A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder

by Gregg Olsen

There was a shanty near the store that looked like an outhouse but housed a telephone. The structures are a common sight—the Amish share phones to conduct farm business or reach family members in other communities. There was also a portable toilet outside the store. The jurors saw two sheds and the barn where Eli stored feed. The prosecution would tell them it had been the scene of trysts between Eli and one of his lovers.

  Some members of the jury may have been inside an Amish home before. Although they live different lives, the Amish and the English (what the Amish call the non-Amish) live among one another and do business with each other. For 250 years the Amish had farmed Wayne County, Ohio. Until the middle of the twentieth century, all Amish farmed. Today, only one-quarter do. Nonfarmwork pays better than farming, and since the 1970s, farmland has been scarcer. Cornfields have been turned into Walmarts.

  More and more Amish have turned to nonfarming occupations to support their families. While many do get jobs working for non-Amish business owners, where Pennsylvania Dutch–speaking Amish employees rub shoulders with English coworkers building gazebos and storage sheds, others have become entrepreneurs and moved into a variety of nonagricultural enterprises.

  The Amish are worried about the move away from farming. As one bishop said, “The lunch pail is the greatest threat to our way of life.”

  The English, in turn, sometimes work for the Amish. It’s common for the Amish to hire an English man or woman to drive them long distances or to places where it is not practical to take a horse and buggy. Eli Weaver regularly hired an English woman to drive him on business and pleasure trips.

  Now that they had seen the house where Barbara Weaver was murdered, the jury would hear one question repeatedly: Who would kill a young wife and mother with her children sleeping nearby?

  3

  Sisters

  This isn’t the end of it. When Satan gets hold of a person, he isn’t going to let go easily.

  —A SKEPTICAL BARBARA WEAVER TO A NEIGHBOR, ON ELI’S RETURN HOME AFTER LIVING AS ENGLISH

  Few people knew as much about the Weaver marriage as Fannie Troyer did. Barbara’s sister would be invaluable in the early days of the investigation. She was at the murder scene minutes after her sister’s body was found.

  Fannie and Barbara Miller grew up near Orrville, Ohio, a town of about eight thousand and home since 1897 to the J.M. Smucker Company, maker of jams, jellies, and ice cream toppings. (“With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good!”) The sisters—Fannie was the big sister—and their two brothers grew up members of the Andy Weaver Amish. The conservative Amish group adheres to beliefs about driving, hair length, men’s facial hair (mustaches are forbidden), and electricity. The differences between Amish sects can be mindboggling. The Swartzentruber Amish—the most conservative Amish—paint their barns red, believing white is too flashy. The Andy Weaver group falls between the ultraconservative Swartzentruber Amish and the more progressive Old Order Amish.

  Locally, members of Andy Weaver are known as Dan Gmay (pronounced Gamay), literally “Dan Church.” After the split from the Old Order in 1952, led by Andy Weaver, all the ministers in one district had the first name of Dan, and the nickname took and has continued.

  There have been ugly, bitter church schisms in Wayne and Holmes Counties, usually over issues of how the different sects view excommunication, education, and the use of barns and modern-day conveniences.

  The Amish first settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s after fleeing persecution in Switzerland over their beliefs as Anabaptists, Christians who believe in adult baptism, separation of church and state, and nonviolence. In Europe, the Amish had alienated both Catholics and Protestants with their views on adult baptism. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Amish attended public schools in America. But when school consolidation began, with the pressure to bus students to large public schools and a growing emphasis on extracurricular activities that cut into the time young people could be with family, the Amish established their own schools.

  Barbara and Fannie attended an Amish school through eighth grade, then left—as most Amish do—to help with housework and farm chores and prepare for their most important roles: wife and mother. More education, the Amish fear, could lead to the demise of the church.

  Amish children have been called “the most cheerfully obedient” of children. There’s a strong work ethic, with boys helping their fathers with the farm and girls helping their mothers in the kitchen. Families sit down and eat meals together.

  There are no television or video games to distract young people or their parents, but it’s not unusual for Amish youth today to have cell phones, or for boys to own a truck.

  Barbara wasn’t one to test boundaries, though she could have when she was a teenager. During Rumspringa—defined as a period of “running around”—life for Amish teenagers is a gray area. They’re becoming more independent and forming friendships with peers away from their family. Because they are not yet baptized, they are not technically under the church’s Ordnung. This period may last from age sixteen until a young adult is in his or her mid-twenties and decides to either become baptized into the church and accept the Ordnung or leave the Amish faith. Many, like Barbara, don’t stray too far from their parents’ teachings, but some formerly cheerfully obedient children test their newfound freedom by going to parties, trying alcohol or drugs, watching races at the Wayne County Speedway, wearing nontraditional clothing, or driving a car. Most youth do eventually choose to remain with the Amish Church, but an estimated 10 to 15 percent leave, maybe because they want to have a car or conveniences or pursue an education, are drawn to more charismatic churches, or are gay or lesbian. No one knows what percentage eventually return.

  There was never any doubt that Barbara would remain Amish. She spent her Rumspringa years at slumber parties with her friends, eating pizza and reading romance novels featuring Amish girls. Barbara’s friend Ruby Mast (now Hofstetter) was a big reader and would share her books. They read the House of Winslow series by Gilbert Morris, which traces a fictional family from their arrival on the Mayflower to the 1940s. They also passed back and forth Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High books, and Christian romances by Lori Wick.

  “Barbara was very friendly, supernice, not shy, but kind of laid-back,” Ruby said.

  Ruby’s mother, Ella Kay Mast, remembers the girls staying up all night, giggling, playing Rook, and, in the winter, sledding and ice-skating. “Barbara was like a daughter to me.”

  The girls lost touch when Ruby’s mother divorced her father. Ruby and her mother left the Amish life. “I was kind of shunned. Her parents would not have encouraged her to stay friends with me. They would be afraid I would be a bad influence,” said Ruby, now married and the mother of two sons. She occasionally ran into Barbara where most Amish and formerly Amish meet—at Walmart. Ruby never met Eli.

  Twenty million tourists visit Amish communities each year, largely thanks to the 1985 movie Witness and the long, sultry looks exchanged between a Philadelphia cop played by Harrison Ford and the Amish widow, played by Kelly McGillis, whose farm he hides on. Tours selling nostalgia—a reminder of when life was simpler in America—stop at Amish-owned produce stands and stores offering handmade quilts.

  The simple life, or what tourists think Amish life is like, appeals to stressed-out visitors who fantasize about living a slower life. They see the peaceful farmland, clusters of white houses, windmills that power pumps for well water, families walking together, boys with suspenders and straw hats, girls in long dresses and bonnets, and buggies. Tour-bus drivers routinely ask their customers how many of them wish they lived without TVs, cell phones, and other daily distractions. Everyone raises their hands, then they return to checking their cell phones.

  The Amish arrived in Ohio in 1809, about a hundred years after settling Pennsylvania, and the largest Amish population in the world now straddles two counties in Ohio.

  Holmes County, to the south of Wayne County, is more scenic, wi
th rolling hills and cute stores for tourists who wander through towns named Charm, Sugarcreek, and Mount Hope. Wayne County is flatter, less woodsy, and not as tidy or prosperous-looking. There are more Swartzentrubers, the most conservative of the Amish, in Wayne County, and their houses are not the source of pride they are for other Amish. There’s a stark look to them and they lack the well-kept yards and landscaping seen at other Amish homes. In place of flowers, there are overgrown grass, weeds, and muddy driveways.

  The northern, non-Amish end of Wayne County has more crime, too.

  There is less tourism in Wayne County, but what there is, is important. The biggest tourist draw is Lehman’s Hardware in Kidron. Lehman’s is 32,000 square feet spread out in four pre–Civil War buildings and sells the trappings of the simple life—woodstoves, butter churns, oil lamps, and tools—to the Amish and non-Amish. They also sell to aid workers or missionaries going to third-world countries, and to movie studios and TV producers who need authentic props.

  In addition to being the base of Smucker’s, Wayne County was the home of Rubbermaid, founded in 1920 originally to manufacture toy balloons. A dustpan changed everything in 1933, and since then the company has been making trash cans, laundry baskets, food storage containers, and hundreds of other items for the home. It moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 2003.

  One of the largest employers of the Amish is Pioneer Equipment, which manufactures horse-drawn carts and accoutrements and ships all over the world. Nowhere is there a more iconic image—a horse and buggy sharing the road with SUVs—than in Amish Country.

  The Amish don’t take or pose for photographs (though tourists do take photos from a distance), so there are no pictures of Barbara Weaver, but a childhood friend of Barbara’s remembers her as sweet, with a round face and hazel eyes, friendly and warm and “very approachable.” She was “devoted” and “happy where she was.” Like other Amish women, Barbara had probably never had her long hair trimmed. She looked slender, but her autopsy described her as a sturdy five feet eight and 172 pounds.

  Barbara had known Eli Weaver since they were children. He was outspoken but likable, and began to spend more time with Barbara when they were eighteen or nineteen. Barbara wanted what she saw other happy Amish women had: a mature, responsible husband and father who would provide for his family. At the time, Eli seemed to fit the bill.

  Eli was also a member of the Andy Weaver group. Eli’s father and one of his brothers were ministers and would trade off preaching with other men. In the days after Barbara’s murder, Eli’s mother and father were overheard by a neighbor saying that they couldn’t imagine who had done this terrible thing to Eli. And his wife, of course.

  A friend remembers that Eli’s parents were quick to take his side when he was young. He could sweet-talk himself out of trouble, a talent that came in handy when he became a husband. Trouble for young Eli may have meant he had a radio or a camera, or English clothing, or drank alcohol or visited a movie theater. The Amish call it “getting into things.” Those were common “getting into things” activities, all frowned upon by Amish parents and the Amish Church.

  Barbara and Eli courted for a year, attending Sunday evening “singings,” where single Amish youth from a wide area gather for supper and an evening of singing and socializing. The young couple spent many hours on buggy rides, talking together as the horse trotted its way through the gently rolling countryside. They married in 1999. Their wedding day was traditional: a long day beginning with a religious service and the exchange of vows at a neighbor’s house and then everyone making their way to the home of the bride, where female relatives, close neighbors, and friends had been busy preparing two feasts for the guests. Like all Amish brides, Barbara wore a homemade royal-blue dress with a snowy-white starched cape and apron fastened over her dress with straight-pins. For the last time that morning, Barbara wore her black satin Kapp, worn by single girls for formal occasions. After the wedding ceremony, she exchanged it for a white Kapp. Like all Amish grooms, Eli wore a homemade dark suit and white shirt. After the wedding, Eli allowed his beard to grow out, the sign of a married man.

  It used to be that Amish girls weren’t told about sex before their wedding day. Now there’s more discussion, and the Amish have publications that help parents discuss sex with their teens. As a friend of Eli’s, himself the father of two Amish teenagers, said, “Growing up around farm animals, most children figure it out rather young and, I know from experience, ask questions.”

  Amish marriages follow traditional gender roles. The husband farms or works elsewhere to support his family, and the wife maintains the house, raises the children, and respects her husband. “You honor God by honoring your spouse,” is a frequent saying. The Ordnung speaks of wives submitting to their husbands as the head of the home, but it also instructs couples to be kind to each other and make decisions as partners.

  Many Amish couples share the load—the husband is the head of the home, but most Amish women have an equal say in most matters. Amish women are likely to drive buggies during the week, especially if their husband works away from home. And they are often in charge of the yard work. Divorce is considered a sin and is forbidden. An Amish elder estimates that the divorce rate among Amish is probably .001 percent.

  Yet after ten years of marriage, Barbara found herself thinking of divorce. She hadn’t known before she married him that Eli had deep streaks of immaturity and selfishness, was obsessed with sex, and saw himself as something of a “ladies’ man”. After his Rumspringa, Eli had been torn between the life he could lead and the life he would lead as an Amish man. But ultimately, he opted to stay in the community, and was baptized at twenty-one.

  If only he had left then.

  Barbara gave birth to five children in seven years. Her life as a mother was fulfilling. Her marriage was not.

  Fannie said that Eli wouldn’t give Barbara enough money to feed and care for the children and that she had no access to their bank account. It wasn’t about a lack of money—Eli and Maysville Outfitters were doing fine. It was about control.

  Barbara had found unpaid bills around the house. She brought them to Eli’s attention, but he didn’t seem to care. She was stunned to find that he owed a local printing shop—which was demanding its money—$9,000 for help printing and mailing a fishing magazine to his customers.

  When it was her turn to bake pies for gmay, or church, Eli wouldn’t give her the money to buy the ingredients.

  “Failing to produce pies that the church people were expecting to eat after lunch humiliated her,” an Amish friend said. “It was very upsetting to her. That poor woman.”

  Eli’s absences, his neglecting to feed and care for his wife and children, and his physically shoving and grabbing Barbara—witnessed by their children—add up to domestic violence. But as one Amish leader said, if Barbara had reported Eli’s conduct to the bishop, she would have been asked: “What did you do that your husband would treat you like this?”

  Eli was gone a lot overnight—presumably on hunting or fishing trips, though Barbara suspected otherwise. Barbara had told her sister that Eli wanted oral sex, something Barbara didn’t want any part of. Fannie later told investigators that she believed Eli had “become forceful” with Barbara when he wanted sex. She said Eli didn’t harm the children but didn’t want to be a father.

  In 2006, after several years of marriage, Barbara was lonely and discouraged about Eli, and she wanted to be closer to her sister. Eli had left the family to live with an English woman, so Barbara and the children packed up, left where they were living—on property next to Eli’s parents in Millersburg—and moved about fifteen miles north. Now Barbara and the children were just three miles from Fannie’s home in Apple Creek Township, a small pocket of Ohio just south of Wooster, the seat of Wayne County. A map of Wayne County’s sixteen rural townships looks like a quilt—with Apple Creek, Salt Creek, Sugarcreek, Chester, and other small communities of a few thousand making up the perfectly drawn squares. />
  Barbara and Eli were still somewhat dependent on his parents. After Eli returned to the family, his father bought a house and a nearby shop, and they rented from him. Still, Barbara thought the home and business could be a new start for her and Eli.

  A friend of Eli’s said most Amish in the area were of two minds about his move home. They rejoiced that his family would be reunited, but they didn’t want him as a neighbor.

  This may have been about the time that Barbara asked Fannie if she could take her five children while she “sorted things out” with Eli. Although Fannie had her own family, and the sisters’ father and brother were living with her, she told Barbara a definitive yes.

  But Barbara and Eli never did take time to focus on their marriage.

  Eli began running Maysville Outfitters soon after his return. And with customers coming in from outside the Amish community, he had even more contact with the English. Someone had given him a cell phone, and he was able to indulge in what became an obsession with Internet chat rooms. With a few numbers punched into his cell phone, he could meet a woman who, unlike his wife, would participate in any kind of sex he wanted.

  * * *

  IT WAS COMMON for the cousins, Barbara’s five children and Fannie’s four (soon to be five), to spend time at each other’s homes. The sisters saw each other at least twice a week. The Amish keep their aging parents at home, and when their mother was dying in 2008, Fannie cared for her. Barbara relieved Fannie of caregiving duties a few times each week.

  On Sunday, May 31, 2009, the entire Weaver family—even Eli—went to the Troyers’ to celebrate Harley’s birthday. Barbara took dinner and a store-bought birthday cake. At the end of the evening, Fannie’s two daughters, Susie and Mary, went home with their aunt and uncle. Barbara’s son Jacob stayed at the Troyers’ to spend time with his cousin John, who was also seven.

  Earlier that day, dutiful wife that she was, Barbara had told her children to go play outside, opened her arms to her wayward husband, and made love with Eli.