Curtis, Melody: 1996

Melody Curtis was 11 years old, and up to Tyrone to visit her grandmother, Lydia Bougher, at the time of her murder on June 29, 1996.  She was last seen alive at Shea Park, named after Kathleen Ann Shea, who vanished from Tyrone thirty years before, on March 18, 1966.  No trace of Kathleen was never been found.  The body of Melody Curtis was discovered under some freshly cut brush, on July 7, 1996, not far from the park.

Melody Curtis was a native of Leesburg, Florida, who had come to Tyrone to spend the summer visiting with her grandmother.

One of the FBI’s investigators, Special Agent Dale Frye, was born in Tyrone, and had entered the agency at about the same time as the Shea disappearance in 1965.  He had known her, and when the Melody Curtis case came up, he felt an especial emotional connection to the victim.

Ronald K. Isenberg, Junior was being held at a juvenile detention center in Westmoreland County when he confessed to the crime.

Isenberg was 18 years old at the time, and on April 11, 1997, police charged him with the rape and murder of Melody Curtis.  A Blair County judge threw out his confession, but the State Superior Court reinstated it.  An appeal was filed with the State Supreme Court, which denied his request on December 7, 1999 and refused to throw out the confession.  His case was cleared for trial, and in January of 2000, Judge Norman Callan approved a change of venue to Lebanon County.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2000, Isenberg pleaded guilty to third-degree murder.  Four charges of rape were nolle prossed, as was one charge of criminal attempt.  He was sentenced to 18 to 40 years in Mahoney SCI, a medium-security facility in Frackville, PA.  He remains there.  An appeal for Post Conviction Relief was filed on April 17, 2002; in 2004, and again on February 22, 2008.