Investigators Appeal for Leads on 30th Anniversary of Murder of Julie Barnyock in Lansdale

Tony Di Domizio and Keith Heffintrayer•

On the 30^th anniversary of the death of Julie Barnyock in Lansdale, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele and Lansdale Borough Police Chief Mike Trail are renewing calls for anyone with information to come forward.

"A teenager went missing 30 years ago and was found dead. Our detectives continue to go over this case, looking for anything that could help us. Now we are again asking for the public’s help,” said Steele. "Someone somewhere knows something. Please share whatever piece of info about Julie’s movements that day, anything seen that night on the train or at the train station. Many old cases are solved when someone comes forward with information that seems insignificant but turns out to be helpful in finding a murderer.”

Wednesday marks 30 years since Barnyock went missing and was found dead a month later in the freight yard near Lansdale Train Station. She suffered blunt force trauma to her head and her death was ruled a homicide.

On Nov. 8, 1993, Barnyock exited an R5 SEPTA train at Lansdale train station at 11:40 p.m., coming home after spending the day on South Street in Philadelphia with a friend. The recent Central Bucks West High School graduate called her parents in Chalfont on a payphone to come pick her up, however when her father arrived, she was nowhere to be found.

Witnesses on the train told police she was talking to a man in his 20s on the train station platform.

Barnyock’s parents reported her missing to New Britain Township Police. It would not be until Dec. 2, 1993, when a man walking through the freight yard by the Lansdale station would find her decomposing body.

As far as suspects, there have been few.

According to The Right Shoe Podcast, Arthur Bomar was once a suspect, as he was an orderly at Doylestown Hospital at the same time when Barnyock was a patient there in 1992. Bomar would eventually be charged with the death of college athlete Aimee Willard, whose body was found in North Philadelphia in 1996, and was suspected of killing Maria Cabueno, whose skeletal remains were found in the woods in Tinicum Township on New Year’s Day, according to the podcast. However, there was not enough hard evidence to charge him in the death of Barnyock, even though Barnyock’s family pegged him as the obvious suspect.

Bomar currently remains on death row.

Another suspect was Brian Tod, who was a 22-year-old homeless man living in Philadelphia at the time of the murder, according to The Morning Call. Tod, police said, knew Barnyock, who was a frequent visitor to South Street via SEPTA.

A third suspect was Scott Hutchins, who began serving a 21-to-43-year prison sentence in 1995 after being convicted of attempted murder in the stabbing on Karen McKinney, of Hilltown Township, at the Lansdale Train Station on Jan. 31, 1994. Hutchins, who was 23 in 1993, was a Hatfield Township resident who was living at Valley Stream Apartments at the time Barnyock was killed.

Hutchins was paroled on Dec. 17, 2019, according to inmate lookup records.

The problem police were having in solving the crime in 1998 was the fact that Barnyock’s body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that blood, semen, and hair fibers were destroyed by the time she was found. The forensic evidence, according to investigators, had dissipated.

Trail told The Reporter that the "unsolvable crime” can be solved using old-fashioned detective work and modern methods to bring Barnyock’s killer or killers to justice. The case is regularly reviewed by detectives in his department, Trail told The Reporter, stating that the department has "an obligation, as an organization, to carry this case forward.”

"We don’t ever stop,” he said. "Despite the fact that there’s no one left here that was here on the day Julie’s body was found, that obligation on the part of the men and women of this department continues.”

Back in 2018, on the 25^th anniversary, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told the press somebody knows something about Barnyock’s murder.

"Please come forward with whatever piece of info about Julie's movements that day or anything someone might have seen that night at the train station. I've seen many old cases solved when someone comes forward with something that on the surface seems insignificant, but it turns out to be a key puzzle piece in finding a murderer,” Steele said in 2018.

Contact the Montgomery County Detective Bureau at (610) 278-3368 or Lansdale Police at (215) 368-1801 with any information on the case. Anonymous tips can be texted using MontcoCrimeTips on the STOPit app.