The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.
Listener discretion is advised.
I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
Hello everyone and welcome back.
Welcome back everyone.
I am Eli.
And I'm Ali.
And in case you didn't hear it in the intro, this is Cold and Missing.
Yeah, we are on episode 50 today, my love.
50?
That's shocking.
I can't believe it's already at 50.
Episode 50?
It is a... it's a cold case.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Like last week.
Alrighty.
Um, well, should we just usher right into it?
Yeah, let's get into it.
Let's do it.
So just as a content warning at the top, this case does involve sexual assault.
And just in case you're new here or maybe haven't listened to all our past episodes,
the reason why I don't leave out any details that I find is because you never know what
a suspect has said over the years.
What will jog someone's memory?
Maybe what someone has said while they're drunk or maybe what somebody has said while
they're asleep.
So I try to give all the details because it's all information.
So today we are covering the cold case of Roberta Elam or Sister Robin.
And this takes place in June of 1977 in Wheeling, West Virginia.
But first a little bit about Roberta.
Roberta was a postulate nun who also went by Sister Robin.
From everything I could find, it does appear that her family called her Robin as well.
So that's what I'll call her throughout the podcast today.
In 1977, Robin is 26 years old.
She was born August 23rd, 1950, and she would be 72 years old today and turning 73 later
this month.
Sister Robin was someone who was extremely interested in social justice.
She had gotten a master's in religious studies at Fordham University in New York City, where
she met one of her best friends, Sister Kathleen.
The two of them teamed up and worked on adult education in rural West Virginia.
Sister Robin, as I already mentioned, was in the process of becoming a nun.
She had joined the year prior and she was on track to take her temporary vows in one
year.
Robin did not live with the Sisters of St. Joseph at the convent.
She drove an orange convertible Fiat.
She loved to go jogging and hiking as forms of exercise and wrote poetry.
One person said, quote, I knew her as a beautiful human being, giving unselfishly of herself
in the service of God, end quote.
And now the timeline of events.
On Sunday, June 12th, 1977, Sister Robin arrives at the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph
to participate in an eight-day silent retreat.
Before entering her silent period of reflection, she told her good friend Sister Kathleen that
she needed to talk to her about something important, but was worried that Kathleen would
think she's crazy.
The two never got a chance to talk before Robin entered her silent retreat that evening.
The next day, Monday, June 13th, 1977, Sister Robin was seen early in the morning grabbing
an apple from the kitchen.
She was not wearing a habit, but was dressed in jeans and a blouse.
She was headed outside for a day of prayer and reflection.
The convent is located inside Oglebay Park.
Inside the park, there's a golf course that sits just east of the convent.
You could see the golfers from the grounds.
The grounds were peaceful and it was not uncommon for the Sisters of St. Joseph to walk the
grounds and to sit in prayer.
Sister Robin was wrestling with her decision to continue in her choice to become a nun,
and those who knew her believed she was spending this time in prayer and meditation to reflect
on this.
At 1.30 in the afternoon, a caretaker was driving around the property when he noticed
an overturned bench on the top of a hill near the mother house.
He drove to it and finds a white knapsack on the ground with a prayer book inside.
As he continues to look around, he finds Sister Robin's partially nude body about 50 feet
from the bench and 75 feet from the mother house.
She was found in the bushes near a fence line.
Police are immediately called and the investigation begins.
Bloodhounds are brought out to search that day the surrounding area where Sister Robin's
body had been found.
It was on top of a grassy knoll.
To the east is the golf course and to the west was an open pasture behind a strip of
trees.
Police search the golf course and nearby farms but don't find anything pertaining to the
case.
All of Sister Robin's clothes were found at the scene.
Nothing was missing and she was still wearing several articles of clothing.
She had bruising on her neck, throat, and legs which led investigators to believe that
she was sexually assaulted, which is later confirmed in the autopsy.
Nobody at the convent heard anything and nobody at the golf course reported hearing anything
either.
Tuesday, June 14th, 1977, the day after the murder, Sister Robin's autopsy is done where
it confirms, like I mentioned before, that she was sexually assaulted and the cause of
death was strangulation.
Police believe the assailant used his bare hands because thumbprints were left around
her throat.
Police believe the attack happened around 10.30 in the morning, about three hours before
she was found.
They believe that Sister Robin was sitting in prayer or meditation when she was caught
by surprise.
She did not have any defensive wounds, which led investigators to believe that she had
been taken by surprise.
They believed she was dragged from the bench to the spot where her body was found.
Investigators send blood, hair, and fingerprints from the scene to a lab in hopes of being
able to get an identification of the suspect.
Nobody really knows how the nuns are feeling at this time.
All statements are coming through Frank Sweeney of the Catholic Diocese and he said this of
the nuns, quote,
They're just plain too upset.
It's only been 48 hours.
I've denied that request again and again from reporters.
End quote.
Wednesday, June 15th, 1977, so just two days after the murder.
Police have two leads that they're chasing down.
Wheeling, West Virginia sits right between Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Both states are extremely close.
In Pennsylvania, four other women and girls between the ages of 16 and 21 had been sexually
assaulted and murdered.
Three had been strangled and one had been beaten.
Police compare notes and ultimately walk away feeling that these cases are not connected.
Detective Norman Sayers with the Ohio County Sheriff, which is the county that Wheeling,
West Virginia is in where Sister Robin was found.
Detective Norman says, quote,
I feel they have their murderer and we have ours.
End quote.
Police are also interested in talking with construction crews that had recently been
in the area salvaging telephone poles.
The nuns had heard the men using obscene language and making rude jokes.
One man had made comments to Sister Robin and she had words with him.
She was still upset about it in the evening, the Friday before her murder, when she was
telling the nuns about the man with the quote filthy mouth at dinner.
Investigators also make a small mention that they're looking for a car that was parked
about a mile from the convent at the time of the murder.
No details around the make or model.
The news at this time is really dominated about the potential serial killer link with
the cases in Pennsylvania.
Gun permits in the area skyrocket around this time.
Police will talk to everyone that was at the golf course that day and take blood samples
from everyone that they talked to, from golfers to priests.
That evening, Sister Robin's funeral is held at the convent.
Father Keenan Ryan presided over the surface where he said, we stand numb and drained.
Our faith is battered by endless whys.
During the service, a letter that Sister Robin had written to a friend was read.
Sister Robin said quote, I have a sincere desire to be drawn closer to the Lord.
This has been a grace-filled year for me, a call to reconciliation for me with God,
myself and others.
End quote.
Sister Robin is laid to rest in Mount Calvary Cemetery in a section that's reserved just
for nuns.
On Thursday, June 16th, the same week of the murder, police continue to interview the men
that had been at the convent working on salvaging telephone poles.
Police tracked down four of the men and questioned them, but they're all released.
By that Friday, June 17th, the convent hires private security to patrol the grounds.
Police say that this is a tough case because no one heard or saw anything.
They're not ruling out that Sister Robin may have known her attacker, but they have
no leads or suspects at this time.
On July 13th, 1977, so this would be one month after the murder, police plead with the public
for more information.
Police say quote, we feel that possibly someone in the area may have seen an automobile or
a person that they didn't think at the time was significant, but at this time may be to
us.
Police still don't have any suspects in the case.
On August 17th, so this is just over two months since the murder, police say that they have
a person of interest that they're trying to locate.
The man was seen near Oglebay Park the day Sister Robin was murdered driving a blue or
gray mid-60s Chevy Impala with religious and coal mining bumper stickers.
The man is described as a white male between 30 and 40 years old, dark hair, large eyes,
standing between 5'10 and six foot.
The man has bushy eyebrows and a few days of beard growth the day that Robin was murdered.
Corporal Shade with the state police says quote, we have had this information since about the
second or third day after the murder.
Then we came up with another witness just last week to verify the vehicle was in the
area.
End quote.
About two weeks later on August 31st, police release a sketch of the man.
The sketch comes from two witnesses.
One of the witnesses was driving by and saw the man get out of his car and walk across
the embankment below where Sister Robin's body was found.
Police say that this man was seen near the convent eight or nine months earlier as well.
A few days later on September 2nd, a man is caught trying to hop a train and railroad
police arrest him.
The arresting officers realize that he has a resemblance to the sketch that had recently
been released by police so they turned him over for questioning.
Ultimately this man is not charged.
And then the next update comes about a year later in 1978.
Police are looking to see if Edward Surratt was connected to the murders.
Surratt is a convicted murderer and rapist who has only been charged with one murder
in 1978 but he has confessed to multiple murders.
Police in Ohio and Pennsylvania have closed cases putting him as the murderer but he has
not been officially charged in these cases since he's already serving two life sentences
in Florida.
Police weren't interested in pursuing charges against him.
There's a report in the paper around this time that police feel confident that Surratt
is involved in the case but a few days later they walk that back and say they don't have
any evidence of it, that they're just searching out all options and they kind of blame the
reporter.
As of 2023, Edward Surratt has never been formally linked to Sister Robin's murder.
And then the next big update comes in 2001.
This is 24 years after the murder.
With advances in DNA, investigators were able to generate a DNA sample from the crime scene
that they believe is the killer's DNA.
In 2002, they're able to eliminate a longtime suspect through DNA.
And they don't say who the suspect is but I suspect that that could be Edward Surratt
that they eliminated in 2001.
In 2005, so that's 28 years after the murder, the case is reopened.
Police believe at this time that everyone that knew Sister Robin has been eliminated
and that the killer was a stranger to her.
Police reveal that they have been able to eliminate 23 people through DNA.
And all of those 23 people knew Sister Robin personally.
And then the last update that I could find on the case comes in 2019.
So that's 42 years after the murder.
And this comes from a TV show involving Detective Paul Holes called The DNA of Murder with Paul
Holes.
And in this hour long special, he takes a look at the case and he specifically zeros
in on a suspect that was eliminated early in the investigation.
His name is John Shoplak.
According to police reports, he was eliminated because his blood type on his military records
did not match the blood type that the police were looking for.
According to Paul Holes, military records used to have a high error rate for blood types
because of outdated technology that they were using.
Back in 1977, Shoplak's ex-girlfriend told police that he had tried to choke her before
and that they broke up one month prior to the murders.
Shoplak also knew details about the crime scene that had not been made public before.
One of those details was that Sister Robin was on her period at the time of the murder.
And Shoplak had told a friend that he murdered a nun and according to police reports, the
friend said that she was quote, either a virgin or was coming on the rag because he had blood
on him, end quote.
Shoplak does have other violent crimes against him, but he died in August of 2019.
And at the last update, police were trying to obtain tissue samples from a recent hospital
stay to compare DNA.
But as of 2023, there have been no updates on the case.
So we don't know if they ever were able to get those tissue samples to compare DNA or
if they were able to get tissue samples.
There has been no update on if they have been tested yet.
And that is truly the last update I could find for Sister Robin.
So if you know anything about the murder of Sister Robin Elam in June of 1977, please call
the West Virginia State Police at 304-746-2100 or the Wheeling Police at 304-234-3665.
And the sources for the timeline today come from, and it's a long list, Daily News, The
News, Latrobe Bulletin, The Morning Call, The Herald News, The Record, The Pittsburgh
Press, The Raleigh Register, The Tribune, The Morning Herald, Tyrone Daily Herald, York
Daily Record, The Daily American, The Bee, The Daily Courier, The Courier News, The Times
Tribune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Miami Herald, The Evening Standard, Buckley Post
Herald, Ashbury Park Press, Evening Herald, The Oil City Derrick, and the TV show, The
DNA of Murder with Paul Holes.
So that is the case of Sister Robin, Roberta Elam.
I feel like there was quite a bit of information actually about this case in kind of in contrast
to other cases.
I guess I just like felt like the answer is in there.
And maybe that's because we cover missing person cases half of the time where generally
there is less information available.
And that makes sense because it's a missing persons case.
But this one I've found myself not really having a lot of questions.
You know, there were other nuns at the convent that day and she was pretty close to the mother
house but the golf course was also full that day.
So she was alone and she was in a secluded area that the nun said was a quiet and peaceful
spot that a lot of them would spend time at.
But it is strange that nobody heard anything from the attack.
And that's something the investigators come back to again and again is that nobody heard
anything in the middle of the day, even though there were people around even in a secluded
spot.
That's one thing that was surprising.
I think what filled in the blank for me is that so I went to a Catholic college and there
we shared our campus with a convent.
So I went to school with folks who were in our nuns and usually at least the kind of
like Catholic religious, I went to a liberal arts college but it was Catholic.
I feel like it sounds like I went for religious studies.
I went for theater.
But usually those schools are small and it's almost as if they're like plopped into the
middle of a forest type area.
Like we had a creek slash like little river running through our entire campus that like,
you know, past my dorm went like through to the convent.
And I think I may maybe have mentioned this on a podcast before but like someone fell
in and died one year and someone was like unfortunately like attacked and like result
it resulted in death in that area.
And no one heard anything.
No one was in the middle of the day.
There's a lot of sounds coming from that area like rustling maybe because my brain edited
and like filled in the area of what I'm imagining and where they were in West Virginia.
I just looked it up really quickly.
It was like pretty similar to where I was as far as like foliage and everything similar.
So like again, I'm like, yeah, it's odd that no one heard it but my brain is like it's
possible for sure.
One question that I had as I was looking into this case is from the beginning the police
say that they send blood into a lab and from this they are able to develop a blood type
that they believe is the killers and this is what they use to eliminate a lot of people.
I mentioned that they collect blood from priests to golfers to eliminate people based off blood
type which is kind of the very early DNA tactics that they used.
So my question would like if I got to sit down with the police and ask anything I wanted
would just be where did that blood come from, from the attacker, from the suspect because
she didn't have any defensive wounds on her.
So was she able to scratch him or and draw blood that way?
I'm really curious as to where that blood came from.
And you know, she was strangled so there wasn't a knife situation that we know of.
Yeah, I'm like, did he like fall and like brambles or something and you got it off of
yeah, I just like don't understand.
Yeah, I'm very curious and I couldn't find any explanation of where that came from.
I saw one big newspaper report that it was on the bench, but they were also talking about
the fingerprints so they might just be saying fingerprints from the bench.
But yeah, I that's one question I have is just where did his blood come from?
But as for you know, the future and where this case is headed, police feel very confident
that they can still solve this case and they can still close it out.
They have the DNA of the killer they believe it's been entered into CODIS.
No other hits.
They've sent it to other laboratories.
What does CODIS stand for?
CODIS stands for the Combined DNA Index System.
Interesting.
So if you commit a certain crime, your DNA goes into CODIS.
But there are crimes where DNA is collected that don't go into CODIS.
So police have even sent this DNA profile to labs asking them to run it against DNA
they just have there that hasn't been uploaded into CODIS.
So they've really moved this DNA around and they're trying to get the case solved.
But they they think that there is still information out there that somebody knows something.
That's all we have for now.
Yeah, but police are hopeful that this case can be solved.
Once again, if you know anything about the murder of Sister Robin Ilam in June of 1977,
please call the West Virginia State Police at 304-746-2100 or the Wheeling Police at
304-234-3665.
While we still got your ear.
If you could please, we love when you leave written reviews, go into your Apple podcast,
leave us a written review.
Five stars, please.
We love it.
If you don't have Apple podcasts or access to it, you can always go on our website, coldandmissing.com
and leave a review there.
A lovely written review and it'll be on our website forever.
Yeah, you can visit our website.
And for accessibility needs, we have transcripts if you are deaf and or hard of hearing and
or know someone who is, you could check out our website.
Yeah.
And of course you can follow us on Instagram or on YouTube.
We're also on YouTube.
Instagram at coldandmissing.
And YouTube at coldandmissing.
And there's lots of conversations happening there in the comment sections.
We post pictures every week, so we'll have photos of Sister Robin this week, just highlighting
her case and getting it back out there.
So follow us if you don't already.
You'll get all the good updates.
And we also during our stories, we just have other missing people reports and true crime
news that comes up that we like to repost in our stories.
So yeah, including updates on past episodes, folks, stories we've covered before.
So come check us out.
Yeah, lots of good content.
So again, Instagram cold and missing.
I think that's everything.
So thank you for listening.
I'm Allie.
I'm Eli episode 50.
Episode 50 of cold and missing.
Stay safe, y'all.
Have a great week and stay safe, y'all.