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| Julie Barnyock |
She had recently graduated from Central Bucks West High School. But she wasn't sure yet what path she wanted her life to take, so she had not yet enrolled in college.
She hoped to go to art school. She wanted to visit some of the Philadelphia schools, but in particular, she was considering attending the Philadelphia Art Institute.
Julie was also concerned with the plight of the homeless people in Philly. When she went to the city, she would take food with her to give to them.
She enjoyed her time in the city, so she would usually wait to catch the last train back to the Lansdale station. She would arrive at the station around midnight and would call her father for a ride home.
On Mon, Nov 8, 1993, Julie Barnyock traveled to Philadelphia to tour the city, visit some schools and meet a friend. The friend was known to be homeless at the time.
After a long day, she boarded the train at the Fern Rock station around 11:10 p.m. for the ride home. She arrived at the Lansdale station about 11:40 that evening.
Her parents were waiting at home for her call. About 12:10 am, the phone rang. But by the time they got to the phone, it stopped. It only rang twice.
About 10 minutes later, around 12:20 am, the phone rang again. This time it was Julie asking for a ride home.
A short while later her father arrived at the station to take her home.
But Julie was nowhere to be seen.
He waited and waited. Then confused, and worried, he drove home.
The Barnyocks waited at home for word from their daughter. Anxious and worried, they waited - and then waited some more. But by noon the next day, they had enough.
They contacted the New Britain Police to report Julie missing.
For days, the Barnyocks would wait. They waited to hear from Julie. They waited for some sign of her. They waited - and they worried.
Days went by, then weeks, but still no sign of Julie.
Then - after 3 and a half long weeks -
Thursday, December 2nd, 1993 - a local man was walking through the Lansdale station freight yard. There was a lot of debris and brush. There were abandoned box cars.
He was walking through a remote section of the freight yard, about 300 yards from the station, when he spotted something in the debris and overgrown brush. A closer look and he realized what he had just found.
It was a body.
It was Julie Barnyock.
A coroner's report revealed she had died from severe blunt-force head trauma from a blunt object.
For three weeks, her badly-beaten body had been exposed to severe shifts in the weather, including freezing temperatures, thawing and a lot of rain.
The changes in weather affected the evidence that detectives needed to solve the case. It severely contaminated the evidence at the crime scene. Freezing, thawing and a lot of rain erased many of the details detectives use to solve a crime.
There was no evidence of robbery, and there was evidence that she may have been raped. She was naked from the waist down. But tests were inconclusive as to whether she had been sexually assaulted.
In 2002, some hairs that had been found with her were tested for DNA. But that led police nowhere; it was found they all belonged to Julie.
The Montgomery County District Attorney believes that if her body had been found right away, the murder would have been solved.
What did Julie do when she arrived at the station? What happened in the 20 minutes it took for her father to arrive? The details are sketchy.
Did she call home from the station phone? Witnesses reported seeing her on the station's telephone.
Her parents received two phone calls that night. The first only rang twice. Could it have been Julie, who then hung up quickly? Was she bothered by someone at the phone?
About ten minutes later, her parents received the second call. Her mother remembers hearing noises in the background similar to a video game machine. Could she be calling from a nearby bar? Julie sounded strange. After she asked for a ride home, her mother remembers a different noise, then the call ended abruptly.
Witnesses also saw Julie talking to an unidentified white male in his 20s on the station platform.
The Lansdale police department has conducted hundreds of interviews since Barnyock was found murdered, and followed up on numerous leads. Investigators have looked at people who committed similar crimes and have not ruled out any suspects.
One person interviewed by the police was Julie's homeless friend. He had a history of aggressive and sometimes violent behavior.
He called the Barnyocks frequently after Julie disappeared and after her body was discovered. "He would call and call the first three or four months," Julie's mother said. "He was constantly calling trying to find information."
She said she had a strange meeting with him a few days after Julie was reported missing. She returned from grocery shopping to find him outside her house. He asked a variety of questions, including whether the police had searched the freight yard for her body. "There's a lot of places to hide a body" he said, reportedly. Then he asked to search Julie's room for a diary she may have kept.
"He was a possessive guy who thought he was her boyfriend, but she wanted to get away from him." She said he wanted Julie to move to another state with him, but she did not want to go.
After Julie's body was discovered, one of her sisters spotted him across the street from her bus stop.
He was questioned by police, but never implicated as a suspect. He has an alibi. He was seen on the subway near the time of her disappearance. Too close in time for him to have been in both places.
Another suspect is the unknown white male seen talking to Julie at the station the night she disappeared. But he's never been identified.
A third suspect is a 25 year old male who was convicted of the January 1994 slashing of a 47 year old woman at the Lansdale train station. He was also convicted of robbing another woman at the Fort Washington train station. He is serving a 22-44 year sentence.
Even though there were many similarities between his crimes and the way Julie Barnyock was killed, he was never charged with her death.
Another suspect is convicted rapist and murderer Arthur Bomar. He was convicted in the 1996 rape and murder of 22-year-old college student Aimee Willard. He was sentenced to death for her murder.
At the time of Julie Barnyock's death, he was on parole for a Nevada murder.
Bomar was known to have been living near Lansdale during the time Julie Barnyock disappeared.
Julie was treated for appendicitis at Doylestown Hospital in 1992. It was said that Bomar was working there as an orderly at the same time. A witness may have seen Bomar enter her room.
But no evidence connects Bomar to Barnyock's murder, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney. And, he said, some factors are leading investigators to believe that Bomar did NOT kill Barnyock.
Today the place where Julie was found is a parking lot, complete with landscaped trees and street lamps.
"She was just very innocent and open to people, and I don't think she ever thought of anyone hurting her." remembers Julie's mother.
There is still hope that Julie's murderer will be brought to justice, even though so much time has passed. Lansdale Detective James Waltrop believes someone may hold the missing link that will tie together all the loose ends in the case. Something may be holding that person back, perhaps because the information may seem insignificant, or perhaps he or she fears retribution.