Former Pasadena Weekly Editor’s New Book Shines Light on a 56-Year-Old Cold-Case Murder Mystery

One of Pasadena’s longest-serving and most-beloved journalists has completed and published a true-crime murder mystery that was 15 years in the making. The book “Death in the House of Broken Hearts” (available on Amazon) was a passion project for Kevin Uhrich, who served as editor-in-chief at the Pasadena Weekly from 1999 to 2020.

The book focuses on Peggy Reber, a 14-year-old girl  who was brutally murdered in Uhrich’s hometown of Lebanon, Penn., in 1968.  The shocking ritualized killing – in which Reber was beaten, strangled and mutilated with a 5-foot hunting bow has remained a cold-case mystery for nearly six decades as it shadowed the town in controversy.

Uhrich. 64, has been haunted by the killing ever since he was eight years old, and his book serves as both an attempt to find justice for Reber, and as a unique history of Lebanon amid the turbulent era of the 1960s. He teamed up with his sister Martha Shaak, a lifelong Lebanon nurse who worked in the emergency room on the night Reber was brought in and died, to dig deep and find compelling evidence that he believes could name the killer at last.

“Kevin and Martha’s book is a gritty, haunting, disturbing, engrossing and downright essential read,” notes Justin Chapman, a former longtime PW writer who now serves as the Field Manager to Pasadena Vice Mayor and District 6 Councilmember Steve Madison in an email interview. “The book does Peggy justice and attempts to search for the truth long after everyone else gave up.

“It seems Uhrich and Shaak were the only two people left who thought Peggy deserved more than what the authorities and courts came up with – which was nothing at all. After all, the heinous crime was only  56 years ago, and the killer could still very well be walking among us. Though Uhrich and Shaak have a pretty good idea of who it may have been.”

Another one of Uhrich’s best friends and colleagues was former PW deputy editor Joe Piasecki, who believes that Uhrich’s devotion to finding Reber justice was emblematic of his longtime journalism career.

“Kevin dedicated his journalism career and much of his life to the advancement of social justice,” said Piasecki in a written comment. “So I think what drove his passion for this project – not just writing the book, but actually trying to solve the murder of Peggy Reber – was Kevin trying to make sense of the time and place where such a horrible crime and such a really horribly botched investigation and prosecution of it could occur.

“Kevin idealizes his childhood years, but the Reber murder and trial was also happening pretty much exactly when and where he was growing up, though he was about as oblivious to it as any young kid would be. Kevin remembers interacting as a kid with some of the people in this book, and I think this project was as much about making sense of his small-town Pennsylvania Dutch Country upbringing as it was about confronting the crime that tarnished it.”

In his time as editor, Uhrich gave numerous writers the breaks and experience to launch their careers.  Pasadena Now Managing Editor André Coleman was his longtime deputy editor at PW, and the author of this article was an arts editor for that newspaper.

“Kevin talked about the Reber case all the time,” Coleman said. “It became his passion. He had that tenacious pit bull-never give up personality, so it was obvious he was never going to let it go. I believe he actually solved the case. Hopefully the authorities in Lebanon, PA. will take a look.”

Uhrich is highly respected for his work at PW, having won numerous awards from the LA Press Club, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the California Newspaper Publishers Associaton. He also wrote regularly for the Los Angeles Times, LA Reader, LA Citybeat and numerous other outlets.

“Kevin has a no-punches-pulled, expose-the-corrupt-bastards style of journalism, and was a reporter’s editor if ever there was one because his skills as editor were unmatched,” Chapman wrote. “

“He often spoke out against police brutality, corporate fraud, public corruption, government spying, immigrant bashing, social inequities, human rights abuses and the like, in his editorials and beyond.  Giving Reber final justice might be his most impressive work ever.”

“Death in the House of Broken Hearts” is available on Amazon at Amazon.com: Death In the House of Broken Hearts: The Story of the Fifty-Year-Old Unsolved Murder of Teenager Peggy Reber: 9798877192133: Martha Shaak, Kevin Uhrich With: Books.