The Bizarre Disappearance of Dale Kerstetter
Was he the victim of a robbery or an accomplice to the crime?
It was around 10:30 pm when Dale Kerstetter left his Bradford, Pennsylvania home on Saturday, September 12, 1987. He climbed into his red Jeep pickup truck and made the 10-mile drive from his home to the Corning Glass Works plant, where he had worked for 29 years as a maintenance mechanic and weekend security guard. As usual, he arrived a few minutes early for his 11:00 pm shift. He chatted briefly with the second-shift security guard, Art Peterson, then settled in for his overnight shift.
All the other employees had left the building, leaving Dale alone in the 112,000-square-foot factory. Dale divided his time between sitting in the factory’s security office and walking a set route around the building to make sure everything was secure.
Shortly before 7:00 am on Sunday, first-shift security guard John Lindquist arrived to relieve Dale. John expected to find his overnight counterpart sitting in the security office as usual, and was somewhat surprised when Dale wasn’t there. He poked his head into the cafeteria to see if Dale was in there, but the large room was empty.
As John scanned the cafeteria, he saw that Dale’s lunch pail was sitting on a nearby table. Next to the lunch pail, he found…