On October 7, 2007, an article appeared in the Carlisle Sentinel describing a memorial event for Elaine Pierson, the victim of the brutal murder committed by Rochelle Laudenslager in late December 2006.
In early January, 2007, the community of Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, was rocked by the arrest of Rochelle Laudenslager, who was raised there and had graduated from Upper Dauphin Area High School in the 1970s. She was charged with the first-degree murder of Elaine Pierson, whose body was found in a ditch in Perry County. The murder weapon was found hidden in the attic of Laudenslager’s mother’s house in Gratz. Prosecutors sought the death penalty because evidence showed that Pierson was subjected to torture in the process of being killed by Laudenslager. The story that came out over time was that Laudenslager and Pierson were former lovers and that Laudenslager was trying to get back together with Pierson, but Pierson was already in a relationship with another woman.
In a nine-part series of blog posts, the story of the murder, the investigation, the charges, and the eventual sentencing is told as it appeared in the pages of the Carlisle Sentinel. Because of the pain caused to Pierson’s many friends and neighbors as well as the recency of the crime, their names have been omitted from the story.
At the present time, Rochelle Laudenslager has served about half of the minimum of her 30 to 60 year sentence in state prison.
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Part 9 of 9 – Epilogue
From the Carlisle Sentinel, October 7, 2007:
PIERSON MEMORIAL EVENT SET FOR OCTOBER 27
By Heather Stauffer, Sentinel Reporter
Like its namesake, the upcoming Elaine Pierson Memorial Scholarship vent in Harrisburg will be active.
“Elaine has very distinct communities in her life, which just talks to who she was,” says… a high school and college teammate of Pierson’s who started the memorial fund after Pierson was killed last year. “She just brought everybody into her life.”
[The friend] says, since the first event was in Perry County, where Pierson lived, she decided to hold the second one in Harrisburg, where Pierson had many friends. Scheduled from 7 to 10 p. p. on October 27 [2007] at Cornerstone Coffee House at Techport… Harrisburg, it will include music by guitarist and singer Janie Womak and a door prize raffle.
“I am right now talking to vendors for a silent auction,” [she] says adding that she’s also working on getting a massage therapist to attend and offer chair massages. “It will be active.”
[She] says that she’s hoping for good weather so the event can be held outdoors. No cover charge will be assessed, but donations will be accepted to benefit the fund, which will eventually provide three full scholarships a year for female athletes at Lock Haven University.
Pierson, [she] says, was a tenacious athlete who played both field hockey and lacrosse at Lock Haven. Off the field Pierson was “sweet hearted,” [she] says, but on the field she was always glad that she didn’t have to compete against her.
Future fund-raisers [she] is planning include a golf tournament and an EP — “Everlasting Peace” — logo for athletic clothing, she says….
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Obituaries
Betty Laudenslager died at age 90, on September 25, 2014, at the Harrisburg Hospital. Her obituary stated that Gov. Tom Ridge had presented her with a Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame Award for voting in every November election for the past 50 years. Her daughter Rochelle Laudenslager “of Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania,” was named as a survivor. Cambridge Springs is the site of a State Correctional Institution for Women.
The original owner of the gun used in the murder was Rochelle’s father, Henry Laudenslager, who had died on March 31, 1986, age 66, at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Lebanon. When he died, he was the Mayor of Gratz and had previously been a member of the Gratz Borough Council. He was a World War II Army veteran.
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News articles and photo obtained through Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.