AMBRIDGE, Pa. — A 12-year-old girl was kidnapped from her own home. A day later her body was found in an exclusive neighborhood nearby.
It’s a crime that rocked a local community 45 years ago, and still today after all these years.
No one has ever been convicted of the crime.
Target 11 Investigator Rick Earle is on the case of a murder mystery that has baffled investigators for more than four decades.
“They (dispatch) said go down, there’s parents come home and the child’s missing,” said former Ambridge Police Officer Bob Santo, who was the first officer to respond to the home after the parents reported their 12-year-old daughter, Heidi Morningstar, missing from their apartment on Church Street in September of 1976.
Santo met with the parents at the apartment around 4:30 that morning.
“They said we come home and Heidi’s missing, and I say where do you think, where was she in the house when you left? They said yea she was here. She was sleeping on the couch, " said Santo.
A couple hours earlier, around 2 a.m., Heidi’s parents got a call that their older son may have been involved in a car crash several blocks away.
A couple hours earlier, around 2 a.m., Heidi’s parents got a call that their older son may have been involved in a car crash several blocks away.
They left Heidi and her younger brother who were both sleeping to check it out.
“So, they left, and I said all right,” said Santo.
“That seemed rather odd at the time? " replied Earle.
“I did, I mean right away I’m thinking why didn’t one of you just stay here you got an 11- or 12-year-old girl and a 6-year-old,” said Santo.
Their older son wasn’t in that accident.
When they returned home, the door of their apartment was open. Their 6-year-old son was still asleep in his bed. Heidi was gone.
Officer Santo searched in and around the apartment building, but there was no sign of Heidi.
Santo discovered this grocery basket propped up against the outside wall of the apartment right next to a window.
Investigators suspect Heidi had been abducted by someone who climbed through the window and then left with her out the front door.
Neighbors said they didn’t see or hear any commotion.
“Do you think this was a random attack? " asked Earle.
“No, no, I don’t believe that. I mean there’s just too many, That window of time 2:30 in the morning till 4:30. How would somebody know that the parents aren’t there,” said Detective Young.
“That’s another thing. I thought that right away. How they knew that there was nobody at that house,” said Santo, who agrees with Young that it was not a random attack.
Less than 24 hours later, a garbage truck crew working in this Edgeworth neighborhood found the body of 12-year-old Heidi Morningstar in this yard. She had been bound and gagged.
And still wearing her Mickey Mouse nightshirt.
“She had a binding loosely applied, and it was almost. So, it was secured behind her back, but it was definitely like a tie from a robe or something,” stated Young, who said Morningstar had not been sexually assaulted, according to the coroner’s report.
Investigators questioned residents in the apartment building along with friends and family but came up empty.
Then, three years after the crime, a possible break in the case when a woman came forward and told police she might have information about the abduction and murder.
To refresh her memory, detectives had her meet with a hypnotist.
She eventually identified three suspects and police arrested and charged them with the murder, but the State Supreme court ruled that the witness testimony obtained by hypnosis was inadmissible in court. All charges were then dismissed against the three suspects.
“I thought it was solved when they arrested those guys, but they got out of it,” said Santo.
“Do you think those three suspects were involved? Earle asked.
“I don’t to tell you the truth. I think that within the case, there’s other viable suspects,” said Detective Patrick Young.
Young told Target 11 that investigators also worked another angle involving a hitchhiker who stopped a vehicle for a ride the morning Morningstar was abducted.
The hitchhiker, who now lives in the Carolinas, claimed she saw a body in the back of a vehicle that had stopped to offer her a ride. She did not get in the vehicle because the driver was going a different way.
“She still concurs to this day that she did see a hand sticking out. I t wasn’t a lot of information surrounding the vehicle on the driver. but the driver definitely wasn’t one of the three (what had been initially arrested and then released), “said Young, who indicated that police never tracked down the vehicle in question.
As investigators continue following up on leads and reviewing evidence, they’re hoping one day someone will come forward with information that will eventually help them solve the case.
“The important take away is that every family member could be deceased, everybody, but you know these people, still the Heidi Morningstar name should be, should not die in vane. and I guess we has investigators have a duty to not only her, the community of Ambridge, to do our best to continue to look at the case,” said Young.
When they returned home, the door of their apartment was open. Their 6-year-old son was still asleep in his bed. Heidi was gone.
Officer Santo searched in and around the apartment building, but there was no sign of Heidi.
Santo discovered a grocery basket propped up against the outside wall of the apartment right next to a window.
Investigators suspect Heidi had been abducted by someone who climbed through the window and then left with her out the front door.
Neighbors said they didn’t see or hear any commotion.
“Do you think this was a random attack?” asked Earle.
“No, no, I don’t believe that. I mean there’s just too many, That window of time 2:30 in the morning till 4:30. How would somebody know that the parents aren’t there,” said Detective Young.
“That’s another thing. I thought that right away. How they knew that there was nobody at that house,” said Santo, who agrees with Young that it was not a random attack.
Less than 24 hours later, a garbage truck crew working in this Edgeworth neighborhood found the body of 12-year-old Heidi Morningstar in a yard. She had been bound and gagged.
And still wearing her Mickey Mouse nightshirt.
“She had a binding loosely applied, and it was almost. So, it was secured behind her back, but it was definitely like a tie from a robe or something,” stated Young, who said Morningstar had not been sexually assaulted, according to the coroner’s report.
Investigators questioned residents in the apartment building along with friends and family but came up empty.
Then, three years after the crime, a possible break in the case when a woman came forward and told police she might have information about the abduction and murder.
To refresh her memory, detectives had her meet with a hypnotist.
She eventually identified three suspects and police arrested and charged them with the murder, but the State Supreme court ruled that the witness testimony obtained by hypnosis was inadmissible in court. All charges were then dismissed against the three suspects.
“I thought it was solved when they arrested those guys, but they got out of it,” said Santo.
“Do you think those three suspects were involved?” Earle asked.
“I don’t to tell you the truth. I think that within the case, there’s other viable suspects,” said Detective Patrick Young.
Young told Target 11 that investigators also worked another angle involving a hitchhiker who stopped a vehicle for a ride the morning Morningstar was abducted.
The hitchhiker, who now lives in the Carolinas, claimed she saw a body in the back of a vehicle that had stopped to offer her a ride. She did not get in the vehicle because the driver was going a different way.
“She still concurs to this day that she did see a hand sticking out. It wasn’t a lot of information surrounding the vehicle on the driver. but the driver definitely wasn’t one of the three (what had been initially arrested and then released),” said Young, who indicated that police never tracked down the vehicle in question.
As investigators continue following up on leads and reviewing evidence, they’re hoping one day someone will come forward with information that will eventually help them solve the case.
“The important takeaway is that every family member could be deceased, everybody, but you know these people, still the Heidi Morningstar name should be, should not die in vane. And I guess we as investigators have a duty to not only her, but to the community of Ambridge, to do our best to continue to look at the case,” said Young.
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