A local reporter in Pennsylvania had no idea they were speaking to a killer about his own victim until he was arrested for the crime just hours later.
As is usually the case after a crime has been committed, reporters descended on the scene in Bradford County, Pennsylvania after news emerged that a woman's body had been found in a local creek.
Looking for an angle on the story, a reporter from CNN affiliate WNEP-TV in Scranton found a man called Matthew Haverly, who lived right across the street from the scene of the crime.
In any other circumstance, someone who lived so close to the crime scene would probably be a great score for a reporter, as they could offer insights to the local area and details outsiders might not know.
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What the reporter didn't know is that Haverly actually knew more than anyone about the crime.
As a result, they conducted the interview as normal, asking Haverly to share his thoughts on the discovery of the body.
“It’s sad to say that that’s someone’s either daughter, mother or whatever,” Haverly said, speaking to the camera. “I think it was some kind of a hit, and something happened. Something went bad, and this is like a rural area, so they just wanted to plant the body somewhere else besides wherever the hell they were from.”
Haverly suggested the place where the body had been found might be somewhere 'people from the city would want to put a body', because they might think it 'wouldn't be found'.
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Haverly went on to share his thoughts on how his mother would feel about the whole ordeal, saying: “I’m guessing my mother, she would be concerned. Probably a lot of the other neighbors would be concerned."
As it turned out, though, his mother would never be able to share her own thoughts on the crime, because it was her body that was in the river.
Patricia Haverly was 60 years old when she died, and just a few hours after his interview, Haverly was arrested.
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A year after Patricia's death, Haverly was sentenced to three-and-a-half to 14 years in prison after pleading no contest under a deal with prosecutors to counts of involuntary manslaughter, possessing a prohibited offensive weapon, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
Haverly had allegedly claimed to have been intoxicated at the time of his mother’s death, telling police he had no clear recollection about what had happened when she died.
Emily Brown