Lisa Ziegert

Case background and investigation

Lisa Ziegert, 24, worked at a middle school in Agawam, Massachusetts, and had a second job in the evenings at a card and gift shop on Walnut Street Extension. According to the Hampden District Attorney's Office, she was abducted from the shop during the early evening of April 15, 1992. The next morning the store's day clerk arrived to find the shop open with its lights on and Ziegert's car parked where it had been the evening before, and reported her missing. The money in the register, her purse and her school materials appeared undisturbed.

On April 19, 1992, which was Easter Sunday, a passerby found her body in woods off Suffield Street in Agawam, about four miles from the shop, the District Attorney's Office said. The office stated that she had been sexually assaulted and killed, and her death was ruled a homicide. Agawam police, Massachusetts State Police detectives, the state crime laboratory and the FBI took part in an investigation that continued for 25 years.

A single-source male DNA profile was developed from evidence, but according to the District Attorney it was run repeatedly against state, national and international databases without a match. In September 2016 District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced that Parabon NanoLabs had used DNA phenotyping to predict the unknown man's ancestry and appearance, and released composite images. Investigators then went back to their lists of persons of interest, which totalled more than 300 names, and picked out people who had not given DNA samples. Gary E. Schara of West Springfield was among them; his former wife had given his name to investigators in March 1993.

In August 2017 a grand jury was asked to authorise the collection of DNA samples. On September 13, 2017, state troopers went to Schara's home to serve paperwork and left word with his roommate. The following day, according to the District Attorney's account, Schara's girlfriend brought police handwritten notes he had left for her, in which he admitted abducting, raping and killing a young woman 25 years earlier, along with a letter of apology addressed to the Ziegert family. His car was found that night at a hospital in Stafford Springs, Connecticut.

On September 16, 2017, the state crime laboratory reported that DNA from a toothbrush seized from Schara's home matched the profile from the evidence, and he was arrested at a medical facility in Connecticut. A Hampden County grand jury indicted him on December 8, 2017, for first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape. Prosecutors later dropped the kidnapping and rape counts because the statutes of limitations had expired. On September 25, 2019, Schara, then 50, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and began a life sentence.