Police say Judith Jarvis of Perry County killed her husband in 1987 but may have dementia

For more than a year, authorities have debated whether a 78-year-old woman accused of killing her husband 37 years ago in Perry County is competent to stand trial.

Charges against Judith Jarvis have been pending since December 2022, when police accused her of shooting her husband Carl Jarvis, 42, in the head on Aug. 10, 1987, at the couple’s Millerstown home.

The case, which had been cold for 35 years, was resolved in 2022 blood on the pajamas Judith wore during the shooting tested positive for Carl’s DNA, Pennsylvania State Police said.

The Perry County District Attorney’s office filed a murder charge against Judith, but the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office has since taken over the case due to a conflict of interest in the district attorney’s office.

Perry County District Attorney Clay Merris confirmed the transfer to PennLive but did not elaborate on the nature of the conflict of interest. However, online court records show that her attorney Tammy Dusharm withdrew from the case in January and took a job with the district attorney’s office.

Judith Jarvis has been awaiting trial at SCI Muncy without bail for almost two years when the case was moved to the AG’s office and her competency was questioned. Muncy is a medium/maximum security women’s prison that provides medical care to elderly suspects.

Jarvis has had a preliminary hearing and arraignment before a judge, but for more than a year, attorneys and prosecutors have debated whether or not to move forward with the case. Court records show the case has been mired in mental health evaluations since the defense raised the issue of competency in the fall of 2023.

Attorney General’s Office spokesman Brett Hambright confirmed the office accepted the referral in January and said prosecutors are waiting for President Judge Kenneth Mummah to rule on Judith Jarvis’ competency. Her next court hearing has not yet been scheduled.

The murder of Carl Jarvis went without arrests for decades.

Pennsylvania State Police said Judith called troopers to the couple’s Cherry Valley Road home just after midnight that evening in August 1987 because of a domestic disturbance. She said she was scared because her husband was “breaking things” and she had walked out.

According to state police, no one was at the Jarvis home that evening except Carl and Judith.

When the troops arrived, they knocked on the door and called for Carl Jarvis, but received no answer, according to the affidavit.

The troopers entered and found Carl Jarvis naked and dead between the bed and the wall in a bedroom on the west side of the house. He had been shot in the head with a .22-caliber revolver, state police said. The bullet entered through the back of his head and exited through the front.

In 2020, blood on Judith’s pajamas, which she said was from a goose bite, was submitted for DNA testing. Using a hair sample from Carl, state police said they were able to match his DNA to the blood on his wife’s pajamas.

In court documents, state police said a forensic pathologist determined it would be “essentially impossible” for Carl to shoot himself in the head given the way his body was found.

Carl Jarvis was an Army master sergeant who fought in Vietnam, according to his obituary. He was buried at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County. The obituary stated that Carl was survived by his parents, two brothers and two sisters.

Judith Jarvis’ case is at least the second in recent years in central Pennsylvania where authorities are debating the competency of an elderly person involved in a murder case.

Mark Warfel, 91, is named in court documents as the suspected murderer of Tracy Kroha teenager presumed dead after disappearance of Millersburg, Dauphin County, in 1989. He has been held in a state prison since February 2022 and is receiving palliative care for allegedly assaulting a nurse at UPMC Harrisburg Hospital.

Warfel’s competency hearing continued in January and has not been moved as of November. Warfel’s lawyers said at the time that he was incompetent to stand trial on any charges and that it is a “miracle he is still alive.”