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

by Gregg Olsen

  Abel and Zimmerly presented Barb with the search warrant. Then Abel said Chuhi would like to speak with her outside. As she walked out, Abel, Zimmerly, and the deputies stepped into the house and found the children. They made arrangements for them to be picked up by relatives or friends.

  Chuhi asked if Barb remembered him from several days before—in fact, the day after the murder—when they sat in his car and talked. She said she did. He introduced Detective Maxwell who told her she was under arrest for the aggravated murder of Barbara Weaver. She was read her Miranda rights.

  Barb became “very emotional” as they walked her toward Maxwell’s car. She collapsed on the tire of a boat trailer parked in the driveway. “Can I have an attorney?” she asked.

  As Chuhi helped her stand and walk to the car, she became more emotional, cried, and asked about her children. Chuhi said they would be taken care of, put her in the backseat, and slid in beside her. Maxwell drove. Chuhi gave her several minutes to compose herself.

  “You asked me if you can have an attorney,” he said. “Yes, you can have an attorney if you wish.” He then asked her if she understood this, and she said she did. She felt a brief moment of relief. She would have an attorney beside her, protecting her. Everything would work out. She knew enough to ask for an attorney, and the police had promised her one.

  Chuhi also asked if she understood the Miranda rights read to her and she said she did. Would she speak with the detectives? Yes. They asked her to tell them about June 2.

  * * *

  BARB TRIED TO remember back to that morning. It was dark. As dark as dark can be. Barb slipped past her sleeping husband on the couch and made her way through her messy living room to the door. It was early. She knew that Eli would be leaving soon on his fishing trip. She also knew what he wanted her to do. Inside her was the kind of turmoil that comes from thinking about something so very terrible and fighting the compulsion to please someone. She slid behind the wheel of her Explorer. If Barb had taken the time to look at herself in the rearview mirror as she backed out of the driveway to head to Apple Creek, she might have caught a glimpse of what she was becoming.

  A shell. A hollow remnant of a woman. An imposter among her friends and family. The things that circled through her mind were so dark that she could scarcely understand them.

  Eli Weaver. He had the answers. He was the one that made her feel loved. Valued. He was the object of the desire of so many younger—prettier—women and yet he chose her. Her life was grim and Eli was one part of her life that breathed in color.

  She buckled up. She could prove her worth. It would be hard to do, but he had asked only one thing.

  She worked the keys on her phone as she texted him saying she was scared and wondering how to see in the dark. He said she should take a flashlight. Between 2:21 a.m. and 4:47 a.m., Barb and Eli texted several times. There’s no proof of exactly what time Eli left the house and what time Barb arrived. But by 3:37 a.m. he was having breakfast in Wooster and at 3:39 a.m. she was asking where she should park. Eli texted back that he had left the basement door unlocked.

  She looked at the message. She could barely make sense of what was on the screen. Her heart pounded. She was looking for something else right then. Maybe an out? A message that said he loved her and didn’t want her to take this risk? But oblivious to the impact his plan was having on his lover, Eli was practical, telling her to take a flashlight. Ever the charmer, he typed the letters MWHA—the sound of a kiss.

  He didn’t tell her to turn back. He didn’t tell her how to shoot his wife. It was possible that she didn’t have to do any of that. Maybe he’d taken care of everything himself? Maybe he only needed her to be there so she could take the fall?

  Something delayed Barb. Her conscience? It doesn’t take 90 minutes to drive from her home in Millersburg to the Weaver house in Apple Creek.

  At 4:47 a.m. Eli texted one last time, telling Barb she could park behind the pine trees. The next time they communicated, it would be about disposing of their phones.

  * * *

  WHILE MAXWELL AND Chuhi drove Barb to the Wayne County Justice Center, the search of the house, garage, and outbuildings began.

  The rental home of Ed and Barb Raber and their three children on TR 310—or Township Road 310—was a two-story, four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath brown brick house of about 2,500 square feet. It had an attached two-car garage, a wood deck off the second story, and two white outbuildings, all on one acre. It would sell the next year for nearly $200,000.

  Outside, the house was neatly maintained, with a mowed yard, trimmed shrubs, firewood neatly stacked, lawn chairs folded up, and a powerboat in the driveway.

  Inside was another story. There was nowhere to walk, stand, or sit. Piles of stuff filled every room to overflowing. It was hard to see where anyone slept, since clothes—the ones not on the floor—covered mattresses, tables, and bureaus. Things were topsy-turvy. It was June, but Christmas odds and ends were still displayed. A television set with rabbit ears sat at one end of the living room, while a ceramic snowman balanced on top of a sofa nearby.

  A curio cabinet in one corner was a clue to a collector in the family, most likely Barb—there seemed to be dozens of bells and porcelain figurines, all of perfect children.

  Every surface in every room—chairs, couches, beds, a kitchen table, counters, floors, even the desk in the home office—was covered in stuff. Even the floor and counters of the bathroom, with worn-looking purple flowered wallpaper and window curtains, were overflowing. One room was chin-high with empty boxes, luggage, and Christmas wreaths.

  What may have been the master bedroom seemed uninhabitable. From photos the detectives took, it was difficult to tell where Barb’s three sons slept; maybe in one of the bedrooms that had several small boys’ jackets hanging in a closet, one of the only spaces that was nearly empty.

  The only show of organization was a clothes drying rack with men’s shirts neatly hung. It had claimed a corner of the kitchen.

  The boat was in the driveway because every inch of the double garage was filled with more stuff, plus ATVs and toolboxes. Their landlord’s son told a local reporter that the family “got a little behind in the rent” but always made it up. He remembers Barb Raber as “nice,” but said, “She came across as a little extreme at times, and I figured that’s just her personality … but there was nothing crazy, nothing off the wall.”

  At the house, Deputy Abel called Barb’s husband, Ed. He said he was away on business and it would take a couple of hours for him to get home. Abel told him that they had served a search warrant. Raber protested, claiming they couldn’t search his property without him there. Abel explained that they could, and were searching. Raber asked to speak to his wife. That’s when Abel told him that Barb had been arrested for aggravated murder and was on her way to the Wayne County Justice Center. Abel said a copy of the search warrant and a receipt for any items taken would be left on the kitchen counter. Ed should call them.

  It was an interesting list of items taken into evidence—from key pieces that would substantiate a murder charge to the seemingly mundane.

  Verizon cell phone

  A second cell phone

  Two Toshiba satellite laptops

  One HP Pavilion laptop

  Composition notebook

  Pink notebook

  .22 caliber Ruger rifle

  Mossberg .20 gauge shotgun

  Remington model 870 .20 gauge

  Federal .22 caliber birdshot rifle

  CCI. 22 long rifle bullet or shell

  Boxes of various cartridges, shells, magazines, and bullets

  A brown purse containing:

  Miscellaneous papers

  Miscellaneous receipts

  A Nintendo DS Blue game player with charger

  Inhaler

  Cigarettes

  Body care items

  LED light

  Pens

  Coins

  $282 in bills

  Hunt
ing license

  Driver’s license

  Social Security card

  Store-issued credit cards

  One of the phones was one Barb Raber handed them. The other was found behind a TV set in the living room. The purse and one laptop were on a messy kitchen counter. Other computers were upstairs, in the office and in a closet. The flashlight was in her purse. Notebooks were on the kitchen counter. One rifle was in a closet and one was in a corner.

  Conspicuous by its absence was a .410 gauge shotgun, believed to have been the weapon that killed Barbara Weaver.

  * * *

  AS BARB RABER was being arrested, so was Eli.

  Lieutenant Kurt Garrison and Captain Doug Hunter pulled up to Maysville Outfitters simultaneously. No one was at Eli’s store, but they saw him walking from the house toward them. They advised him that he was under arrest on complicity to commit aggravated murder. Hunter handcuffed Eli’s hands behind his back. Garrison frisked him for weapons. Eli became so emotional, his knees buckled and—just as Barb had had to rest on a boat trailer—he had to lean against the patrol car for support.

  Eli’s two older sons, Harley and Jacob, were at the house. Garrison called Fannie Troyer to come pick up the children. Wayne County sheriff Thomas Maurer and Captain Charles Hardman arrived and took Eli to the Justice Center, too—in the same building but a different wing than where his friend the taxi lady was being interrogated.

  Detectives continued to question Barb Raber. They could proceed because she had asked “Can I have an attorney?” rather than said “I want an attorney” or “I will not speak without an attorney present.” The difference was lost on Barb. Later, many would concede they might have made the error.

  The police would later claim her question was ambiguous.

  Barb knew none of this. She thought there would be an attorney waiting for her at the Justice Center. Or that one would arrive soon.

  Barb told the detectives she had no knowledge of and no involvement in the murder of Barbara Weaver. Chuhi and Maxwell told her they had text messages between her and Eli talking about possible methods of murder—poison, gas, a shooting.

  That brought her up short. She explained that she had wondered how far Eli intended to take his plan. “I guess it looks bad for me,” she said.

  They got her a can of pop and sat down with a printout of texts and read them to her.

  Her texts implicated her in the planning of the murder.

  As Detectives Chuhi and Maxwell read more texts to her, Barb broke down and started crying. “It was an accident,” she sobbed, then proceeded to tell them details—some true, some not.

  She said she’d taken a gun from her husband’s gun cabinet. She was a frequent hunter but claimed she didn’t know what type or size of gun it was or what kind of shell it used, and said she didn’t remember loading it. She thought she’d arrived at the Weaver house at about 4:30 a.m. She’d parked her Ford Explorer behind the barn, walked through the field, and entered the house through an unlocked basement door. It was dark. She didn’t remember if she’d had a flashlight. She’d gone into the bedroom and seen Barbara lying in bed. Barb had stood in the doorway. She said she’d planned just to scare her—but the gun went off.

  “I was scared half to death,” she said. “I never intended for anything to happen, but when it did it was, like, ‘Oh, crap.’”

  She’d driven to her house and put the gun back in the cabinet.

  She told confusing versions of the story. It was all Eli’s idea. She had shown up with a shotgun and it went off accidentally. She hadn’t killed his wife, Eli had. She had never told Eli that she had shot his wife, but she had told him she was sorry. Eli had said it was his fault and he would help her get “through this.” Eli had made a statement to her that “whoever did this [had] to turn themselves in because he [Eli] didn’t want to go to prison.”

  Where was the attorney she had requested, she wondered. The detectives didn’t mention one, but she was certain she had been clear—she wanted an attorney.

  But they kept drilling her with questions, and she was incapable of being quiet.

  When detectives asked her why she’d committed the murder, she said Eli had kept begging her to. If something should go wrong—for example, if she was arrested—he’d promised to get her out of jail. He’d offered her $10,000 (it was unclear if it was for the shooting itself or for bail money), but she’d told him, “I can’t do this. I need my husband and kids.” Then again, Eli was Eli and was persistent.

  Why, the detectives wanted to know, had Eli hated his wife? Barb said Eli had complained of the nagging and yelling. She claimed she had seen Barbara punch him in the ribs a couple of times.

  They asked Barb whom else Eli had talked to about killing his wife. There was Tabitha, and their mutual friend David Weaver. Eli had asked David if he knew someone who would do it. David said they would want a lot of money.

  Among other outlandish ideas, Eli had told Barb he wanted her to send someone over to his home to make it look like someone was after him. They could pound on the side of the house and yell something threatening. She’d told Eli she would send someone but never did. This was a part of the pitiful attempt at a cover-up that included David Weaver’s fake threatening phone message: “Eli, we got the wrong person. You can run but not hide.”

  One of the more curious details Barb shared with the detectives was her claim that Eli had told her he had killed two other women, or, as he phrased it, had “put two other women down.”

  She said she’d carried out the crime because she had become afraid of Eli and felt threatened by him. “I was threatened and scared for my family if I didn’t cooperate with him.”

  The interrogation lasted just two hours. Maxwell and Chuhi offered her another can of soda pop, a meal, and a bathroom break, and believed they had their confession: “It was an accident.”

  At the end of the interview, the detectives asked Barb if she had anything more to say. She said she was sorry. She refused to write out a statement. The interview was not taped, because the sheriff’s office didn’t make an audio or video recording of an interrogation unless the person being questioned could not read or write. Barb was taken to a jail cell.

  Where was the attorney she’d later insist she’d requested?

  * * *

  DETECTIVES CHUHI AND Maxwell met with her the next day in a jail interview room. Once again they advised her of her rights. Now they had the results of the search of her house. They had learned that there was no gun in her husband’s gun cabinet that had been fired and was the right gauge. They asked her if perhaps someone had given her the gun. She couldn’t remember getting the gun—and now she wasn’t sure she had fired the shot. She had admitted the shooting because she’d felt “cornered” and because it would make things “better.” She felt that if she cooperated, she would be able to go home.

  By then they knew she was lying about standing in the doorway and the shotgun “accidentally” going off. Barbara Weaver had been shot at close range.

  This time, Barb stated she wanted a lawyer. That ended the interview.

  The evening they were arrested, both Barb and Eli posed for their mug shots. She looked weary and frightened. As for Eli, this time the Amish Stud didn’t flash his biceps.

  On June 23, Eli and Barb stood side by side—for the last time. Eli was in an orange jail jumpsuit and Barb was garbed in baby blue. Both wore handcuffs as they were arraigned on murder charges. Both pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder. Eli’s attorney Andy Hyde, and Dave Knowlton, who was representing Barb, asked for a reduction in bail so their clients could care for “their respective children.” Judge Robert Brown turned down the request and kept bail at a million dollars each. Knowlton wouldn’t be on the case for long—Ed Raber couldn’t raise the money to retain him. Eventually, Barb would be assigned John Leonard, an assistant public defender.

  He would learn that the sheriff’s office had its version of what happened on June 2, but Leonard d
idn’t think it fit the facts. He was sure Eli was more than a mere puppet master. He had blood on his hands, too.

  * * *

  MARK WEAVER FELT a sick feeling deep in his gut. The idea that his buddy had either killed his wife or orchestrated her murder was beyond any real comprehension. Just how had Eli gone through the motions of fishing that day, laughing, joking, and acting as though nothing at all had happened at home?

  When he knew that something had.

  Mark had known of Eli’s culpability since Detective Chuhi had laid out the evidence during their talk at Wendy’s.

  Eli’s fishing pal hadn’t seen the wayward Amish man since the viewing of his wife’s body—which was just fine with him. Eli Weaver had brought nothing but pain to his family and friends. Indeed, the wretched tentacles of his crime reached across the entire community. Mark’s wife, Elsie, had lost a good friend. His children were afraid. If the mother of their friends could be killed in her own bed, couldn’t it happen to them?

  Mark had been cautioned by the detective that it could take weeks or even months before there was an arrest. So when it came with such speed on June 10, it stunned him.

  Mark was at a social gathering with fellow metalworkers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Most of the men were Amish, but a few were Conservative Mennonite. They were just finishing lunch and having their coffee when a neighbor called.

  “What’s up?” Mark asked.

  The voice at on the other end of the line blurted out what he’d just observed.

  “Eli was just arrested,” he said.

  Despite having known that the noose was tightening around Eli’s neck, Mark was taken by surprise.

  “Eli was outside, walking from the house to his store, when the sheriff’s car pulled up,” the neighbor went on. “They frisked him and handcuffed him.”

  Mark asked about Eli’s reaction to the arrest.

  “Well, his legs kind of gave way, and he had to lean against the car, like he was catching his breath,” the neighbor said.

  Mark was worried about Eli’s children seeing their father arrested. Were some of the kids there at the time of the arrest?