By Seamus McGraw
December 14, 2006
ATHENS, Pa. (Crime Library) — It had rained earlier, an unusually warm rain for late autumn in this normally cold corner of the state, and as the afternoon sun broke through and struck the elm-lined main street of Athens, dusting the facades of gingerbread Victorian houses with gold, it almost looked as if a stray fragment of an older and simpler America had been caught in amber.
A stranger, passing through this valley between the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers, can be easily engaged by its beauty and its apparent peace, the small but bustling shops, the 19th century elegance of its older homes, the apparent prosperity reflected in the charming, newer homes build by and for the doctors from the nearby medical center in Sayre, or the lawyers and others who now call this secluded region of Bradford County home.
But just beneath the surface, say the locals, there is the realization that even here, the savagery and brutality of 21st century American life is never far away.
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| Map of Sayre, PA |
That message was delivered unmistakably last month when authorities found the bodies of David Keeffe, a prominent local attorney whose reputation for legal skill and great personal dignity extended far beyond the confines of Bradford County, and his 60-year-old wife, Carol, inside the garage in their secluded mountaintop compound.
The couple, among the most influential families in the area, was gunned down by a killer or killers wielding a shotgun, police said.
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