An austere house, wooden furniture, few frills.
Monday afternoon, it was in this setting often fantasized about on television and in the cinema that a young woman was discovered dead, in her house in Sparta Township, an Amish land in the state of Pennsylvania (north). east of the United States).
This would be the second known time that a homicide has been committed in this very pious and pacifist Christian community, famous for its rejection of many aspects of the modern world.
Rebekah Byler was 23 years old, she was pregnant.
Her body was found in the living room of her home, a few miles from Spartansburg, by her husband Andy.
With a family friend, they called the emergency services at 12:36 p.m. to say that they had found the expectant mother unconscious.
She had cut marks on her neck and head.
Rebekah Byler's two young children were in the house, located on a secluded road amid farmland.
Call for testimony
State police told The Associated Press on Thursday that the investigation and autopsy gave police an idea of what the murder weapon might have been, but they did not have it. in his possession.
Two search warrants were issued at the request of the police, concerning the house and outbuildings, targeting all “knives, blades, cutting instruments” and other objects which could be of interest to the investigation.
Police did not specify how Rebekah was killed, but admitted to having no suspects at this time.
She has launched a call for testimony and is offering a $2,000 reward for “any information that could lead to an arrest and/or the solving of the crime.”
Dozens of community members gathered Thursday evening for a vigil in memory of Rebekah Byler, coming in horse-drawn carriages.
They made no comment.
Lindsey Smith, president of the Spartansburg Volunteer Fire Department's Women's Auxiliary, said everyone was "sad and shocked."
“We are worried about our Amish,” she said, affirming that relations between Amish and non-Amish are good, with the groups mixing during volunteer activities.
“They are a big part of our community” and “very supportive of us,” she added.
The Amish people, who came from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, double in size every 20 years and live to old age.
Last summer, according to the census of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, there were 384,380, spread across 32 American states, four Canadian provinces and Bolivia.
There is no longer a community in Europe.
Revelations in a journalistic investigation
Made famous by the film “Witness”, the Amish, pacifists and not proselytes, lead a simple life in the service of God.
They speak a German dialect from their Alsatian origins.
They have little or no telephone - some communities have access to more technology -, travel by horse or carriage, do not use the medical system or American social security, they do not vote, have their own schools, do not take the train or the plane.
Generations educate themselves according to strong principles of family and community solidarity.
In principle, delinquency does not occur.
In 1993, Edward Gingerich was the first known Amish man arrested for beating his wife to death.
He was sentenced by the courts of Pennsylvania to a meager prison sentence, 5 years, due to his mental imbalance.
Since the discovery of Rebekah Byler's body, no homicides have been recorded.
In 2020, a journalistic investigation highlighted sexual and incestuous crimes committed and ignored in Amish communities in seven states in the United States.
In a documentary broadcast last May, women who fled their community also revealed the abuses they had suffered.