Notorious Bucks Co. Murderer Dies In Prison

Mary Jane Fonder, 75, the oldest woman ever convicted of murder in Bucks County, died Monday at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, authorities confirmed. She died of cardiac arrest in the prison infirmary, officials with the Bucks County District Attorney's office said.

Fonder was convicted of one of the most notorious murders in Bucks County and was suspected in the 1993 disappearance of her elderly father.

Fonder had been incarcerated at Muncy since December 2008. She was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of receptionist Rhonda Smith, 42, in the office of a Springfield Township church.

Described as a"chatty, eccentric woman given to outlandish wigs and petty jealousies," she was once described in court by her own attorney as “the aunt you don’t want to sit next to at Thanksgiving," prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say Fonder became infatuated with her pastor at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. Fonder perceived Rhonda Smith as a romantic rival, and fatally shot her as she sat at a desk in the church office on Jan. 23, 2008.

Fonder then drove off to a hair appointment, throwing the gun off an overpass into Lake Nockamixon, prosecutors said.

The murder, which went unsolved for more than two months, was the inspiration behind a television network documentary and a true-crime book.

Fonder's name reappeared in headlines in recent weeks as detectives renewed a search in Nockamixon Township for her father, Edward Fonder III, who vanished in 1993 at the age of 83.

That search will continue despite her death, District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said. Fonder, who was the only suspect in his presumed demise, would not let police search her property, Weintraub said.

However, the property has been recently sold to a neighbor who permitted investigators full access.

“The search will continue because the District Attorney’s Office is still concerned about returning the remains to the family for closure and a proper burial,” Weintraub said.

Image via Bucks DA