SEEKING CLUES IN TEENS’ DEATHS
Family, friends gather for vigil they hope will lead to clues in 15-year-old mystery of Butler County teens’ deaths
Tyler Hartman, 20, comforts his mother, Leola Robenski, 40, and Ms. Robenski’s sister, Ailive Rausch, 52, at a vigil Monday night at the spot where Ms. Rausch’s son was found dead 15 years ago. Police are still trying to determine what happened to her son, Scott Fosnaught, and his friend, Shawn Baur, on July 17, 2002. They suffered fatal injuries alongside a Butler County road. See story,
Standing before a makeshift memorial on the side of a Butler County cornfield Monday, relatives and friends remembered two teens found dead there 15 years ago and called for a renewed effort to close the cold case.
Early July 17, 2002, the bodies of Shawn Baur and Scott Fosnaught, both 15, were found along Cashdollar Road in Forward. Scott was pronounced dead at the scene from severe internal injuries. Shawn died soon after at Allegheny General Hospital, of a head injury.
Monday evening, a green-and-white knitted blanket lay on the tall grasses, along with wooden crosses bearing the boys’ names.
A sign mounted above the memorial read, “Someone knows, could it be you?” and displayed the $20,000 reward for information on the deaths.
“You have to hope that bringing it out into the public will bring answers,” said Leola Robenski of Aliquippa, Scott’s aunt. “These people keep living their lives. Scotty has a niece he never got to meet.”
The 20 mourners lit candles and held them in purple paper cups, trading memories of the two boys and joining together in the Lord’s Prayer. Scott’s cousin Tyler Hartman, 20, of Beaver County, played Scott’s favorite song, Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” off his cell phone. Scott’s mother, Ailive Rausch, of Moon, wept as she sang along.
The vigil was led by Suzanne
and Jean Vincent of Butler County, sister psychics who have worked in the past to help grieving families gain a sense of closure from homicide and missing- persons cases. After Ms. Rausch had a terrifying vision of the night of her son’s death, she reached out to the sisters to help her interpret it, she said. “We’re hoping they’ll be able to pick up on something,” she added. Before the vigil, the sisters and a few of Scott’s relatives walked up and down Cashdollar Road. Jean Vincent held Scott’s light blue Seneca Valley soccer jersey so she could “pick up vibrations,” she said. The sisters came away with a sense that two people were involved in the killings, one a short person in a pickup truck, the other a taller person with brown hair. “Everyone has the gift to feel it,” Jean Vincent said. “If everyone gets the same clue, we’ll get something to give to the state police. As a 15- year- old cold case, we’re hoping to put some new light on it. Maybe a memory will pop.” Chris Balcik, a Butler state trooper present at the ceremony, said there is an ongoing, active investigation into the deaths. “I like to think that this case can be solved,” he said. “It will take someone to come forward and take it off their chest.” Ms. Rausch said she hopes the boys’ clothing will undergo a new round of DNA testing for any new clues. A decade and a half later, with few new leads in the case, returning to the site was painful for many in the crowd. “It’s a weary feeling. It’s hard,” said Nicole Baur, 34, of Prospect, Shaun’s sister, standing in front of the crosses after the vigil. She remembered her brother as funny and outgoing. “I usually don’t come down this road,” she added. Joe John, 27, one of Scott’s classmates at Seneca Valley Intermediate High School, remembered that Scott always made people laugh on the school bus. “Every year I come down here and think about it,” he said. “The pain never goes away. Now it’s more a frustration that someone out there knows something and is letting the family suffer.”