After 18-year-old Amish woman vanishes, a Pennsylvania man is now charged with murder

A Pennsylvania man arrested in the disappearance of an Amish woman is now charged with murder, authorities say.

Justo Smoker was charged Monday with criminal homicide in the presumed death of 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office. Smoker, 34, was previously charged with kidnapping after she went missing in June.

Though authorities have yet to find Stoltzfoos’ body, they believe enough evidence indicates she died after Smoker abducted her while she walked home from church.

“Given the circumstances of Linda’s disappearance; specifically, that she was forcefully abducted by a stranger, we always feared she suffered a tragic fate,” Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said Monday. “After careful consideration of all of the facts uncovered by the investigation as a whole, we are now in a position – legally – to charge Smoker with murder.”

Authorities say witnesses reported a man matching Smoker’s description following Amish women in a car similar to his red Kia sedan near where Stoltzfoos was kidnapped. Some of the women took “evasive action” to avoid the man, authorities say.

Cell phone data show Smoker drove to remote areas in the Welsh Mountain on the eastern side of Lancaster County and then a site where Stoltzfoos’ bra and stockings were found buried, authorities say. According to cell phone data, Smoker returned there several times, authorities say.

Authorities cited Stoltzfoos’ close connection to her community and family as reasons she would not leave her home.

“Investigators and prosecutors must follow the facts, the evidence and the law to reach conclusions,” Adams said. “A careful review of each of these factors leads us to the inevitable conclusion that Linda is deceased and provides the basis for the filed charges.”