Judge finds Horvath guilty
‘This is what we were hoping for,’ victim’s son says after verdict in 2013 death of Lower Macungie woman
A Monroe County judge has found Michael Horvath guilty of criminal homicide and kidnapping in the 2013 killing of Holly Grim, the Lower Macungie Township woman whose remains were found on Horvath’s property nearly three years after she disappeared.
Judge Margherita Patti-Worthington, who read the verdict in a basement courtroom in the Monroe County Courthouse, also found Horvath guilty of evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse.
She found Horvath not guilty on a charge of obstruction.
“This is what we were hoping for,” Zachary Grim, Holly’s son, said outside the courtroom after the verdict was read. “This was a long time coming.”
Supporters of Holly Grim in the gallery cried out when the judge read the verdict. As Horvath was taken out of the courtroom, a man said, “Have fun rotting.”
Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 8. Patti-Worthington thanked Horvath’s defense team and prosecutors, commending them for their work “for trying such a big case” during the three-week bench trial. She
Horvath decided to read the verdict in open court “because everyone has the right to hear from the finder of fact,” she said.
Horvath, 54, of Ross Township, was a co-worker of Grim’s at Allen Organ and quickly became a suspect, state police said, after DNA evidence was found in a smear of blood on the back door of Grim’s trailer. State troopers testified they didn’t believe his alibi explaining his late arrival to work the morning Grim’s mother found her trailer in disarray.
It was nearly three years before Horvath was charged after Grim’s partial remains were found beneath boulders on his property.
Horvath’s attorney, Janet Jackson, argued that the case against Horvath was circumstantial and proposed that his wife, Cathy, was a likely suspect. Citing witness testimony, Jackson conceded Horvath could be described as a “weirdo” or “oddball,” but never behaved inappropriately and wasn’t prone to anger, let alone violence. Cathy Horvath, however, “had the power in the relationship” and had “every bit as much access,” Jackson said during her closing argument two weeks ago.
Jackson was not available for comment
Friday.
Prosecutor Michael Mancuso said he was satisfied by the verdict, adding that when sentencing rolls around, he plans to ask for two consecutive sentences for the murder conviction [life in prison without parole] and the kidnapping conviction [a maximum of 40 years in prison with the possibility of parole]. He also hopes to find out where the rest of Holly’s remains are.
“I was happy and relieved that the family was able to reach this far after what had to be a nightmare for them,” he said. “It was [a] very pleasing satisfaction [that], in this type of work, comes once in a while ... It’s always bittersweet, and this is one of those times.”
The prosecution
In his closing, Mancuso recounted the evidence presented in the trial as a “journey into the darkest recesses of the human soul.” He held up metal shackles, handcuffs, stun guns and pornographic bondage DVDs, as well as photos of a revolver and semi-automatic weapons.
All were taken from Horvath’s home. Mancuso called them the “tools of the trade” of a man who concocted the plan to abduct and kill Grim over the course of many years, researching Grim and searching for information on how to use chloroform and pick locks.
Mancuso contended that Horvath wanted to be a serial killer, idolizing Michael C. Hall’s performance as the murderous “Dexter” on HBO. He also had a book on Dennis Rader, known as the BTK Killer, who murdered 10 people in Kansas over two decades.
Police said they believe Horvath kidnapped Grim from her trailer in the Red Maples Mobile Home Park on Nov. 22, 2013, shortly after she dropped her son off at his school bus stop. Horvath took her to his home where he killed her and disposed of her body, according to police. Grim’s skeletal remains were discovered in a 4-by-4foot area at the bottom of an embankment at the rear of the property, covered by about a foot of dirt.
Horvath agreed to a nonjury trial in exchange for prosecutors’ withdrawing their intent to seek the death penalty. The agreement was struck to reach a resolution in the case, which languished as Horvath demanded new lawyers and the district attorney’s office sought to disqualify the Monroe County public defender’s office.
The pandemic delayed the case an additional two years, and Horvath has been jailed since his arrest in October 2016.
Police first interviewed Horvath on Dec. 12, 2013. He worked with Grim at Allen Organ and was one of several employees “absent from or late for work” the morning of Grim’s disappearance. Police interviewed him at least two other times and his wife once over two and a half years.
Investigators doubted Horvath’s claim that he was late because he returned home to fix a tire after getting almost all the way to work, and then went to work nearly two hours late because he wanted to save his days off for hunting, Assistant District Attorney Michael T. Rakaczewski said in his opening statement.
Cellphone records showed that Horvath made a call from Lower Macungie more than an hour before he was due at work. And dried blood on the back door of Grim’s trailer, where Horvath had delivered a washer and dryer a year earlier, matched a DNA sample Horvath gave during a subsequent interview.
But more than two years after Grim’s disappearance, there was no proof that she was dead.
In March 2016, troopers placed a note on the windshield of Horvath’s truck that read, “We know what you did to Holly Grim. Do the right thing.” They hoped it would spook Horvath into visiting the location of Grim’s remains, Rakaczewski told Patti-Worthington.
The ruse didn’t pay off, but after a fourth interview with police in September 2016, Horvath admitted he misled them about his excuse for missing work, was unable to explain the early morning cellphone call near Grim’s trailer, and agreed that his blood on Grim’s door looked fresh.
During a search of Horvath’s property, a human bone was found in a firepit. A few days later, investigators found teeth, vertebrae and skull fragments that matched Grim’s DNA under boulders and a child’s bedframe, Rakaczewski said.
A forensic pathologist determined Grim had been shot with a small-caliber weapon, Rakaczewski said.
Horvath was charged in October 2016 with kidnapping, criminal homicide, evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse.