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ID’s Philly-focused ‘Homicide City’ returning with more grisly murder tales

Many of the infamous crimes spotlighted on Homicide City are more than a decade or two old.

Retired Montgomery County detective Bruce Saville is interviewed in Investigation Discovery's "Homicide City" about the 1995 murders of Lisa and Devon Manderach of Limerick.
Retired Montgomery County detective Bruce Saville is interviewed in Investigation Discovery's "Homicide City" about the 1995 murders of Lisa and Devon Manderach of Limerick.Read moreCourtesy of Investigation Discovery
    by Ellen Gray
    Published 

To the true-crime network Investigation Discovery, Philadelphia is Homicide City.

Lucky us.

Many of the infamous crimes spotlighted on Homicide City, which enters its second season on Wednesday, April 10, are more than a decade or two old. They’re also as likely to have occurred in the suburbs as in the city, but Homicide Region doesn’t have the same ring.

This week’s premiere focuses on the 1995 murders of Lisa Manderach of Limerick and her 19-month-old daughter, Devon, beginning with the discovery of the little girl’s body in the woods of Valley Forge National Historical Park. It’s a sad case — they’re all sad — and was also the subject of a 2001 episode of Forensic Files.

It’s not made any less sad by the reenactments used to break up the talking-head reminiscences of the detectives who worked the cases and members of the victims’ family.

Reenactments are a staple of the true-crime genre, but they still make me queasy. I was made queasier still after stumbling, during a Google search, on a casting notice for the show that described the character of Manderach as “strikingly beautiful with long dark hair, fair skin and a rocking body” and the killer (spoiler alert) as looking like “a young Meatloaf” [sic].

There were some unusual aspects to the case, including the fact that Lisa Manderach’s body wasn’t initially discovered, but it’s one that’s long been settled (and that was exhaustively covered here at the time). So it seems odd, frankly, to go through all the initial lines of inquiry that didn’t pan out. But that’s true crime for you.

Other cases for this eight-episode season include:

  1. “Pine Hill Massacre” (10 p.m. April 17). Recounts the 1982 killings of William and Catherine Stuart and their 2-year-old daughter, Sandra, at their home in Pine Hill. Their 5-year-old daughter, Miriam, survived.

  2. “The Professor’s Wife” (10 p.m. April 24). Deals with the 2006 murder in Upper Merion of Ellen Robb by her husband, who was at the time an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

  3. “High Rise Murder” (10 p.m. May 1). Revisits the 1995 case of Helen Bernstein, a 64-year-old nurse who lived in a Chestnut Hill apartment complex and who was found strangled in her bathtub.

  4. “Danger Comes Home” (10 p.m. May 8). Tells the story of retired chemist George Volz, 78, who was found beaten to death in his Southwest Philadelphia home in May 1998.

  5. “Point Blank” (10 p.m. May 15). Deals with the investigation into the murder of Patricia McDermott, who was found shot to death in Center City in May 2005.

  6. “Germantown Tragedy” (10 p.m. May 22). The 2004 murder of West Chester University student Asia Adams is revisited.

  7. “Killer Moves” (10 p.m. May 29). Explores the investigation into the 1989 murder of disc jockey Alberto Martino, who was beaten and shot to death outside the Abington radio station where he’d just finished his weekly salsa show.

Homicide City. 10 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, Investigation Discovery.