Warrington Man Killed Wife, Pretended She Was Alive: DA

WARRINGTON, PA — A former Warrington Township resident killed his wife in 1981, then took pains to pretend she was still alive after the fact, prosecutors claim after his arrest Thursday, nearly 39 years later.

William Walter Korzon, now 76, is charged with criminal homicide and other counts in the killing of his wife, Gloria Korzon. Other charges against Korzon include accusations that he solicited the murder of a police officer, forged his wife's signature on tax documents and lied under oath to increase his share of his wife's estate.

Warrington Township Police and Bucks County detectives, with the help of the York County authorities, arrested Korzon early Thursday morning at his home in Lower Windsor Township, in York County.

He is being held without bail at Bucks County Correctional Facility.

According to the Bucks County District Attorney's office, William and Gloria married in 1967 and lived on Pickertown Road in Warrington. Their relationship was marred by persistent domestic violence in which Gloria was repeatedly battered by her husband, often leaving her with black eyes and broken bones, prosecutors say.

They say Gloria Korzon chronicled the abuse in a series of letters to her lawyer.

She was 37 when she was last seen alive at her job on March 6, 1981.

Though her body was never found, she was legally declared dead in 1997.

Prosecutors say that, within days of her disappearance, William Korzon began working to make it appear his wife was still alive. He went to her employer, Bridgeport Controls in Horsham, and told her supervisor she had to leave the job because of physical and mental health issues.

He directed that her final paycheck be sent to their home. In May of that year, he sent a Mother's Day card to Gloria Korzon's mother bearing his wife's signature. While talking about the act years later, Korzon said he did so "to maintain the illusion she was alive," according to the criminal complaint against him.

In the years after Gloria's disappearance, Korzon would claim at times that she had left the marriage, prosecutors say. Despite claiming she'd left him, Korzon kept and hid Gloria's legal documents, including her Social Security card, driver's license, medical insurance card and voter registration, the DA's office said.

When questioned about his wife's death, the criminal complaint said, Korzon asked law enforcement officers, "Did you find the body?"