By: Liz BrennanOn June 26th, 1996, the nude body of a young woman was found in an empty lot in North Philadelphia. She had been beaten to beyond any recognition, but DNA later identified her as Aimee Willard, a 22-year-old woman from Brookhaven. She had been a star student-athlete at George Mason University in Virginia.
Her car was found on the US-1 ramp off I-476. The driver’s side door was wide open with the car running and the radio blaring. There was also a puddle of blood near the car. Though the killer remained unknown for some time, a man named Arthur Bomar was arrested on DNA evidence and eventually convicted of first-degree murder, rape, assault, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse.
Aimee had been driving home after a night on the Main Line with friends from high school. It’s theorized that Bomar followed Aimee as she left the tavern and hit her car with his own to get her to pull over. According to Pro-Death Penalty.Com, Bomar then abducted her and bludgeoned her with a tire iron before putting her in the trunk of his car and driving her to another location. He then raped and beat her before dumping her body in the vacant lot in North Philadelphia.
That isn’t even the worst part. Bomar was a convicted killer on parole for crimes committed in Nevada. Several years before, he was convicted of second-degree murder after shooting and killing a man in a dispute over a parking space. He was sentenced to five years to life in the Nevada prison system. Even after assaulting a woman in prison, he was paroled after serving little more than eleven years.
He moved to Pennsylvania, where he was arrested in 1991 for assault and harassm
ent. Bomar was not returned to Nevada on parole violations despite a total of four Pennsylvania arrests between 1991 and 1996. According to former Senator Rick Santorum’s website, Gail Willard has said “If Nevada had enforced his life sentence, Aimee would be alive today.” If both Pennsylvania and Nevada had enforced their parole laws, Aimee might be alive, also.
It was this oversight that led Gail Willard to take legal action. She wrote to former Congressmen Curt Weldon and Rick Santorum about enforcing the sentences of convicted criminals and strengthening the penalties on parole violators. Santorum introduced Aimee’s Law to Congress in March 1999.
According to Santorum’s website, “This important legislation would use federal crime fighting funds to create an incentive for states to adopt stricter sentencing and truth-in-sentencing laws. Aimee’s Law will hold states financially accountable for the tragic consequences of an early release which results in a violent crime being perpetrated on the citizens of another state. Specifically, this law will redirect enough federal crime fighting dollars from a state that has released early a murderer, rapist, or child molester to pay the prosecutorial and incarceration costs incurred by a state which has had to reconvict this released felon for a similar heinous crime. More than 14,000 murders, rapes and sexual assaults on children are committed each year by felons who have been released after serving a sentence for one of those very same crimes. About one in eight of these crimes occurs in a second state” (Statistics are derived from four U.S. Justice Department, Bureau of Justice Statistics reports).
Aimee’s Law was first offered as an amendment to the Juvenile Justice Bill. It ws passed by the Senate. Matt Salmon, a representative from Arizona and one of the three main supporters of Aimee’s Law along with Santorum and Weldon, introduced the law as an amendment to the Juvenile Justice Bill, and it was passed in the House also. However, due to delays, it became necessary to move the legislation separately, and after a speech by Gail Willard and Congressman Santorum, Aimee’s Law was unanimously passed in the house and President Clinton formally enacted Aimee’s Law on October 28th, 2000.
““We are sending a clear message with Aimee’s Law,” said Santorum, according to his website. “We want tougher sentences and we want truth in sentencing. A child molester who receives four years in prison, when you consider the recidivism rate, is an abomination. Murderers, rapists, and child molesters do not deserve early release; our citizens deserve to be protected. In this legislation we are protecting one state’s citizens from the complacency of another state, an appropriate role for the federal government.”
Bomar went to trial in 1998. He was convicted and sentenced to death on October 1st, 1998. When he heard the conviction, he stood up and gave the middle finger to Aimee’s family, shouting “F*** you, Mrs. Willard, her brother and her sister.” His execution is currently stayed as he is still filing appeals.
It was impossible to attend the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur and not know the full story of Aimee Willard’s life and, especially, her death. She had gone to high school there from 1988 to 1992 and excelled in academics as well as being a star on the soccer and lacrosse fields and basketball court. She was the first inductee into the 1,000 point club for basketball and even held the record for most points scored in basketball until 2002 at 1, 331 points.
I began attending the Academy of Notre Dame in the fall of 1998. Switching from a co-ed public school where I could wear what I wanted to an all-girls private Catholic school with a uniform was enough of a switch. But it was during my sixth grade year that Bomar, the man who had allegedly abducted, raped and killed Aimee, was on trial. We regularly heard updates on the trial from our teachers, who each told us why we should be concerned with this particular murder trial.
During my years at Notre Dame, teachers and coaches constantly told me how much I reminded them of Aimee. I was a freckle-faced girl next door and a tornado of energy who played soccer and basketball. My studies were very important to me, and I always had my homework in on time. I laughed loudly and often and had no idea that evil could really exist. The only bad person I knew about was the Devil, and as far as I knew, he didn’t visit me often.
As I got older, I began to get to know one of the Sisters of Notre Dame who taught at my school. Her name was Sister Nancy Bonshock, and she taught AP United States History and AP Comparative Government. I knew that she was revered as an excellent educator. I knew that she was respected because she was courageously battling breast cancer. I knew that she had a beautiful singing voice since she often sat next to me in the alto section at choir practice. I didn’t find out until my sophomore year of high school that she was also Aimee’s aunt.
I will never forget one day during my senior year when I, in my usual style, dropped my folder while packing up my things after AP Comparative Government (lovingly dubbed AP CoGo by its students). My papers scattered everywhere, and I waved my friends off. It was the end of the day, and I didn’t want them to have to be late to their buses on my account. Before I knew it, I was the only one in the room with Sister Nancy. As I finally put everything together and pushed my folder back into my bag, I heard Sister Nancy say “You know, Liz, I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but you remind me so much of Aimee.”
I froze. I had heard that before. I had heard it so much that I started to think that my teachers and coaches sounded like broken records. But to hear it from Sister Nancy, who had known and loved Aimee not only as a student, not only as an athlete, but as a niece meant so much more. It was a compliment the likes of which I’m sure I’ll never receive again.
When I graduated from Notre Dame, I was the recipient of the Aimee Willard Memorial Scholar-Athlete Award. Afterward, my favorite gym teacher and mentor Miss Wetzel told me that the voting had been unanimous and that, in fact, no other students had even been considered. I suppose it was one of their last ways to tell me that I reminded them of Aimee.
It’s safe to say at as an 11-year-old, I had no idea of the magnitude of this murder and the trial. The only murder trial I could even possibly remember was the trial of O.J. Simpson, and that had been when I was in second grade at the ripe old age of eight. I knew that murder was bad. I knew that I didn’t want it to happen to me. But I didn’t grasp how close to home this was. I didn’t understand.
Now, ten years later, I’m still only beginning to understand. I know where the I-476 is. We call it the Blue Route, and I take it to get home from school, as well as to get a number of other places. I even take the US-1 exit for an almost straight shot to my house. Once I get off that ramp, I am literally three minutes from my front door. To realize that something so horrific happened to a girl just like me so close to home was shocking and terrifying.
Though I like to think that I see the world through rose-colored glasses, I know that my naïveté and idealism are not as unmarred as they used to be. When I’m alone on the road at night, I get nervous. If I notice that a car has been around me a long time, I keep an eye on it and try to stay near other cars. I pray every time I drive and send up a thank you whenever I get safely to my destination. I never used to be this way. My friends sometimes tell me that I’m paranoid, but I don’t think I am. I just want to stay alive. If that means taking a detour into a busy, lit-up shopping center as a precaution, so be it. If that means waiting until tomorrow to fill my car with gas so I don’t have to stop at a deserted gas station as night, that’s OK with me.
In Mrs. Willar
d’s testimony to Congress on May 11th, 2000, she writes of what Aimee was like when she was alive. “Aimee was a wonder, a delight, a brilliant life in my life. With dancing blue eyes and a bright, beautiful smile, she drew everyone who knew her into the web of her life. She would light up a room just by walking into it...She had friends and talents and dreams for a spectacular future, so it seemed only natural and right to believe that she would live well into old age. Never one to complain when things didn't go her way, Aimee always worked and played to the best of her ability, happy with her successes, taking her failures in stride. Aimee lived and loved well. She never harmed anyone; in fact, Aimee rarely ever spoke ill of anyone. She was almost too good to be true.” “Her friends describe her as a quiet presence, a fun-loving kid, a good listener, a loyal friend. They use words like shy, modest, kind, strong, focused, intense, caring, sharing and loving when they speak about Aimee. They tell of Aimee's magic with people.” If that’s how people truly see me, then I have no reason to complain. Aimee does sound “too good to be true.” I know that I’m not perfect, but if I can possibly deserve even one of the compliments above, then I’ll know that I’ve lived well.
Aimee clearly had so much to live for. And so do I. I feel like I should carry on her legacy as well as I can.
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