Ex-wives of local man charged in Las Vegas murder share their stories, fears

It was a horrific crime: A special needs woman from Bethel Park found dead in the Nevada desert after being suffocated.

How did she end up there? According to federal prosecutors, it was because of Pennsylvania man John Chapman.

Chapman is accused of driving Jaimie Feden to Vegas under the guise of a house-hunting trip and luring her out to the desert where she was murdered.

Channel 11′s Amy Hudak has stayed in touch with Chapman’s two ex-wives for more than three years. As he potentially faces the death penalty, they want you to know who they say Chapman really is.

If you asked Chapman, he would probably say he believes in love. Just ask Maureen.

“I believed him,” Maureen said. “I believed every word he ever told me.”

She says Chapman was so convincing she soon became his fourth wife.

“I had no reason not to believe him and especially as his wife,” Maureen said.

Until one morning, she got a phone call, and it all fell apart.

“He said, ‘Hun, I murdered a woman... because I had to,’” Maureen recalled.

It had happened in Las Vegas, Chapman told his wife. Government training had brought him there, when in fact, he had travelled there with Jaimie Feden from Bethel Park.

Feden was his girlfriend on the side, until she just vanished, sending friends and family into a panic.

Two months later, deep in the Nevada desert, a father and son discovered Jaimie’s body.

“I remember her feet being so small. Her feet were so small, her feet and her hands,” said Henry Linsowe, who found Jaimie’s body. “Just a lonely soul in the middle of a vast desert.”

“I want people to know that he is a manipulator, he is a liar,” said Kelly Murray.

For Murray, the news hit really close to home, because she was once Chapman’s second wife.

But then, fate stepped in.

“That’s when the IRS got him for tax fraud,” Murray recalled. “I’m glad I got away from him.”

And as for Maureen, as Chapman’s trial approaches, she says it’s difficult as details of what happened leaked out.

“He used Jaimie so much. He just used her so much,” Maureen said. “I wasn’t the true victim here, Jaimie was. There are lots of other victims in this. I’m not by myself.”

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PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Ex-wife of man suspected of murdering Bethel Park woman in 2019 speaks out
• Man indicted in death of Bethel Park woman Jaime Feden
• Timeline of Bethel Park woman’s disappearance, man’s alleged confession of her murder
• Who is John Chapman: Man who told police he left local woman to die in Vegas desert

Case moves forward against man suspected of murdering Bethel Park woman in 2019

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