Green Subaru

The Green Subaru is a vehicle whose appearances help trace the suspected assailant after Frank Peterson’s murder. First seen beside a blood-spattered van behind Shorty’s Pub, it later appears abandoned near Old Forge Road with bloodied clothing inside. Forensic analysis of that clothing links the car to the crime scene through blood evidence, turning an initially uncertain witness observation into a concrete part of the investigation.

Witnessed at Shorty’s Pub

On the Tuesday evening described in his interview, Scowcroft was smoking outside Shorty’s Pub with Riley Franklin when a dirty white van bearing a New York plate pulled in beside a small Subaru wagon. A man got out of the van; Scowcroft remembered a white shirt marked with blood and blood on the man’s face. The identity Scowcroft supplied was uncertain, but the vehicle beside the van became a distinct detail in his account.

The man then got into the small green Subaru and drove away. Scowcroft found this sequence odd because the man had asked to leave the van there for a while, as though it might be towed, despite having his own car already present. The Subaru’s presence therefore complicates the apparent purpose of the van: it was not the only vehicle available to the man, and his departure in the Subaru left the van behind.

Found near Old Forge Road

The car surfaced again when Czerny went out early in the morning intending to fish near the Iron Bridge. He never wet a line. After noticing the Subaru, he looked inside and saw no one in it, but found bloody clothes on the passenger seat and blood-marked sneakers in the passenger-side footwell. Because the news had reported that police were seeking a green Subaru in connection with the murdered boy, Czerny immediately understood the car’s possible importance and urged officers to impound it before anyone could contaminate evidence.

Czerny’s account establishes the car as abandoned rather than simply parked during an ordinary outing. Its location near the Old Forge Road boat landing, its empty interior, and the clothing and sneakers left inside gave investigators a second, materially different scene from the pub: the vehicle no longer served as transportation but as a container of potential evidence.

Forensic Link to the Murder

The recovered clothing made the Subaru more than a vehicle identified by witnesses: it became a repository of evidence that could be compared with material from the murder and the suspected getaway van. The clothing retrieved from the 2011 Subaru included a shirt, pants, socks, Adidas sneakers, and Jockey underwear, with a great deal of Frank Peterson’s O-positive blood on the items. A small spot of AB-positive blood appeared on the shirt’s left cuff. The forensic report stated that the samples had been conveyed by Trooper John Koryta and Sergeant Richard Spencer of the State Criminalistics Division, preserving the chain of evidence.

The report also drew a careful distinction between what was found in the Subaru and what was not. No AB-positive blood had been detected in the vehicle itself at the time of the report. Investigators considered that the perpetrator’s cuts might have clotted before the Subaru was abandoned or might have been bandaged; the report judged the latter possibility unlikely given the small quantity of blood involved. The absence of that blood therefore did not erase the significance of the trace on the shirt, but it left the exact handling of the injuries unresolved.

The car’s evidentiary role sharpened through comparison with the 2007 Econoline van abandoned in the employee parking lot behind Shorty’s Pub. That van contained a great deal of O-positive blood on the driver’s seat, steering wheel, and dashboard, along with spots of AB-positive blood on the steering wheel. The shared blood types across the van and the Subaru’s clothing connected the two vehicles to the same chain of events: the van bore extensive blood evidence, while the Subaru carried the clothing associated with the crime. The report recommended quickly determining any suspect’s blood type because AB-positive blood is comparatively rare, found in about three percent of the population.

The Subaru thus changed status across the investigation. At Shorty’s Pub it was a small, initially uncertain detail in a witness’s account; near Old Forge Road it was an abandoned car containing clothing and sneakers; in the forensic report it became part of a documented evidentiary link among the victim’s blood, the clothing, and the van. Its importance rests not on a single decisive trace but on the convergence of observations, recovered items, and blood evidence, while the report’s qualifications preserve the limits of what the vehicle alone could establish.

Forensic Link to the Murder

The clothing recovered from the Green Subaru turned the car from a witness detail into a documented evidence site. The recovered items were a shirt, pants, socks, Adidas sneakers, and Jockey underwear. A forensic report recorded a great deal of O-positive blood on the clothing and a small spot of AB-positive blood on the shirt’s left cuff. The samples had been conveyed by Trooper John Koryta and Sergeant Richard Spencer of the State Criminalistics Division, and the report stated that the chain of evidence remained intact.

The report distinguished those clothing traces from the results of examining the car itself: no AB-positive blood had been found in the Subaru as of the report. It proposed that any cuts suffered by the perpetrator might have clotted before the car was abandoned, or might have been bandaged, though the small amount of blood made bandaging seem unlikely. These qualifications leave the source and handling of the trace unresolved; the absence of AB-positive blood in the vehicle does not cancel the significance of its presence on the shirt.

Comparison with the 2007 Econoline van abandoned behind Shorty’s Pub strengthened the connection between the two vehicles. Investigators found extensive O-positive blood on the van’s driver’s seat, steering wheel, and dashboard, as well as spots of AB-positive blood on its steering wheel. The Subaru itself had no AB-positive blood reported, but the clothing inside it bore both the victim’s O-positive blood and a trace of AB-positive blood. Because AB-positive blood was described as rare, occurring in about three percent of the population, the report recommended ascertaining any suspect’s blood type promptly. Together, the vehicles and their distinct evidence made the Subaru part of the investigation’s material chain without, by itself, settling who had driven it or establishing every step of the suspected assailant’s movements.

Forensic Limits and Significance

The evidence did not establish every step in the driver’s movements or identify the person responsible by itself. The forensic report noted that no AB-positive blood had been found in the Subaru as of the time it was written; it suggested the perpetrator’s minor cuts might have clotted before the car was abandoned, while judging bandaging unlikely given the small samples. The contrast between AB-positive blood on the shirt cuff and none reported in the car leaves a gap rather than a complete account. The Subaru’s significance instead comes from how separate observations and records converge around it: Scowcroft saw it beside the van at Shorty’s Pub, Czerny found it near Old Forge Road with bloody clothing and sneakers inside, and laboratory findings documented the victim’s blood on those items. Its role is substantial but bounded—a link in the evidence chain, not proof of the driver’s identity or a full reconstruction of the crime.