank range.
Then she made her haircut appointment
in an attempt to establish an alibi
and threw the murder weapon into the lake on the way home.
Her key mistake --
she didn't throw it far enough into the water.
The gun is the holy grail of this case.
Had they not found that gun, Mary Jane Fonder would not
have been arrested and charged with Rhonda Smith's murder.
It's as simple as that.
Never shot Rhonda. I never killed that woman.
Narrator: As the trial progressed,
prosecutors got yet another surprise.
Zellis: The lead trooper in the case whispers in my ear,
"Hey, Dave, she's wearing Rhonda's sneakers."
And sure enough, she was wearing Rhonda Smith's sneakers.
Narrator: Oddly enough, Mary Jane got the sneakers
from Rhonda's parents after she'd gone to their house
to express condolences about Rhonda's murder.
Mrs. Smith looks down and sees
that she's wearing these beat-up old-time galoshes
and says to her, "Listen, my daughter --
I have brand-new sneakers upstairs.
Let me give them to you."
Narrator: And in an ironic twist to an already strange case,
Mary Jane wore them to court.
Zellis: What kind of a person would do that
when you're there charged with murder of Rhonda Smith?
And that's somebody who has ice running through their veins.
It was as cold as you can imagine.
Reporter: Are you worried about
spending the rest of your life in prison?
Fonder: It doesn't sound appealing.
Narrator: In October of 2008,
Mary Jane Fonder was convicted of first-degree murder
and sentenced to life in prison.
She died behind bars of a heart attack 10 years later.
This one boils down to the fact
that a woman who looks like a grandmother
and has a kind face and a giving nature,
you would never suppose would be jealous to the point
where she would want to kill another parishioner
who was also down on her luck
and looking for friends and to be part of a community.
She walked in the church that day with a gun in her hand,
and there were no questions asked.
It was kaboom, kaboom.
I'd like to say hello to my congregation,
and I miss them all.
And I'm praying for everybody.
Mullane: It was all an act.
You want to see the real Mary Jane Fonder?
You take a look at her prison mug shot.
Because you look at her, she's looking right at you,
and she's gonna kill you.
She's gonna take you out.