Does Steelton Have its Second Serial Killer?

The small mill town of Steelton, Pennsylvania (population 6,263) already has at least one serial killer in its history. Joseph Daniel Miller was responsible for the deaths of at least five women and girls in the Harrisburg area in the late eighties and the very beginning of the nineties. I routinely use a highway that intersects a road that leads to a place where Miller dropped off the bodies of his victims. These victims often come to mind as I drive past that turn off, and especially thoughts of the murdered young mother whose unborn child perished with her. Back then, that road led to a dark and isolated dumping ground that a serial killer knew from playing around the town in his childhood years. That’s presumably why he chose that lonely place to bury his victims. It’s creepy to think he wanted these victims near where he lived. He brought their bodies back to his hometown. Now that road ends in a shiny, relatively new housing development. Probably few to none of those people have any idea what sorrowful ground their homes are built on.

I don’t want to spend much time analyzing the misshapen life of Joe Miller, but it is worth noting that he is doubtless one of those killers who was made not born. I think it’s alright to feel tears coming to one’s eyes for his victims and also feel tears forming for what Miller endured in his childhood, that mental and physical torture that made him what he became. I’m not a bleeding heart when it comes to people who hunt humans and feel there are many cases that merit the death penalty. But to be honest, I think it would be hard for me to advocate for the death penalty for someone like Joseph Miller. It just reminds one how important it is to protect children and advocate for their welfare. Even Richard Ramirez was a product of his childhood abuse and the sadistic violence he was taught to embrace by a cousin who had apparently learned to enjoy torturing and murdering in the Vietnam War. And doesn’t that fact give one an image of how violence is indeed karma, a big wheel turning? Pay it forward doesn’t apply only to the good in this world. It applies equally to evil. Evil also pays it forward.

This is going to be messy. I’m really placing this here in the hope that someone with better research skills than myself will investigate this and perhaps discover whether there is an immediate threat to the public. I wish I had started a file and saved news stories, because already I’m finding it hard to find the documentation I want to include here. And memory is fallible.

The reason I am posting this is because I believe that there is a serial killer “at work” at the edge of Steelton around Route 230 (known as Front Street in the town) into the lower end of Harrisburg (where 230 is Cameron Street). There have been a number of unexplained deaths in the small bits of forested areas and scrub and waterways on both sides of the highway. As I said earlier, I wish I had started a folder of news items. But then I wasn’t sure it was a real thing initially and there were some time gaps between these suspicious deaths.

The thing that really irritated me is that our county coroner kept ruling these deaths which really looked like murders as accidents. The latest death which he ruled of “undetermined” cause was actually a man found with an arrow in his head. I kid you not. That’s what he wrote. There was talk of possible suicide. How many people do you know in the history of the world who committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head with an arrow? And how, pray tell, is this miraculous deed which defies physics accomplished?

I came to believe that our coroner is corrupt not incompetent. He’s also an anti-vaxxer, a Trumper and who knows what else. He’s very involved politically. I think he is very inclined to give the local police a break by ruling likely homicides accidents. Think of all the work and time that saves overworked police. I mean these are not well-known individuals who are being pulled from Paxton Creek. So it’s very easy to just bury cases like these. I’m sorry if that sounds cynical but that’s what I believe he does.

Take, for example, the case of Dean Ash. Even though this individual’s body was found badly beaten up in a shallow creek, our coroner ruled that it was an accidental death. The bridges over that creek are not high at all. A kid could easily jump down into the creek and land in the shallow water without so much as a sprained ankle. Most likely this poor guy was beaten and drowned in that creek where he was found. His missing poster had said he was last seen in Steelton on Frank S. Brown Boulevard.

This is why I wish I had all the old news stories at hand. I actually made a call to the police to express my concern that a serial killer was at work in this part of town. I have never made a phone call like that before in my life. They respectfully took the information but, of course, nothing came of it. Here’s the thing. I believed this was a real matter of murders going missed in that part of town because they all had certain things in common. The victims were all men, all middle-aged, and all were found in woodsy or scrub areas or in the water right alongside Route 230. This is not a violent part of town or even a busy part of town. There is, however, a violent housing project not far from this area. It could be that robbery was the motive in these deaths or it could be that murder was the motive. You would think men of a certain age would look like better targets for mugging. They’re more likely to be carrying credit cards and cash and they’re usually going to have a hard time fighting a younger, fitter assailant or assailants.

I was so convinced that this was a pattern, I told someone close to me every time we drove through that part of town, “They are going to find a body soon by the side of the road here hidden in the woodsy areas.” And that happened. The latest victim (or the latest one found, anyway) was this poor guy. And thank you, dear website, interesting speculation, but nobody is hunting deer in that area. What that does give law enforcement is a great starting point in researching this almost certain homicide. Who among very local locals is known for having a powerful bow and arrow (perhaps a crossbow) and enjoys archery? I realize this latest victim had enemies, but that seems like an awfully strange weapon for a hit. And if someone with criminal intent was indeed hanging out in the woods around that murder mile, he might have decided it was “cool” to take out his next victim with such a weapon. To my mind, that points to a younger offender. Or, admittedly, it could be a fluke accident involving an amateur archer. That would have to be very flukey indeed to score a perfect kill shot. As that linked article points out, this would be an extremely rare sort of homicide. But it bothers me that it fell right into the zone I had predicted for an upcoming and unexplained “woodsy” homicide.

The story about Dean Ash’s body being found in Paxton Creek comes up right alongside another story from 2016 of a man’s body found in the same small creek. There is a homeless encampment under the Mulberry Bridge in Harrisburg that is being legally evicted even as I’m posting this. City officials say they are taking this step because of sanitation and health issues (rats, etc.) but they also mentioned the rampant crime and violence there. I have no idea if that encampment was present as far back as 2016. I’m tending to think it was not. Also, I hate to be guilty of predictably focusing on the housing project and the homeless encampment if this is a serial killer. He could live anywhere in this area and might be a homeowner with a property whose value he checks periodically on Zillow.

I’m trying to remember if that 2016 death is the one where our Wonder Coroner stated that the body floated from the Susquehanna River back up into Paxton Creek. I guess he wrote “motorized corpse” on the autopsy form when he needed to explain that bit about the dead man swimming against the current.

So bodies were found dead in little itty bitty Paxton Creek in the same area in 2016, 2019 and 2021. Things that make you go hmmm. I’m having trouble finding the names to match up to all of these mysterious deaths. Dean Ash is the 2019 death. The police assure us that there is “nothing suspicious” about the 2021 death. Does this mean suicide? Who commits suicide by drowning himself in a small creek? Or were they implying this was a death due to intoxication? Again, it’s a very unlikely place to drown. I invite you to Google image search “Paxton creek water Harrisburg” and see what a small body of water we are talking about. I added those other words because just “Paxton Creek Harrisburg” will bring up a development of townhouses with that name.

Perhaps the death by arrow is an anomaly and not connected to the other deaths. But it fit into my “expected homicide.” Just in terms of general proximity and time frame. But it is different.

I’m thinking I’m missing unexplained deaths in the general Steelton-Harrisburg corridor in the woods or creek off Route 230 from 2017 and 2018. If those can be found, then I’d say there is almost certainly a pattern of suspicious deaths here. Admittedly, I am missing info for the 2016 and 2021 “Creek Murderer” deaths. That police dimiss them doesn’t mean I do. I think any body found in Paxton Creek should carry a strong suspicion of foul play. It’s just not prime drowning territory, folks. Not even for drunk drowning.

So I’m posting this just because the pattern has disturbed me for a number of years. I was surprised greatly each time I heard they pulled another man from that little creek. Admittedly, this latest tragedy is a very strange one and does not fit entirely in what I expected but still shares some odd similarities.

I wish law enforcement would revisit this triad or quartet of suspicious creek deaths and I’m sure they would know if there are other homicides that occurred in that general area in the Steelton-Harrisburg corridor, in Paxton Creek in particular, and in the woodsy areas that abut the Greenbelt. Because something definitely seems off. There should not be deaths occurring in this manner in these places. It doesn’t make statistical sense, really. Search engines don’t always give you all the news you expect to find. I remember how there were many more citations for some of these deaths when they were “fresher.” So many citations seem to dry up. I’m wondering what else I missed that might have fallen into those two years 2017–2018 or even 2020. I tend to pay more attention to the national news the past few years and often give short shrift to local news. For instance, I did not even know about Mr. Smith’s death until today. And that was several months ago.

I suspect that there are far more serial killers in the world than we will ever know. Patterns get missed all the time. I’m guessing in the not-so-distant future computer programs will assist law enforcement in noticing patterns that humans simply cannot notice in the huge oceans of data. That would be a good thing for the public safety and to assist law enforcement in bringing such monsters to justice.