Someone's at the Door
Who Killed Holly Branagan?
The mystery of who killed Holly Branagan has lingered for 45 years. 17-year-old Holly lived with her father and her older brother Sean in a modern 3 level home on Pine Top Trail, an upscale housing tract that was considered one of the safest neighborhoods in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
“There were a lot of kids on the block,” said Eric Dowdle who grew up on Pine Top Trail just four houses down from the Branagan’s. “We were always in the street playing... It was, it was a good place to grow up,” he said. Eric knew Holly as a babysitter for he and his little brother Kurt. “She was a nice young girl,” remembered Eric who today serves as the First District Attorney in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. “She was, she was kind and pleasant… Holly was just a nice young lady.”
It was a spring afternoon in 1979 when Holly, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, arrived home. Her father was out of town, and 18-year-old Sean would be staying overnight at a friend’s house. After fixing herself a snack and heading up to her room, Holly sat on her bed, chatting on the phone with a friend when she suddenly heard knocking downstairs. She told her friend, “Someone’s at the door.” Moments later she got back on the phone to tell the friend she would call her back later.
Who was Holly?
Holly Moira Branagan was born on December 8, 1961, the second child of Richard and Peggy Branagan. Her mom Peggy passed away in 1976 from Leukemia. According to a news report, Holly sang in the high school choir[1]. “She was reserved until she got to know you. And then she was very fun, she was never like the center of the room, but, she did always have something fun to say or do or be. I think she just wanted to fit in, and she did it beautifully, naturally,” said Sally, one of Holly’s close friends since kindergarten. Holly also helped to manage team sports. Sally told APB Cold Case that extracurricular activities helped elevate their social status at school. “She got with the more popular kids once she was the soccer manager for the high school team… because our team had some good players and most of them were popular kids.”
Crime scene tape on Pine Top Trail
On March 29, 1979, Eric and Kurt Dowdle were walking home from the bus stop. As they neared the Branagan home, Eric witnessed something that has been etched in his memory ever since – it was something that he described as surreal, the end of innocence. “It was clearly a nice March afternoon… the weather was getting warm, it was Spring, there’s rebirth. And then the bright yellow caution tape stood out in stark contrast to the buds and the green… it was jarring,” recalled Eric.
Last known moments
On March 28, 1979, Holly arrives home from school around 2:30 PM; the house is empty; she goes upstairs to her room and after changing her clothes, she heads downstairs to the kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal; she takes the cereal and a bottle of soda back up to her room; around 4:30 PM she is speaking with a friend on the telephone when she hears knocking downstairs. She reportedly tells her friend ‘hold on, someone’s at the door’. A moment or two later, it appears Holly picks up a downstairs phone extension and tells the friend, ‘I’ve got to go, I’ll call you back.’ But it is unclear if she mentioned who was at the door. One police report indicates that Holly called her father’s office at Lonestar Industries around 4:45 PM learning that he had already left for a business trip to Atlantic City. According to a police report, the employee who spoke with Holly said she “did not seem upset or disturbed at the time”.
Around 5:00 PM, Sean Branagan told police he tried calling Holly at home but the line was busy, noting that their phone had a call-waiting feature and that he should have been able to get through. Sean was staying overnight with a friend, and he tried calling again around 11:00 PM, but still no answer. Holly was a popular girl and perhaps Sean thought that Holly was busy or out with friends, but the unanswered phone calls did not apparently cause him to be concerned.
On the morning of March 29, Sally arrives at the Branagan home to pick up Holly for school. “I drove up, and drove under the carport like I always did, beeped the horn. And I waited and waited and waited. And she didn’t come out, and I thought that was kind of weird”, said Sally. So, she goes to the door and rings the bell. The Branagan’s dog Clancy sees Sally through the sidelights of the front door, he’s wagging his tail, happy to see her, but Holly still doesn’t answer. Sally starts toward the stairs on the side of the house that leads up to the deck off the kitchen where there is a sliding glass door, but she stops herself. “We were raised not to go in anybody else’s house or anything, even as close as Holly and I were, it’s just not what you do. You don’t just walk in somebody else’s house. So, I got about half way up the steps and I just got this feeling, turn around, go back down the steps.” Sally feels this was a prophetic moment. “I still swear I heard my mom’s voice say ‘stop, go back in the car’, said Sally, who heads off to school. During her first class and having not seen Holly in school, Sally asked the teacher to use the telephone. Sally dials Holly’s home. “…it was some out-of-order type of message. And then after I called, all I got was busy signals, which again didn’t make sense because I knew she had call waiting,” said Sally.
Holly found dead; Police respond
At about 10:40 AM Sean Branagan and his friend arrive at the Branagan home. They are shocked when they enter the kitchen to find Holly dead on the floor, a knife protruding from her back. Sean and his friend quickly leave and Sean locks the door behind him. They summon police from a neighbor’s home and officers respond to the typically serene neighborhood.
One of the first police officers on the scene was Officer Craig Stefko. Now retired, he remembered the day he got the call. Officer Stefko told APB Cold Case that as he and others arrived, they found the house locked but could see a victim lying on the floor. As they prepare to force their way inside, Sean and his friend walk up the driveway, approaching the officers. According to Officer Stefko, Sean unlocked the door and led them to the kitchen where he pointed at his sister and said, ‘there she is.’ Officers check the house to ensure that no intruders are anywhere inside the home, and they call for a coroner – the investigation begins. Stefko described that Holly was lying face down on the kitchen floor with a large knife protruding from her right side; he said that Holly was fully clothed in jeans and a shirt.
One of the first things officers noted was the cold demeanor of Sean Branagan when he pointed out Holly’s body. Stefko recalled that Sean appeared calm and unemotional. His friend, on the other hand, was crying and visibly upset. But both Sean and his friend were cooperative.
Officer Stefko also took note of some lettered refrigerator magnets that were arranged on the freezer door to spell the word VI-O-LATOR. Could that have been a clue left by the killer? It’s been done by other sadistic killers such as Charles Manson’s followers with the message of “Helter Skelter”. Stefko took note of the evidence and continued his observations of the scene. In particular, he noted that the otherwise organized kitchen had one chair that was pulled out and facing away from the table (see show notes for crime scene diagram – this is the sketch that retired Bethlehem Police Officer Craig Stefko speaks about in the podcast), as if someone had been sitting in the chair. There was a magnet on the kitchen floor, and a towel on the refrigerator door that was partially hanging from another magnet, said Stefko, but nothing suggesting a long, drawn-out struggle with objects knocked over or broken. Was she killed quickly? Was she easily overpowered by her assailant?
The knife that was used to kill Holly reportedly came from the Branagan’s kitchen. The autopsy would determine that she had been stabbed 18 times. According to an AP article published in the Indiana Gazette, the autopsy showed that there were “15 serious knife wounds, 3 slight wounds, and 2 defensive wounds of the hands apparently received while trying to ward off the knife blows.”[2] Did the killer go to the Branagan home intent on killing Holly, or was it a confrontation that escalated to murder?
Police methodically searched the rest of the home which appeared to be neat and orderly. Officer Stefko recalled that in Holly’s upstairs bedroom he found a half bottle of Pepsi and a bowl with a spoon in it; a telephone off-hook and sitting on Holly’s unmade bed, its long cord trailing from the master bedroom; her wristwatch was on the dresser, and a pair of brown shoes and light blue socks were on the floor. But, said Officer Stefko, nothing to indicate a struggle or ransacking upstairs, and nothing to suggest a motive of robbery.
So exactly when was Holly killed? The now-retired Officer Stefko noted that the evening newspaper dated March 28 was still in the mailbox, as was the previous day’s mail. But we also do not know whether Holly routinely picked up the mail, especially when her father was away on business. From this fact alone, it is difficult to draw any conclusions.
In addition to the investigation on Pine Top Trail, police needed to speak with others who knew Holly and had contact with her. Detectives went to Freedom High School to speak with Sally. She remembered, “We had some sort of assembly that day. And that’s when they took me to the principal’s’ office.” Sally arrived in the principal’s office to find her stepmother there, causing her to immediately be concerned that something had happened to her father. Police transported Sally to the police station which is where she first learned the shocking news that her good friend had been killed. She was questioned for hours and said she felt that she was being accused of having something to do with Holly’s death.
Another major event unfolding
On the morning of March 28, 1979 and before the discovery of Holly’s murder, Reactor #2 at Three Mile Island, just 90 miles from Bethlehem, was beginning to melt down. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation, a combination of equipment problems and human error caused the emergency[3], described as the most serious nuclear power plant accident in American history.[4]
Theories and speculation
Former neighbor Eric Dowdle described the Branagan property and offered his thoughts on how someone might have approached the home. “There were 2 ways to approach the home,” said Dowdle. “One was up a steep winding street and up into the driveway of the Branagan home. If that’s the case then it had to be a car… that didn’t seem out of place in the neighborhood, because it obviously happened during the daylight hours, and there were always people around. Or somebody came through the back woods.” Dowdle also suggests that the killer could have been someone who blended in with the neighborhood – someone who would not arouse suspicion. He likens it to a science fiction horror story titled The Invisible Man. “It was about a murder carried out by a person posing as a mailman,” said Dowdle adding, “We’ve become so used to people who belong in a neighborhood that they become invisible, we don’t even see them moving around. And so, I submit to you, that really what had to have happened, it was someone who looked like they belonged in the neighborhood, or it was someone who came up through the back, through the woods, which is equally plausible.”
There is no public information indicating that the police canvass of the neighborhood resulted in any leads to indicate any one person or vehicle that seemed out of place.
And though Sean’s behavior seemed cold to arriving officers, he reportedly had an alibi and was cooperative with the investigation.
And the odd message left on the refrigerator in magnets – “VIOLATOR”… detectives would determine that it was a play on the name of one of Sean’s friends and was not a message left by the killer.
Police will routinely investigate persons close to the victim, including current and former boyfriends. But Sally did not believe that Holly had a boyfriend at the time. “If she did, it was something that she did not tell me, which, would surprise me,” said Sally. Eric Dowdle, however, believed that Holly did have a boyfriend. But, he said, it was something he came to learn in later years. “There is one theory of an individual who was involved who is now dead. But we’re still trying to get to a place where everybody’s comfortable to say it was or it wasn’t him.”
Another tragedy
On September 9, 1979, 6 months after Holly was killed, Sean Branagan was working at Renner’s Mobile service station with his friend, Mark Viola, cleaning the floor of the garage with gasoline. A spark reportedly ignited the fumes and Sean and Mark were both burned. Mark’s injuries were relatively minor, but Sean sustained third degree burns over 80% of his body. He languished in a hospital for a week and died from his injuries. Was Sean’s death an accident – or was he silenced? According to the Morning Call newspaper, Sean’s father believed it could have been related to Holly’s murder as Sean had said he was going to tell people he knew who murdered Holly in order to flush out the killer.[5] Notably, it was Mark’s name that was referenced in the refrigerator magnets spelling VIOLA-TOR during the investigation of Holly’s death. In the early phases of the murder probe, police took note of the letters as a possible clue left by the killer prior to learning the connection to Sean’s friend, Mark Viola.
Retired police officer Craig Stefko told APB Cold Case about the theory that Sean may have been targeted since he was going to confront the suspect in his sister’s murder; Eric Dowdle said, “We had heard that that Mr. Branagan, had told people that Sean was very afraid for himself”; and Holly’s friend Sally has doubts as to whether Sean’s death was an accident. “He went to Lehigh University, he was a highly intelligent individual, and he had worked at gas stations for at least 2 years, maybe longer. He knew the right process to do everything… and maybe it was a faulty machine, but I still think he was too smart. I think somebody had to fly by and close those garage doors and cause the spark,” said Sally.
The investigation continues – Another theory
Another theory came about from a flat-out confession to the crime. About 2 years after Holly’s murder, a prison inmate named Michael Jezick told police he knew who Holly’s murderer was: a 31-year-old petty thief and drug dealer. The informer said that he was present when Holly was killed in a secluded area of the woods near her home.[6] But the description of the murder and location offered by Jezick of Holly being killed in the woods, do not match up with the objective facts and circumstances of the crime scene indicating that Holly was killed in the kitchen of her home.
The investigation continued off and on throughout the years. It was reported that the FBI developed a suspect profile of the killer[7], though it does not appear that police have released any part of that report. The District Attorney picked up the case in 2009[8] and the following year empaneled a grand jury[9] to investigate the crime. Reports says that some persons of interest were excluded because of the investigation, but nothing led to an indictment. There were also hopes that the evolution of DNA science might help to bring resolution to the case. But the district attorney later said in an interview with WPVI in 2019, that even with DNA testing of the evidence, they were unable to get an indictment.[10]
Then, on March 23, 2014, Bethlehem police announced that they had identified a suspect in Holly’s murder.[11] The suspect was not publicly named, but persons who are close to the case seem to know the identity of the man whose name has become a focus in the case. In March 2024, Jim Friedman, a photojournalist for NBC 10 Philadelphia released a feature story exploring the murder of Holly Branagan. (link here) The puzzle of what really happened on Pine Top Trail has become part of Bethlehem lore and has also turned into a passion project for Freidman who has delved into the intricacies of the case, speaking with several people attached to the decades-long probe; the family, and the neighborhood. His knowledge of the circumstances of Holly’s murder and subsequent investigation likely afford him a distinct vantage point akin to the actual case detectives. Said Holly’s friend Sally, “I think Jim (Friedman) has a suspect in his head. But I can’t tie any kind of motive or thought process to it. I have never known who did it, I didn’t even have an inkling.” Eric Dowdle would also like to see an ending to the saga that began when he first saw crime scene tape in front of his babysitter’s home. “It’s like you’re carrying a weight with you that’s always is there,” said Dowdle. “I’d like to get to the end of it.”
In 2024, Eric Dowdle’s younger brother, Kurt Dowdle, released a memoir titled Dream Monster in which he describes growing up on Pine Top Trail, how Holly’s murder shook he neighborhood, and his theory on the killer’s identity. Sally, her husband, brother and sister all read the book with varying degrees of reaction – Sally and her husband, who also went to school with Holly, were not persuaded to any particular motive or theory; her sister was surprised at the family dysfunction described by the author; but Sally’s brother had a different reaction. “My brother, on the other hand, read it and said, ‘that makes perfect sense. I believe that, that’s who, who did the murder’,” said Sally. Eric Dowdle told APB Cold Case that he would not comment about the validity of the book.
Resolving the case
Sally told APB Cold Case that getting an answer to ‘who killed Holly’ would bring some peace to her and the neighborhood, even if the killer has passed away. “I don’t like walking around not knowing,” she said. “It’s fear of the unknown, fear of the unsolved… it just keeps looming...” Sally also believes that getting Holly’s killer identified might also answer questions about her brother’s tragic death. “I also feel that if we could solve the Holly side… we could solve the Sean side, because I still believe that that’s hokey. His death, I don’t believe was an accident. I never have.”
W. Richard Branagan, the father of Sean and Holly, died in 2016. He had reportedly remarried and began a second life with a new family. Sally attended the funeral of the man who was like a second father to her. But she noticed something was missing from the funeral bulletin. “Apparently he had life #1 and life #2, because not one thing in the bulletin or in the service talked about Holly and Sean, or that era,” remembered Sally. In an interview published in The Morning Call in 2014, Richard Branagan, then 95, said he sold the house in Pine Top Trail and that the new owners had offered to have him come back to see his former home and some of the renovations they made. But Branagan declined the offer, saying, “Once I went out that door, I’m not going back in. It has nothing to do with Holly or Sean. It was just time. That door has closed.”
Since 1979, people have been waiting for the end of this story. They still want an answer to who killed Holly? And if authorities can get that answer, will it shed a light on Sean’s death? Was he silenced because of what he knew or claimed to know? At one point in the investigation, there was hope that DNA might bring police closer to the end. It hasn’t happened yet. But DNA science continues to evolve – could there still be hope for this case through the physical evidence? Or will someone come forward with the clue that will finally close this case?
If you have any information about the murder of Holly Branagan call the Bethlehem Police Department TIPS line at 610-691-6660
LINK Someone’s at the Door – Part 1 and Part 2
© 2024 The Spawn Group, LLC; APB Cold Case; All rights reserved.
[1] Holly Branagan murder; The Morning Call, Allentown, PA; 3/23/2014, p. A21
[2] Search for teen’s killer continues; Indiana Gazette; Mar. 27, 1989; p. 10
[3] Three Mile Island Fact Sheet; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Morning Call, Allentown, PA; 3/23/2014, p. A21
[6] Search for teen’s killer continues; Indiana Gazette; Mar. 27, 1989; p. 10
[7] The Gettysburg Times; https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-gettysburg-times-holly-branagan-murd/449630/?locale=en-US
[8] Huntington Daily News; 4/22/2009; p. 9
[9] Bethlehem police identify suspect in 1979 murder of Holly Branagan, district attorney confirms; Lehigh Valley Live
[10] WPVI; Walter Perez; 40 years later, police still hope to solve Holly Branagan murder in Bethlehem, Pa.; 3/18/2019
[11] Bethlehem police identify suspect in 1979 murder of Holly Branagan, district attorney confirms; 3/24/2014; https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/2014/03/bethlehem_police_identify_susp.html