A Seattle-based innocence organization has sent out tens of thousands of mailers to Lehigh County residents in an effort to raise public awareness in a decades-old double homicide case.
Judges for Justice, a nonprofit organization that aims to identify wrongful convictions, sent out 70,000 oversized postcards in October to frequent-voter households encouraging recipients to watch an hour-long video on the 1994 murders of Joann Katrinak and her infant son, Alex, and Patricia Rorrer, who was convicted in the case in 1997.
Rorrer currently is serving two life sentences for the killings, and has unsuccessfully appealed her conviction five times, with her last appeal being denied in June 2024. She has appealed that decision to the state Superior Court, which has yet to issue a decision.
Judges for Justice CEO and retired judge Michael Heavey said the mailers, as well as recent advertisements including on The Morning Call website, is a first step in the group’s efforts to spread more public awareness in the case.
The latest advertisements encourage residents to watch the eighth episode of the organization’s YouTube documentary series on the case.
“The best documentary in the world doesn’t do any good unless the people affected in the community don’t watch it,” Heavey said.
Judges for Justice employed a similar tactic in its successful efforts to overturn the conviction of brothers Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer, who had been convicted in the 1991 murder of Dana Ireland in Hawaii. DNA evidence identified another suspect in the case, and their conviction was overturned.
Heavey said the hope is that public pressure can lead to officials looking into the Rorrer case again.
Judges for Justice, which is not representing Rorrer in her appeal, has been looking into the case for years.
Joann Katriniak and Alex went missing in December 1994. Their bodies were found in a wooded area four months later.
Prosecutors said Rorrer, ex-girlfriend of Joann’s husband Andrew Katrinak, was angry over a phone call she had with Joann, drove from her North Carolina home, forced the two into her car, and took them to Heidelberg Township. She beat and fatally shot Joann, and either suffocated or abandoned Alex to the elements, police said.
Heavey said one of the bigger things the organization has an issue with is three items that were not DNA tested. Those include a cigarette butt and fingernail found near the body, and hairs held in Joann’s right hand, he said.
“The big question is, who does that hair belong to?” he said.
Heavey claims that the items were not tested because they did not fit the narrative put forward from law enforcement. Current DNA technology, he said, can identify person who left the hair or fingernail.
Heavey said the video advertised in the mailers has had an increase in views since the mailers went out; it’s received about 2,100 views as of this week.
Former Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin has said he believed everything brought up has been examined and dismissed. His successor, DA Gavin Holihan, shares similar thoughts.
“I am, as Attorney Martin was, convinced she is the killer of Joann and Alex Katrinak,” Holihan said.
Holihan noted that she has had a number of appeals, all of which have been unsuccessful.
In one appeal, her then-attorney pushed for to have hairs from the Katrinak vehicle tested, believing those would reveal a different suspect. Those were tested some years after the trial, and they tested positive for Rorrer, Holihan said.
The current DA said that when Rorrer was arrested, she told her children, in the presence of police, that she would never have brought her child “into this world” if she thought she was going to get caught.
“That’s a pretty damning statement, is it not?” Holihan said.
The DA said there is a “mountain of evidence” pointing to Rorrer being the killer in the case.
“How might a cigarette butt disprove the mountain of evidence against Patty Rorrer?” he said.