At a news conference detailing the arrest of William Walter Korzon for the 1981 murder of his wife, Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said, “I think he was living a relatively regular life.”

Korzon was. In York County.

He lived in an old, weathered log cabin in a wooded hollow at the end of a gravel lane about 100 yards off Barcroft Road, just west of East Prospect.

A miniature sprint car, its frame rusted, sits on a trailer. Nearby is the hull of a speed boat. Another boat on a trailer is parked on the porch, underneath a deck that runs the length of the cabin. Parked nearby is the husk of a small school bus, painted purple and green.

He was described by neighbors as a quiet guy, keeping to himself mostly. He would have dinner with neighbors on occasion, and go to church with them on Sundays, attending services at Living Word Community Church.

They knew he was originally from Massachusetts and moved into the cabin in the hollow from the Philadelphia area sometime in the mid-90s. He would take trips to Massachusetts and Philadelphia on occasion or during the holidays.

He had a lawnmower repair business at one time, called Dr. Willy’s, but lately, at age 76, he was retired. Neighbors knew he once worked as an engineer. They also knew that he was married once, but he never spoke about it. He lived by himself.

He seemed to be a nice guy, they said, laid back, on the quiet side.

So on Thursday, when police cars showed up at his cabin, neighbors were a bit surprised. They were even more shocked when they found out why the police had taken him away.

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Wife disappeared in 1981

Korzon is suspected of killing his wife, Gloria, who disappeared in 1981 from the couple’s home in Bucks County in suburban Philadelphia.

Gloria Korzon, who was 38 when she disappeared and would have been 76 on Easter Sunday, disappeared on March 6, 1981. She was declared legally dead in 1997.

“There is absolutely no evidence of her continued existence for 38 years after that fateful day," Weintraub said during Thursday's news conference. “There is, however, evidence of her demise and of deception by Korzon."

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Warrington Township police described the case as “the biggest cold case” in the department’s history, cracked when investigators submitted the evidence they had collected to an investigative grand jury in Bucks County.

“The shadow of this case has loomed over us for decades,” township police Chief Daniel Friel said during the news conference.

William and Gloria Korzon married in Springfield, Massachusetts, in January 1967. The criminal complaint filed in the case describes an abusive and brutal relationship.

Korzon, according to the complaint, threatened to kill his wife in December 1967. He had been committed to a mental hospital and later to a veterans’ hospital, where he had his thyroid removed, a procedure intended “to reduce his aggressive tendencies,” the complaint states.

The couple moved to Bucks County in 1968 and, according to the complaint, police investigated numerous instances of domestic violence, assaults that sent Gloria to the hospital with a variety of injuries, including a broken arm and broken collarbone. She filed for a Protection For Abuse order in June 1980, but later withdrew it.

The complaint states that Gloria so feared her husband that she documented her abuse in letters to her attorney and sent a letter to her father with instructions not to open it unless something happened to her.

His neighbors in Bucks County described Korzon as “a Bible-thumping, wife-beating, gun-collecting crank,” according to a story about Gloria’s disappearance published on Jan. 13, 1988 in the Philadelphia Daily News.

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'Did you find the body?'

After March 6, 1981, the complaint states, “It was as though she ceased to exist.”

Gloria’s parents in Massachusetts became suspicious in May 1981 when her mother received a Mother’s Day card from Gloria that was signed, “Gloria Korzon,” which seemed unusually formal, the Daily News reported in 1988.

They had been worried about their daughter, the newspaper reported, after trying to call for weeks only to have her husband tell them she wasn’t home or couldn’t come to the phone. The criminal complaint states that Korzon had signed the card to make it appear that his wife was still alive.

In the years that followed, the complaint states, Korzon forged his wife’s signature on checks and to other actions to profit from Gloria’s disappearance. “He forged documents, lied to police investigators, perjured himself in court, all in an effort to give the appearance that Gloria was still alive.”

Several months after his wife’s disappearance, the complaint states, Korzon asked a former tenant, a man named Samuel Culp Sr. “to help ambush and murder Sgt. Joseph Adams,” one of the officers investigating Gloria’s disappearance.

In August 1987, according to the Daily News story, Korzon filed for divorce. The divorce dragged on for three years, an attorney appointed to represent Gloria's interests in her absence. At one point, the newspaper reported, Korzon was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to have his wife’s 1968 Jaguar XKE convertible appraised.

As police closed in earlier this year, the complaint states, investigators asked to interview Korzon, who responded, “Did you find the body?”

Gloria Korzon’s body has not been found.

Neighbors on Barcroft Road had some clue that something was up weeks ago. A crew from the TV show “Cold Justice” showed up in the neighborhood about six weeks ago, seeking interviews. They declined to be interviewed.

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