More than six decades after 9-year-old Carol Ann Dougherty was raped and strangled inside a Pennsylvania church, authorities say they finally know who did it.

According to a press release from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, a grand jury investigation identified William Schrader — who lived nearby and died in 2002 — as the person responsible for the 1962 killing inside St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church in Bristol.

The grand jury “formally found that William Schrader committed the crimes of rape and murder of the first degree in connection with Carol Ann Dougherty’s death,” the DA’s office said. Investigators concluded his name was “definitively linked to the crime” through a combination of decades-old evidence and new investigative developments.

Carol Ann was last seen alive outside the doors of the church after riding her bike to return books to the library, per the DA’s office.

9-Year-Old's Dad Found Girl's Body After She'd Been Raped and Strangled. Years Later, Police Know Who Did It Carol Ann Dougherty

Bucks County District Attorney’s Office

Her father found her body lying under a stained glass window in the choir loft of the church that day, per CBS News Philadelphia; investigators determined she had been forcibly raped and strangled with a ligature,

A pubic hair found clutched in her hand was later linked to Schrader, while 141 other men were excluded through testing, per the release. Schrader was questioned in 1962, failed a polygraph and lied about his alibi before leaving Pennsylvania, according to the DA’s office. He eventually settled in Louisiana, where he was convicted in 1985 for setting a fire that killed a 12-year-old girl.

In a 2024 interview, Schrader’s stepson told investigators Schrader twice confessed to luring a girl into a Pennsylvania church, where he raped her and “had to kill the girl in Bristol to keep her from talking,” the DA’s office said.

St. Mark’s Church 1025 Radcliffe Street, Bristol, PA

Google Maps

“After so many decades of unknowing, this finding finally brings closure and a truth to a wound that never healed,” Carol Ann’s sister Kay, who was three years old at the time of the murder, said at a press conference last week, per CBS. “Though nothing can bring Carol back, we can finally let her rest in peace, knowing that her story has been told, her truth revealed and her memory honored,.”

District Attorney Jennifer Schorn described Schrader’s history of sexual abuse as “unlike anything she had ever seen in her career as a prosecutor,” the outlet reported.

“This painstaking work … has brought a definitive conclusion to a case that has haunted a community for decades,” the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office wrote. “We hope this resolution can finally bring a sense of peace to Carol Ann’s family.”

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.