LOGAN TOWNSHIP -- Betty Jean Shade's murder is something former investigators won't forget, and it's now featured in a Netflix series about FBI profiling.
"Shade was last seen alive on First Avenue in Altoona on Tuesday, May 29. She left her babysitting job around 10 that night and proceeded to walk home to 1410 Fourth Street about a mile away," former 6 News reporter Barbara Allen said in 1979.
Allen and former 6 News photographer Larry Field covered the story, and Field said he still remembers everything about it.
"Quite well, I do," he said, adding that he also photographed the scene for police.
"You just don't see things like that around," he said.
The Saturday after Shade was last seen, Patrick Daugherty was headed to Wopsononok Mountain for a hike, but was interrupted by a disturbing sight.
On a dirt road there, he found what he thought was a body. He called Logan Township police, and met with two officers just down the road at the Buckhorn Inn.
Daugherty led them to the trail, and the officers confirmed he had, in fact, found a body. Shade had been left on a pile of trash not far from Skyline Drive.
One of the officers was former Officer Steve Jackson, who is now a Blair County magisterial district judge.
Jackson recently heard the case was featured in the Netflix series, "Mindhunters."
"It brought memories back just like that. I can remember vividly what occurred that morning," he said.
Both Jackson and Field remember the gruesome sight.
"(Shade's body) was almost white. It actually looked like a mannequin when we first approached it, but then, after we got closer to it, we realized that wasn't the case at all," Jackson said.
Charles Soult was later convicted of killing Shade and leaving her there on the mountain. Soult is still inside the State Correctional Institution at Huntgindon, serving a life sentence.
The case was one of the first to be solved using FBI profiling, and that process is the basis of "Mindhunters."
Jackson said he started to watch the series, but hasn't finished. The names are changed slightly, and Jackson said the story isn't quite factual.
"I was kind of disillusioned that Logan Township in particular didn't get credit for the investigation because it seemed like it was more of an FBI investigation. From what I gathered, which they played a part in, but a very little part I think."
The series depicts Altoona police rather than Logan Township police leading the case.
Dennis Page worked as an extra on the show and said he played "a gawking neighbor."
"It's more about the process of solving the crime than it is about the case itself," he said.
Shade's case is only in a few episodes, but Page suggests watching "Mindhunters" from the very beginning to fully understand the show.
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