Few leads in killing of student

Monday will mark four months since the murder of Wharton doctoral student Shannon Schieber -- and police have yet to apprehend the killer or even name a suspect. Schieber, 23, was strangled to death in her Center City apartment May 7 at about 2 a.m. in an apparent robbery. The Chevy Chase, Md., native was discovered 12 hours later after failing to report to work or meet her brother for a scheduled lunch. Suspicion initially fell on Yuval Bar-Or, 28, a fellow Wharton doctoral student who Schieber had told friends was stalking her, but DNA tests showed that blood at the crime scene did not match his, effectively removing him from consideration, according to police. Inspector Jerrold Kane, head of the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide division, said he is not concerned about the speed of the investigation. "Time is of the essence at the very beginning," he said in early August. "But just because it's three months [since Schieber's murder] doesn't mean that an arrest won't be made." Police might have a new lead, however. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News reported last week that police are investigating similarities between Schieber's murder and the assault last week of another woman inside her apartment near 14th and Lombard streets. Though investigators and members of Schieber's family initially said they believed Schieber knew her attacker, police are also focusing on the robbery aspect of the crime, hoping that the investigation will yield clues to the murder. Several items -- including a necklace, wooden pen set, Canon camera and a large number of compact discs -- were discovered to be missing from Schieber's apartment on the 200 block of South 23rd Street. In late June, police officials released pictures of several of the stolen items, hoping that one or more would be recognized in a pawn shop. A $10,000 University reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer has also been announced, without any takers so far. But James Fyfe, a criminologist at Temple University, doubts that the stolen items will lead police to the killer in this particular case. "It's difficult to link mass-produced items to a crime," he said earlier this summer. "How would you tell one Rolling Stones CD from another?" Instead, Fyfe emphasized the role that physical evidence -- such as the blood stains that ultimately cleared Bar-Or -- may have in solving the crime through genetic testing. "The chances of solving these things in the past was very low," he said. "One of the things that has happened in the last several years is the growth of DNA technology." To that end, Kane noted that individuals arrested for violent or sex-related crimes are being investigated for a possible link to Schieber. "It's usually what someone leaves at the scene of the crime rather than what they take," Fyfe said. "As long as there is some physical evidence, there is some chance." But due to the nature of this crime, finding the culprit has not been as easy as in the past. The last several murders and attempted murders involving Penn students and staff have taken place during out-of-doors robberies, leading often to instantaneous arrests -- or at least lucky breaks within the first several weeks. For their part, officers in the Schieber case would like to solve the case quickly, mostly out of the concern for Schieber's family. "We're continuing to have a decent amount of manpower on the case," Kane said. "The police are hopeful that an arrest will be made."

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