When and where did the Stanley Detweiler case take place?

July 25, 1987, in South Fifth Street, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Stanley Detweiler: The REDRUM Murder | True Crime Case Histories

Case at a glance

When

July 25, 1987

Where

South Fifth Street, Reading, Pennsylvania

Perpetrator

John Calvaresi and Michael Boettlin Jr.

Victim

Stanley Detweiler

Outcome

Calvaresi pleaded guilty but mentally ill and was sentenced to life, died in prison in 2015; Boettlin convicted of first-degree murder in 1988, resentenced in 2017 to 40 years to life

The case

Stanley Detweiler, 41, set up banquets at a Holiday Inn and shared an apartment on South Fifth Street in Reading, Pennsylvania, with David Lutz. In July 1987, Lutz mentioned the apartment’s stereo and cash to 16-year-old Michael Boettlin Jr. Boettlin passed the tip to John Calvaresi, 22, and the two decided to rob the place that night, believing no one would be home.

Early on July 25, 1987, the two kicked in the door. Detweiler was there and fought back. Calvaresi tackled him and Boettlin kicked him repeatedly in the face. Calvaresi then took a knife from the kitchen, killed Detweiler and cut off his head. Using the victim’s blood, he wrote “REDRUM” on the wall, the backward word from The Shining, which had aired on cable days earlier, along with “LSD.” Police arrested both suspects within days, and Calvaresi told a newspaper from jail that he had done it while high on LSD.

Calvaresi pleaded guilty but mentally ill to first-degree murder and received a life sentence. He died in a Pennsylvania state prison in 2015. Boettlin, 17 at trial, was convicted of first-degree murder in August 1988 and sentenced to life without parole. After the U.S. Supreme Court limited mandatory life terms for juveniles, he was resentenced in October 2017 to 40 years to life, which left him eligible for parole about a decade later.

Why this case

“Most retellings of this case focus on one word on a wall and a movie connection. I would rather readers remember Stanley Detweiler, a hotel worker who was simply home on the night two young men expected an empty apartment. They came for a stereo that investigators later described as nearly worthless.”

— Jason Neal, author of True Crime Case Histories