STROUDSBURG - Hours before he broke into the offices of Reeders United Methodist Church in Jackson Twp., sat down at then-pastor Arthur Burton Schirmer's desk and shot himself in the head, Joseph Musante called the cleric's boss.
"He was calling to make a complaint ⦠and alleged that the pastor was having an affair with his wife," the Rev. Bronwyn Yocum testified at Mr. Schirmer's murder trial on Friday.
At the time of the Oct. 28, 2008, call the Rev. Yocum was serving as Mr. Schirmer's supervisor within the United Methodist Church's Northeast District.
"He wanted to have something done about it," she said of Mr. Musante.
Mr. Schirmer, 64, is on trial in Monroe County for the murder of his second wife, Betty Jean Schirmer, who died about three months prior to Mr. Musante's suicide. Mr. Schirmer is accused of beating the woman to death, loading her into their PT Cruiser and staging a car crash on Route 715 shortly before 2 a.m. on July 15, 2008, to cover up the crime.
As the trial concluded its first week Friday, Mr. Schirmer was also awaiting trial in Lebanon County for the 1999 murder of his first wife, Jewel Schirmer, which investigators claim he made appear like the woman died in a fall down stairs.
Over a series of phone calls the Rev. Yocum had that afternoon in October 2008 with Mr. Musante, Mr. Schirmer and her boss, Bishop Peggy Johnson, the then-district superintendent arranged to have Mr. Musante come to her Allentown office the next morning to write out a formal compliant against Mr. Schirmer and send it to Bishop Johnson.
"I never received it," the bishop of the United Methodist Church's Eastern Pennsylvania Conference would later testify when she took the stand Friday.
In fact, Mr. Musante never made the trip to Allentown.
Instead, at some point before the next morning, the carpenter smashed out a door window at the office of the Reeders church, sat behind the desk he built himself in the pastor's office and killed himself with a .380 Beretta.
As an image of Mr. Musante's corpse appeared on the monitor in front of him Friday, Mr. Schirmer closed his eyes and put his head in his hands as retired state police Trooper Phillip Barletto explained that the pastor's former congregant "ended up putting the gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger."
The apparent agitation made for a dramatic contrast to Mr. Schirmer's staid composure throughout the first three days of testimony.
Since testimony began Tuesday, the accused murderer had appeared stoic if not sleepy until the suicide scene appeared before him. He fidgeted - closing his eyes, looking down, glancing at the image only to shut his eyes again and put a hand to his forehead.
According to Monroe County First District Attorney Michael Mancuso, when Mr. Musante ended his own life he effectively began the investigation into the deaths of both of Mr. Schirmer's wives.
That and the persistence of Mr. Musante's older sister, Rose Cobb, in seeking out an inquiry with both the church and law enforcement into all three deaths ultimately resulted in the Monroe County investigation, which spawned the Lebanon County investigation.
After Mr. Musante's suicide, Mr. Schirmer - who admitted to Bishop Johnson that he had a non-physical relationship with Mr. Musante's wife, Cindy Musante - was told to take a health leave to "take a deep breath and let the investigation proceed," Bishop Johnson testified.
About two weeks later, in November 2008, Mr. Schirmer resigned from the church, Bishop Johnson testified.
Earlier Friday, Mr. Mancuso, the prosecutor, called several witnesses to the stand to testify about their involvement in the testing of DNA found in the blood recovered from the garage at the Reeders parsonage, where the Schirmers lived at the time of Betty Jean's death.
State police investigators found several bloodstains in the garage floor which appeared to lead in a trail to the location of the PT Cruiser's front passenger door.
Among those witnesses was Dr. John Planz of the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Dr. Planz concluded that after analyzing blood samples from other family members, it was it was extremely likely the blood in the garage came from Mrs. Shirmer.
Blood taken from the garage could not be compared directly to a sample taken from Mrs. Schirmer as her husband had her body cremated the day after her death.
The bulk of Friday's testimony centered again on the crash Mr. Schirmer claims killed his wife.
State Police Trooper Todd Tolan, of the agency's Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Specialists unit, created a series of computer animations of the crash at various speeds combining information gleaned from interviews with Mr. Schirmer and data compiled by state police Sgt. Douglas Shook, who completed an accident reconstruction several months after the crash.
The first animation screened in court showed the PT Cruiser moving at a consistent speed of 55 mph - the speed Mr. Schirmer claimed to have been driving - without any braking, as no evidence of braking was discovered at the scene.
In the animation, the vehicle does not stop when it hits the guardrail along Route 715, as it did in reality.
Rather, the vehicle drives over the impediment and continues on for about 100 feet beyond it.
A second animation depicted the vehicle beginning at 40 mph about 150 feet from the guardrail with its speed diminishing over the trip as if the driver's foot was taken off the gas, Trooper Tolan testified.
In that animation the vehicle again drives through the guardrail and continues for about 20 feet beyond it.
Finally, an animation depicting the vehicle traveling at 20 mph - a speed consistent with the accident reconstruction data - showed the crash as it apparently did occur, with the vehicle stopping at the guardrail.
Trooper Carl Mease, a state police vehicle fraud investigator, inspected the PT Cruiser after the crash to determine if any mechanical defects in the vehicle could have contributed to the crash.
He did not find any that did, he testified, but he did see something surprising about the vehicle - it was still in working condition.
"I've never seen that before - a vehicle that's been involved in a fatal accident has never been driven in," he testified Friday, adding later that "I couldn't believe it."
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleytt on Twitter