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2 men charged in 1993 slaying
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Joseph Marshall.
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Sean McDonough
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Laura Thompson
By Jeanne Starmack
NEW CASTLE, PA.
Authorities believe the case of a 15-year-old New Castle girl missing since 1993 finally is solved.
Two men are charged with the murder of Laura Thompson, who went missing after she left her Waldo Street home around 12:30 a.m. Jan. 7, 1993.
Joseph N. Marshall Jr., 39, 1305 Maple Lane, Pulaski, Pa., is in the Lawrence County Jail without bond. He was arrested Saturday.
Sean McDonough, 38, formerly of New Butler Road in Shenango Township, is being held in Louisiana pending extradition, Lawrence County District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa said Tuesday. McDonough now lives in Thibodaux, La. He was arrested Monday.
Both men are charged with criminal homicide, first-, second- and third-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and conspiracy.
McDonough also faces charges of rape of an unconscious victim and rape, forcible compulsion.
Police in New Castle got a break in July when Marshall’s wife told them that she knew her husband had killed Laura, authorities said Tuesday.
Marshall’s wife, Shannon, told police she was afraid of him, said New Castle Police Chief Tom Sansone.
Laura had gone with Marshall and McDonough, who picked her up at her house, to play cards at McDonough’s trailer in Shenango, authorities believe. She was never heard from again.
Police now believe she was killed near McDonough’s trailer and buried off U.S. Route 422 in Shenango Township. Her body was later dug up, and the remains were scattered in a field in Hickory Township off Route 108, authorities said.
Laura’s mother, Nancy Thompson, reported the red-haired, blue-eyed girl missing to police Jan. 9, 1993. At first, police believed she may have run away.
Police got tips on the case throughout the years, and in 2008, a retired law- enforcement officer who volunteers with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children worked on the case again, Lamancusa said.
Had Laura run away?
“I didn’t think so,” said Joe Hladky, the center’s volunteer. She did not take any money or belongings with her, and she left behind her 9-month-old son, authorities pointed out.
Hladky interviewed a man who knew Laura and tried to be a father-figure in her life. The man, Paul Ross, said he knew Laura met Marshall at Perkins Restaurant in New Castle a night or two before her disappearance. Ross had taken Laura there for dinner, he said. He said he knew Laura and Marshall had made a date to play cards.
When Hladky interviewed Marshall, however, he denied meeting Laura at the restaurant or making a date with her to play cards, authorities said.
The big break came when Shannon Marshall came forward with what she knew, authorities said.
“She commented it was bothering her over the years, and she wanted to split from her husband,” Sansone said.
Authorities said Shannon Marshall told them in July she knew even before she married her husband that he had killed Laura.
She said he told her he stabbed Laura in the back. She said that a few days after, a detective investigating the case called him, and she went with Marshall to move the body. McDonough was supposed to dispose of Laura’s skull, teeth and hands, she told police.
She told police that she later asked both men why they killed Laura. McDonough replied, “for s---- and giggles,” authorities said.
Authorities said police interviewed Marshall on Saturday, and he acknowledged that he and McDonough took Laura to McDonough’s trailer the night she disappeared. He told police that while they were there, they took her to a cabin in the woods nearby that McDonough and his brother had built. He told police that McDonough got aggressive with Laura, stabbed her and tried to have sex with her body.
Lamancusa said he does not yet have a statement from McDonough.
Lamancusa also said that teams are coming in to search for Laura’s remains and that he hasn’t decided if Shannon Marshall will face any charges.