STATE COLLEGE – According to Gant news partner WJACTV, a coroner ruled the death of 74-year-old Jon Yount as a suicide in his state prison cell in Greene County.
The convicted teacher took his own just days before the 46-year anniversary of the brutal rape and murder of DuBois Area High School senior Pamela Sue Rimer.
According to news archives at WJAC-TV, the math teacher confessed to police that he had stopped the 18-year-old as she was walking home from the bus stop, beat her with a wrench, raped her, then stabbed her and left her to die in the woods near her Luthersburg home.
Yount’s defense team fought his written confessions, but in both trials, he was convicted of murder by a jury.
In 1986, authorities said Yount walked away from unsupervised farm detail at SCI Rockview, and fled to Idaho with a pen pal-turned-girlfriend Diane Brodbeck, who left her husband and two children for the convict.
Public defender Deborah Lux defended Yount on his escape charges, and told 6News that he and Brodbeck were caught in Idaho in 1988, when an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” featured his crimes and disappearance was aired on NBC affiliates across the country.
For the full story check out WJACTV.com.