After nearly 50 years, Bucks County prosecutors have solved a cold-case murder
Prosecutors said Richard Wheeler was killed by his business partner, who later moved to New Jersey and assumed a new identity.
For nearly five decades, the truth behind Richard Wesley Wheeler’s death on a secluded rural road in Bucks County puzzled investigators. But detectives say they have finally untangled the circumstances behind his slaying, weaving a tale of intrigue and betrayal.
Wheeler, 34, was found shot to death in September 1980 by a construction worker finishing renovations on a wooded property in Nockamixon Township, according to investigators. His killer, prosecutors said Friday, was Peter Eric Marschner, his onetime cellmate in federal prison, who had been acting on the orders of a third man, Leslie Schmidt.
Marschner, 68, died in 2006 and Schmidt, 82, died last year, so they cannot be charged with the crimes, but prosecutors said the two men could be held accountable nonetheless.
Prosecutors said Wheeler was killed over $250,000 that Schmidt had entrusted to him: The money was supposed to be given to Schmidt’s family while he was in prison, but Wheeler allegedly mishandled it.
All three men were in business together manufacturing and selling methamphetamine out of a camper near Lake Nockamixon, prosecutors said. Wheeler lived on the property and oversaw the operation, while Marschner acted as his personal driver and bodyguard. Schmidt, the financier, was still in prison at the time.
The three, all longtime criminals, had met at a federal prison in Danbury, Conn., where they first sketched out their business partnership, prosecutors said.
But Wheeler and Schmidt had a falling out, leading to Wheeler’s murder, according to authorities, who said Marschner disappeared after carrying out the killing.
Investigators later received information linking Marschner to the crime. A witness told them that a “German guy” Schmidt met in prison had killed Wheeler. The witness’ description of the killer matched Marschner. Marschner was supposed to be deported back to his native Germany in 1980, months before the murder, prosecutors said, but was able to escape when the plane he was supposed to board had mechanical troubles.
He had a history of avoiding capture. In 1974, he avoided arrest for stealing a boat by working as a crewman on a private yacht in the Caribbean, prosecutors said, and was captured three years later after fleecing the yacht’s owners and stealing another sailboat in the Virgin Islands.
After killing Wheeler, authorities said, Marschner disappeared again. He moved to New Jersey and assumed a new identity. Marschner became Charles McLaren, the operator of a successful limousine rental service in New York City. He carried off his double life so well, prosecutors said, that his family had no idea of his criminal past.