Swarthmore Murder 68th Anniversary Approaches
By Bob Small
On Tuesday, Jan. 11, 1955, Robert E. Bechtel, then a junior at Swarthmore College, shot fellow student Francis Holmes Strozier.
As we arrive at the 68th anniversary of this event, the last murder to happen within the borders of Swarthmore, Pa., many details remain to ponder. A 2015 review in MyCityPaper concerning the premiere of the documentary “Blood Ties” notes:
On the night of Jan 11, Bechtel drove home to his mother’s house in Pottstown, where he collected guns and a slice of coconut cake. He returned and, even though he was planning a mass murder because he felt he had been the victim of “bullying”, he ended up only shooting one person.
Bechtel was a proctor (resident advisor) at the time of the shooting.
He was found not competent to stand trial and was committed to the Farview State Hospital for The Criminally Insane for life. After four years and five months, Bechtel was released in January 1960. He underwent a trial, which found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
After the trial, Bechtel went to Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, and then to the University of Kansas, receiving his doctorate in 1967. He never mentioned the shooting.
When he applied to teach at the University of Arizona, Bechtel similarly neglected to mention the shooting.
In 2005, Bechtel planned to attend his 50th class reunion at Swarthmore College, despite never having graduated and the antipathy of many of his fellow students.
He first revealed the murder in 2004, in a class that he taught entitled “The Psychology of Happiness”.
With all of that, he’s still the second most famous student in that class, the most famous being Michael Dukakis.
Pondering this story, one wonders whether the good Bechtel did in his life, as a teacher and as a family man, overrides the evil.
“Pondering this story, one wonders whether the good Bechtel did in his life, as a teacher and as a family man, overrides the evil.”
Nope.
He took the life of an innocent, in cold blood. That cannot be expiated by doing good. “Thou shalt not murder.”
I completely agree, Brad. Doesn’t matter what a person does after a crime so heinous. He should never have been let out. Francis Strozier never had a chance to live out his life. We will never know what he could have done.
I am constantly amazed how convicted murderers are let out for “good behavior.” If good behavior had been exhibited before the crime is committed, there would be no incarceration. Do you really have the choice of being “good” in prison? How many of those who are paroled go on to kill? Attempted murder should be treated like first-degree murder, as well. Just because the would-be murderer botched it, he should not get a do-over. That is ridiculous.