Franklin County Murder Charges | News

Franklin County Murder Charges

May 9, 2008

CHAMBERSBURG, FRANKLIN CO. — Charges are filed in a two-year-old Franklin County murder.

Scottie North, 27, is accused of killing his former boss 43-year-old Carl Ryder, and putting the body in his car.

North escaped from prison and police said that's when he killed Ryder and now, the victim's family has filed a civil suit.

"While we can never bring Carl back, we take some comfort in knowing the justice system is moving forward," said the family attorney, Larry Weisberg.

North was serving time at the Franklin County prison on burglary charges. While on work release he walked away from his job at Architercural Woodsmith's in Shippensburg. Police said North hitchhiked to Ryders Franklin County home, killed him, and then stuffed the body in Ryder's car.

"Through the course of that search warrant a large amount of blood was found in that vehicle," said Trooper Karl Schmidhamer, of the Pennsylvania State Police.

North was later pulled over in Huntingdon County following a police chase and then arrested in Mifflin County. Ryder's body was found six days later dumped in a remote area in Huntingdon County.

The charges were delayed as police in Huntingdon and Franklin Counties conducted their investigations.

"We had two crime scenes actually, we had a crime scene in Huntingdon County and a crime scene in Franklin County," added Trooper Schmidhamer.

Meanwhile, relatives of Carl Ryder have launched a civil suit against Scottie North, Architecural Woodsmiths Inc., and their owner Showbest Acquisition Corporation.

According to the civil suit filed by the family, they allege that North escaped because he was unsupervised, causing Ryder's death. The family's attorney declined to comment about the suit.

The relatives of Ryder are seeking over $150,000 in damages according to the civil suit.