Crime Junkie is examining a 50-year-old mystery with the murders of schoolgirls Mary and Susanne “Susie” Reker, who were brutally stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in their hometown of St. Cloud, Stearns County, Minnesota.
On Labor Day morning, September 2, 1974, sisters 15-year-old Mary and 12-year-old Susanne left their home to go to a store. They were last seen alive a couple of hours later at the store before vanishing.
The remains of the two girls were found 26 days later at a quarry three miles outside of St. Cloud.
The site was a hot spot for St. Cloud teenagers to hang out, and it was a group of kids who found Susan’s body lying on top of the quarry. She had been stabbed 13 times.
Mary’s naked body was later recovered from 40 feet below the water’s surface; she had been stabbed six times.
The murders remain unsolved, but there have been a couple of people of interest.
Herb Notch was a suspect in Mary and Susanne Reker murders
Two years after the murders, 17-year-old Herb Notch and another boy, kidnapped 14-year-old Sue Dukowitz from a St. Cloud convenience store. They took her to a gravel pit outside of town, where they sexually assaulted her. Notch then stabbed her with a knife, and they left her for dead; thankfully, she survived the ordeal.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelThe two teenage thugs went to jail for the attack. Notch’s accomplice later told reporters, “He had no remorse at all. None. Like hitting a bug on your windshield.”
Notch was working at the Zayre discount store in 1974, the same store where the Reker girls disappeared. An acquaintance of Notch at the time of the murders, Russ Platz, has spoken out about Notch’s strange behavior. Platz said Notch would sit in his car in the Zayre parking lot, glaring at people and playing with his knife.
Platz was one of the boys who found Susanne Reker’s remains at the quarry.
The Reker girl’s mother, Rita Reker, believes Notch is the killer. She confronted him in 2017 as he lay dying in a hospital from liver failure.
Rita told the local press, “I was able to confront him on his deathbed, and he denied it totally. I needed to see who my girls looked at as he stabbed them to death.”
The mother claimed Notch asked her why she couldn’t move on, and when she said she would never stop searching for her daughter’s killer, he allegedly responded, “I’m going to hell.”
Notch died a week later, aged 58. There is no physical evidence to link him to the Reker murders, and he has never been charged. Rita Reker has said she believes Notch is the killer.
Convicted killer Lloyd Lee Welch was also a suspect in Mary and Susanne Reker killings
A few days before the Reker murders, Georgianne Dreher was sexually assaulted at a quarry outside St. Cloud, just three miles from where the Rekers were found. Dreher believes her attacker was notorious carnival worker Lloyd Lee Welch.
Welch was convicted of raping and killing 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and her sister, 10-year-old Katherine, after abducting them from a shopping mall in 1975 in Maryland.
Welch has been linked with multiple crimes across the country, including the Reker girls. However, in August 2020, a Stearns County detective wrote, “The investigation of the Reker homicides points in a different direction than Mr. Welch.”
MURDERED: Mary & Susanne Reker is available to download now from Crime Junkie.