A wanted poster for George Allen Keith, who wondered from the Warren State Hospital in 1999. Keith is a convicted murderer in the 1975 death of a 12-year-old. Submitted photo

WARREN, Pa. — On Dec. 21, 1999, at approximately 1:10 p.m., convicted murderer George Allen Keith walked away from the Warren State Hospital.

He has not been seen or heard from since.

In 1975, Keith was tried for the criminal homicide of a 12-year-old girl in Clearfield County, Pa. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to Farview State Hospital in Scranton. Keith was later transferred to Warren State Hospital in 1982, where he remained a patient until the time of his escape.

Warren was dealing with blizzard-like conditions on the day of Keith’s escape. He was given privileges to go for a walk around the ungated Warren State Hospital facility, but was not given permission to leave the hospital grounds. State police said Keith walked into the blizzard, and never came back.

The details of the murder that Keith was tried for are among the most brutal in rural Pennsylvania history. According to a story written by Sara Ganim, formerly of the Centre Daily Times and currently of CNN, on the evening of March 11, 1974, Tracy Stetler, only 12, was walking home from the Philipsburg YMCA when she crossed paths with Keith, who was returning from — in his words to police — “getting dizzy” at a local bar.

Keith then followed the young girl down the street and killed her. He dragged the girl into the nearby woods and retreated to his grandparents’ house before fleeing to Mexico where he was eventually captured and arrested for the murder.

Keith, a Vietnam war veteran, admitted to the crime. But he didn’t think he had done anything wrong.

According to the Centre Daily Times story, in Keith’s “bizarre” account of that night, he told police he heard voices in his head, went outside to get some air, fell asleep on the hood of a car, then saw Stetler as he began walking home.

Keith claimed Stetler was a Viet Cong woman carrying a homemade bomb. The “bomb” that Keith claimed Stetler was carrying could have actually been a can of raspberry soda she really was carrying.

“I was instructed,” Keith testified at his trial. “And I had seen a mine that she was carrying. It was like the homemade ones that they had used down in South Vietnam, out of soda pop, or whatever they could make them out of.”

He described the girl as wearing black pants and an “old-type Air Force belt, French type,” according to the transcripts. Keith also said she was wearing a straw hat and carrying a Russian-type weapon.

In reality, the girl was wearing a t-shirt, sneakers, and jeans.

“I thought she was going to destroy the depot,” he told police. “Had to grab her so she wouldn’t warn the other VCs that there were Americans in the area. That was my first time I ever killed a woman. It made me sick.”

It was argued that something wasn’t quite right in Keith’s head.

A psychiatrist, hired by the Centre County District Attorney’s Office, found that Keith fell under the standard of the McNaughton rule, the barometer Pennsylvania law used to determine if a defendant knows right from wrong. Basically, while Keith had some understanding of what he had done, he didn’t understand that it was wrong.

Prosecutors aimed to get justice for Stetler and her family. Charles C. Brown Jr., who was the District Attorney for the area at the time, didn’t buy the defense Keith was using.

“It was just horrific,” Brown said during Keith’s trial. “How in the world could something like this happen in Philipsburg? What is this guy? This is nonsense. How is this guy saying that he was killing some Viet Cong spy? It was definitely the streets of Philipsburg. There’s no question that he did it. It’s just what was his mind when he did it. With all due respect, I always had this uneasy feeling that some day, some psychiatrist, series of psychiatrists, or a social worker, would say there’s really nothing more that we can do.”

Keith’s attorney, Chief Public Defender Bob Martin, elected to forgoe his right to a trial by a jury of peers. Instead, a panel of three judges from three different counties heard the evidence and decided the verdict.

Three psychiatrists were then brought in to evaluate Keith: one for the prosecution, one for the defense, and one chosen by the judges. All said Keith suffered from schizophrenia and epilepsy. But only two of the three doctors found him to have been insane when he killed Stetler.

Not agreeing with the insanity claim, Brown focused his argument on the awful facts of Stetler’s death. “He purposely slit her throat, and I thought that would be pretty powerful stuff,” Brown said during the trial.

Keith’s trial took place nine years after he was honorably discharged. But he, his defense said, thought he was still in a war zone at the time of the murder.

“I believe she would have recognized me as an American soldier when I am up in that area,” Keith testified. “I knocked her out and killed her and stuff.”

“And it is your testimony that all this happened at P.O. 1 in Vietnam?” Brown asked Keith at trial, according to the Centre Daily Times story.

“Yes, sir,” Keith replied.

“And you are sure that it never happened in Philipsburg on March 11, 1974?” Brown asked.

“Yes, sir. I am saying it didn’t happen in Philipsburg,” Keith replied.

The judges then found Keith not guilty by reason of insanity. He was then involuntarily committed to mental institutions before his escape in 1999.

So, where is Keith? Is he alive? Or is he dead?

“There’s a lot of people here, me included, who think that” Keith is dead, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Brian Zeybel told Ganim in 2009. “He has left no trace, he has left no further victims. And then there’s a lot out there who think he’s alive and well. It’s about 50-50.”

But it’s possible that Keith is still alive, Zeybel said then.

“He’s intelligent and would have the means and know-how to get to Mexico or some small town,” he said. “But I feel it’s more plausible that he would be deceased rather than this huge elaborate conspiracy theory.”

Zeybel told Ganim that “unless he had a plan,” Keith would have died from exposure, probably in a vast wooded area near the State Hospital in the middle of winter.

Brown also believes that Keith is dead, according to the 2010 Centre Daily Times article.

“My first reaction was … I guess one of the thoughts was that if he really did have special forces training, he probably could stay on his own for at least a while,” Brown said. “But after 10 years and nothing has surfaced? Nobody’s gotten suspicious about this guy wearing a beard and sitting on a corner in Idaho or Utah. He hasn’t gotten a job. The evidence in my head is starting to build that he is dead.”

After 17 years missing, Keith, who would now be 70, is still listed as “Wanted” on the Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers website. His escape was covered in 1999 and into 2000 in the Times Observer, and in his court case and escape reported on in the area of Philipsburg for far longer.

“The Pennsylvania State Police, Troop E, Warren, continue their search for George Allen Keith, who is wanted for escape,” the website (www.crimewatchpa.com) reports. “George Allen Keith may be using the first name of Jake or Snuffy. He has contacts in Conneautville, Crawford County, and family in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.”

Keith is white and listed at 5’9″ and 165 pounds. He has hazel eyes, and had brown hair at the time of his disappearance. He had scars on his left hand and left wrist, and tattoos on both of his forearms.

He has obviously not been found, alive or dead.

If you have any information on the escape of George Allen Keith, call the Western Pennsylvania U.S. Marshals at (412) 422-4722 or (412) 644-6628. You may also send an email to wpaftf@comcast.net. All information will remain confidential and you may remain anonymous. A cash reward may be available.