HANOVER, Pa. — Twenty-two years ago, a hunter stumbled across the partially nude, decaying body of Cheryl Marie Smith in a thickly wooded area known locally as The Pines.
The case of the 17-year-old's slaying appeared to be closed in 1996 after murder convictions put James Paul Frey behind bars for life and co-defendant John Amos Small on death row.
But a state appeals court decision last year granting Frey a new trial reopened the investigation, leading to the arrest of nine people for allegedly misleading authorities.
The new arrests, and Frey's subsequent plea deal that capped his sentence at 10 to 20 years, have angered the victim's parents, opening old wounds.
The possibility that Frey could be released as early as 2006 also has left them bitter. "I was amazed," said Cheryl Smith's mother, Frances. "I felt that was very unfair, 20 years. He was in there for life."
Assistant York County district attorney Chuck Patterson said he consented to the deal because he was worried about fading memories among witnesses who spent the night in question drinking and smoking marijuana.
"You strike a balance, and you make a judgment call," Patterson said.
The six people who have been charged in the past few months with hindering prosecution and obstruction of justice — the oldest was 20 when Cheryl Smith died — are now approaching middle age.
Court records say they lied when they denied being at the party in The Pines the night of the murder. A seventh person has pleaded guilty to concealing a witness' whereabouts.
"My personal opinion is that a bunch of these people are telling the truth, just not telling the story that (the investigator) wants to hear; therefore, they're squeezing everybody and hoping that somebody will sing a song," said Samuel A. Gates, attorney for one of the six.
Ralph E. Shorb, 39, was charged after police said he failed a lie-detector test and records contradicted his statement that he was at work, said his attorney, Wayne Gracey.
"He's very, very upset. He just can't believe it that they're trying to drag him through this mess for something that happened 22 years ago," Gracey said. Shorb denies the charges.
Cheryl Smith disappeared overnight between Aug. 5 and 6, 1981, after she went with a group of friends from a house party in Hanover, about 30 miles northwest of Baltimore, to the Melrose Tavern in Maryland before ending up in The Pines.
She was discovered six weeks later in a briar patch. An autopsy determined she died from a severe blow to the right side of her head. There was circumstantial evidence of sexual assault, but her body was too badly decomposed to provide DNA or other forensic evidence.
Fourteen years later, in 1995, a state trooper working the cold-case file managed to connect it to another Hanover-area homicide for which Frey was convicted.
Witnesses finally agreed to talk, and, in May 1995, three men were charged with attempted rape and first-degree homicide: Frey, Small and Small's brother, Charles Francis Small Jr. A fourth man testified against them in a plea deal.
Charges against Charles Small, now 52, were withdrawn midway through the trial after cashed paycheck stubs placed him in Florida around the time of the killing.
The jury sentenced John Small, 42, to death but it deadlocked on the death penalty for Frey, so he received a life term.
After poor legal representation prompted a new trial for Frey, the ensuing investigation led to perjury and false-swearing charges against Charles Small and his wife, Kathy L. Small, 42, now living in New Oxford.
The Smalls' defense attorney, Darryl Cunningham, called the charges "preposterous," adding: "The documentary evidence that was brought up from Florida showed that they were in Florida at the time."
Preliminary hearings for the nine defendants are scheduled to take place in the coming weeks. Frey will learn at an Aug. 13 sentencing hearing whether a judge will accept his plea deal.
Cheryl Smith's father, Charles, said he has spent some sleepless nights recently, imagining the day he might run into Frey on the streets of Hanover.
"I can't be responsible for something that happens," he said. "I don't know what I might do, knowing he might get off like this."