On Monday, a 42-year friend of Timothy Pahl described how she found his body during the opening day of the trial for the woman accused of murdering him.
Sharon Hayes told jurors that on April 24, 2018, Pahl’s son was worried after not hearing from his father for about a day-and-a-half. He asked if she had heard from him. Hayes hadn’t and after not being able to reach him herself, decided to go to his home on Stewartstown Road to check on him.
She called a mutual friend and the two drove to his house, looking through the trees into Pahl’s fields where he raised cattle because they thought he might have gotten into a tractor accident.
The outside of the house looked fine, though Hayes noted that Pahl’s white truck wasn’t parked outside, she testified. Pahl’s son, Andrew, told Hayes where the spare key was kept and she used it to enter the house.
She walked around the downstairs, calling for Pahl, but received no answer. She went upstairs and out of the corner of her eye, saw some shirts spilling into the hallway from a dressing room that used to be the master bedroom.
“You never saw anything amiss in that house,” Hayes said. “Tim was a little OCD.”
Hayes said she peeked inside and saw Pahl on the floor, covered from his torso to his head by a blanket. She described him as “very still” and said she touched his foot and knew he was gone.
Mecca 911 was called and law enforcement arrived “very quickly,” Hayes said.
Jurors also heard from Melissa Schell, who testified that she was letting the defendant, Elizabeth Chinn, 34, stay with her for a few days in her mobile home across the street from Pahl’s house.
Chinn is charged with first-degree murder, burglary, grand larceny, and two counts of conspiracy.
Schell said her life is like “night and day” between now and April 22, when Chinn was staying with her and allegedly killed Pahl.
Back then she was a drug and alcohol user and agreed to let Chinn stay at the request of Glenn Weaver Jr. and Elizabeth Hartley, both of whom had been living with her for some time, she testified.
On April 22, Schell, whose vehicle was broken down, borrowed Weaver’s to run some errands about 1 p.m., including to PetCo, Walmart, Five Below and Pizza Al’s.
When she left, Chinn was gone and she took special note of that fact because a previous guest at the house ended up at her parents’ house nearby, Schell said. So, she looked for Chinn as she drove out of the neighborhood to do her errands but didn’t see her.
When she got back, only Hartley was home and she told Shell she didn’t know where Weaver or Chinn were, Schell testified. Eventually, the two returned and after eating dinner, Schell went to her bedroom because she was feeling “uncomfortable.”
Later that night, when letting her dog out, Schell said Hartley, Weaver and Chinn were all in her driveway, as was a white truck that Weaver and Chinn returned in.
Schell was told the three of them were going to visit Weaver’s mom for a few days, something that was being planned as Schell had been trying to get them to move out for a few weeks.
The trial is scheduled for four days and will continue today.
