Teacher who raped and slit the throat of his student, 18, in infamous 1966 murder hangs himself in jail

Dead: Convicted murderer Jon Yount has been found hanged in his jail cell

A convicted killer who raped and murdered one of his maths students in 1966 has killed himself in his jail cell.

Jon E. Yount, 74, had been in good health before he was found hanged in the state prison in Greene County, Pennsylvania on April 26.

His suicide came just three days ahead of the 46-year anniversary of his gruesome crime.

On April 29, 1966, he stopped 18-year-old Pamela Sue Rimer as she walked home from her school bus stop.

He was her maths teacher at the Dubois High School, where she was a senior, but she had been trying to get out of his class as she disliked him.

Yount beat, raped and stabbed Rimer before slitting her throat and leaving her to die in a wooded area near her home in Luthersburg. Yount left the scene, burnt his clothes and collected his children from their babysitter.

She had been an honours student who rode horses, played the clarinet in the school band and planned to enroll at the Pennsylvania State University on a scholarship, the Courier Express reported.

Murder: Yount (left), a high school maths teacher, beat, raped and slit the throat of one of his top students, Pamela Sue Rimer (right) in 1966



Rimer was buried in her prom dress and classmates laid their graduation tassels across her grave.

Yount was convicted of first-degree murder and rape, but escaped for two years between 1986 and 1988.

He had escaped while carrying out unsupervised farm work with his pen-pal turned girlfriend, Diane Brodbeck, waiting nearby.

The pair were captured in Idaho after the case appeared in an Unsolved Mysteries show. But he stood by the escape.

'After 20 years I felt I had paid my debt, and if I was to be able to capture any meaning to the rest of my life, it was necessary,' he said.

Caught: A trooper testified that Yount admitted 'I killed the girl', but Yount said during his trial he had asked 'I killed the girl?' after hearing of her death

But after her daughter was murdered, Rimer's mother, Lavonne Rimer, worked to ensure Yount did not have his life sentence shortened.

'What he did just didn't end my daughter's life; it ended my life and my husband's life,' she told the Collegian before her death two years ago.

Rimer's parents had also lost their son in a farming accident three years before the murder.



'I have nothing, no children, no grandchildren. No one calls me to say, "How are you Mom?" My life is over since then,' she said.

Rimer added that the community remembered Yount as cruel, and that her daughter was trying to get out of his class when she was killed.



'She said, "Oh, Mom, you ought to see his eyes,"' Rimer recalled.

Girlfriend: In 1986, Yount escaped prison while on unsupervised farm work. His pen-pal turned girlfriend Diane Brodbeck (pictured) helped the escape

Busted: Authorities found them (their car is red) in Idaho in 1988 after the case appeared on the program Unsolved Mysteries

She added that visitors had seen Yount's car near their farm before the slaying, even though he denied knowing where she lived.



' Anybody that could kill like that isn't fit to walk the streets,' she said.

Yount outlived those involved in his case, including Judge John A. Cherry, who died in 1992, and district attorney John K. Reilly Jr., who died last year.

The investigation into his death has not yet been completed, but trooper Jay Hundertmark said it does not appear suspicious.

He said they are awaiting the toxicology reports and the autopsy reports from the coroner's office.