Police ask for city's help in Schieber case

Investigators are focusing on the items stolen from Shannon Schieber's apartment the night of her murder. Seven weeks after the grisly Center City murder of first-year Wharton doctoral student Shannon Schieber, police are bringing their investigation to the people in hopes of finding the killer. On Monday, the Philadelphia Police Department released pictures and descriptions of several of the items stolen in the early morning hours of May 7 from Schieber's apartment on the 200 block of S. 23rd Street. The three items identified for the public by the department were a pen set with a wood-grain finish, a silver necklace and a Canon ELPH camera. Police are encouraging people who have seen these items or have information concerning their whereabouts to contact the PPD's Homicide Division. "We're hoping that people will recognize these items and associate them with an individual and call the police," Capt. Stephen Glenn said. He added that often in these cases, the killer will brag about stolen merchandise to others, who could then contact the police. He also indicated that the 1 1/2-carat cubic zirconia necklace with a 15-inch silver chain is especially likely to be recognized as stolen by whatever woman may currently have it. The focus on the burglary angle of the robbery-murder is a shift for police, who initially considered the main suspect to be Yuval Bar-Or, a Wharton doctoral student who Schieber had told friends was stalking her. However, preliminary DNA tests last month did not match Bar-Or's blood to that found at the scene of the crime. Police say that they have no prime suspect. The possibility that a burglar climbed up a tree to her balcony and broke into her apartment, killing her in the midst of a robbery, is not being ruled out. An article last week in the alternative newspaper Philadelphia Weekly reported that new genetic evidence indicated an African-American or Hispanic perpetrator, but Glenn denied that any specific group had been singled out. "That would be inappropriate for me to comment on," he said. "The way the DNA markers work, they're not exclusive." Noting that the killer took items like CDs and a camera -- and left more expensive items, such as a computer, behind -- Shannon Schieber's father Sylvester last month expressed doubt that his daughter's murder was the work of a random "cat burglar." "As I work through it in my own mind, it's a little far-fetched," said Schieber, an economist working for the federal government. "We have to be very careful about being irrational about these things." A 1995 graduate of Duke University in Durham, N.C., Schieber, 24, was one of four students studying insurance in the Wharton School's doctoral division. She was at Penn as a fellow of the S.S. Heubner Foundation. After failing to show up for her job in Vance Hall and a scheduled lunch with her brother, the Chevy Chase, Md., native was found naked and lifeless on her bed at around 2 p.m. on May 7 -- approximately 12 hours after she was killed. An autopsy concluded that she died of "manual strangulation." Though the apartment was ransacked, police investigators initially doubted that robbery was the motive. Instead, they believed that Schieber was acquainted with her murderer.