Deborah Wharton Beeler was born in Lawrence Memorial Hospital on October 6, 1946 to John and Elizabeth ‘Betty’ (nee Wharton) in New London, Connecticut. John Hall Beeler Sr. was born on August 3, 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland and according to MyHeritage, he graduated from John Hopkins University with a BS in civil engineering in 1938 and went on to serve in the Army during WWII, where he saw battle in Europe; upon his discharge from the military on April 10, 1944 he was employed at the Arundel Corporation and Consolidated Engineering Company’ and went on to become the president of the Precision Tool Company in Edgemont, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Sergeant Wharton was born on November 15 1922 in Philadelphia, and graduated from the Agnes Irwin School in 1941; she made her debut later that same year. The Beeler’s were married on October 28. 1942 in the Thomas Virgin Islands and had three children together: Deborah, Edward (b. 1956) and John (b. 1944). After getting hitched the family moved around the US, and briefly lived in Stonington, CT and Maryland before eventually settling down in Pennsylvania.

According to an article published in The Times-Herald on February 26, 1970, the Beelers were ‘listed in the Social Register of Pennsylvania’ which is a directory of ‘prominent and elite families’ in the Philadelphia area and other regions of the state that (historically) focused on ‘old money’ and well-connected families (in more recent years they have expanded to include a more ‘diverse’ membership). In early 1970 the family lived in the Chester Hill area of Philadelphia, and Deborah’s brother John was a Captain in the Air Force and was serving in Vietnam, and her younger brother Edward was attending Chester Hills Academy in Philadelphia.

Deborah Beeler seemed to live an incredibly charmed life: described by a loved one as ‘vivacious,’ she was the daughter of a wealthy, high level business executive and graduated from Springside High School in 1964. Springside was an independent college preparatory school in the Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia, and while there she excelled in academics and participated in drama club, glee club, and wrote for the newspaper. After graduating from high school Beeler went on to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1968; upon completion she relocated to Berkley, where she got a part time intern position teaching three reading classes a day at the Oakland Technical High School, and got her temporary teaching credentials in January 1970 after taking a class in the Golden State.

According to Deb’s boyfriend and Ted Bundy’s one time Seattle lawyer John Henry Browne (who Bundy actually sought out to be his attorney), at the time of her death she was a graduate student in English education at UC Berkeley, and in addition to teaching she volunteered PT at a halfway house that was close to the cottage that she rented (which was located in the front part of 477 Arlington Avenue). According to William H. Miller, the principal of the school Beeler taught at, she was ‘outstanding,’ and seemed to get along very well with her students, and friends of hers said she was in good spirits the week prior to her death and was an ‘outdoorsy’ type and enjoyed hiking and skiing.

Inspector Jack Houston with the Berkley PD also said that Beeler had gone to her teaching job on Friday, February 20, 1970 and that the following Monday was a holiday (Presidents’ Day), however she failed to report to work on Tuesday, February 24th. The Almeida county coroner said that the twenty-three year old had been found later that day in her cottage by her landlord Stanley Gould, who became worried after she didn’t pick up her mail; her autopsy would later determine she had been deceased for roughly 24 hours. Beeler had been dressed in a ‘slip over housecoat’ and a ‘shorty’ night gown, and was found lying face down on her living room floor; she had been strangled with an electric cord from a nearby hot plate (one source said it was from a lamp), which her killer had looped around her neck multiple times. A pair of pliers that may have been used to tighten the cord lay just within arm’s reach from the victim.

At first, Deputy Coroner David Hitchcock speculated that her death may have been a suicide, but this theory was disregarded (detectives thought this because of the pliers). The ME determined that she died of strangulations but had been hit on the side of the head; she had probably been unconscious when she was strangled. According to William H. Miller, the principal of the school Debbie taught at, she was ‘outstanding,’ and seemed to get along very well with her students. Friends of hers said she was in good spirits the week prior to her death and was an ‘outdoorsy” type, and enjoyed hiking and skiing.

At first, Deputy Coroner David Hitchcock speculated that Beeler’s death may have been a suicide, but this theory was quickly disregarded. The ME determined that she died of strangulation but had also been hit on the side of the head and may have been unconscious at the time she was killed. According to Inspector Houston, ‘there were no signs of a forced entry nor a struggle. I don’t think she would have let anyone in whom she didn’t know while she was wearing her nightclothes. I’m sure that whoever did her in was somebody she knew.’ He also said that she more than likely had let the man that took her life into her apartment willingly, and that she hadn’t been sexually assaulted and her residence showed no sign of a struggle. Detectives interviewed all known loved ones and acquaintances of Beeler: current and former boyfriends, friends, colleagues, family members, residents of the halfway house she volunteered at. No one gave them any helpful information.

I think what is most interesting about Deborah Beeler is, at the time of her murder she was in a relationship with John Henry Browne, who would later become Ted Bundy’s lawyer. While working and going to school in DC Browne made frequent trips to San Francisco, and he connected with Debbie through a friend he nicknamed ‘Punky,’ and the two began dating (an exact time wasn’t given or how long they were together, but I’m thinking it was around 1969). There are no good pictures of Deborah that I could find, however Browne described her in his book as ‘pretty, with brown eyes and long brown hair she parted down the middle.’ The night that they met, the two stayed up until 4 AM talking about a broad range of topics, ranging from war (I’m assuming Vietnam was going on during the time), the death penalty (both were ‘vehemently against it’), and prisoners rights.

According to Browne, ‘she lived in Heights-Ashbury, which in 1969 was the red-hot center of the hippie universe. I started to stay at her apartment, and we’d walked up and down the street, taking it all in. I was struck by her kindness towards strangers. If we came across a homeless man, she would stop and engage him in conversation. And if she had spare change, she would hand it over. It was almost alarming how open she was, how trusting. At Christmas she joined me for a holiday party at my parents house I have a photo from that party that my dad took of her sitting on my lap (Browne, 57)’

According to JHB, Beeler ‘was an angel, and so smart,’ and was as passionate about prisoners’ rights as he was. In the fall of 1969, he left his beloved in Berkeley, quit the band he was in and enrolled in law school at American University in Washington, DC. While there the two ‘maintained a long-distance relationship, talking on the phone, occasionally exchanging letters. When Debbie came out east to see her family, we connected in her hometown of Philadelphia. I met her parents, John and Elizabeth, who had a beautiful home in the tony neighborhood of Chestnut Hill. John, like my father, was an engineer, and was president of Precision Tool Company. Debbie and I talked a lot on that trip about what we wanted out of our relationship. We weren’t anywhere near where Audrey and I had been. We weren’t ready to get engaged, but we loved being around each other, even if we had to live on separate coasts. She was excited about the intern program she’d been accepted, teaching English at Oakland Technical High School. And I was excited about a new program I’d just started with my law school pal Allen Ressler in DC (Browne, 56-57).’

Browne said that some nights he would call her and tell her about the work he was doing with Law-Core, which he described as a ‘university-based prisoners’ rights project,’ and he said she ‘was proud of him.’ He also said that she had ‘recently began to volunteer at a nearby halfway house teaching ex-cons how to write and had recently moved into a cottage in the hills above Berkeley. The phone calls kept me tethered to the Bay area (Browne, 60).’ He also said that there were times that he ‘wouldn’t hear from Debbie for a week or more, or I wouldn’t call her. Our lives were both so busy. So I thought nothing of it until late February when I didn’t hear from her for several days (Browne, 60).’

In the early morning hours of February 26, 1970, Browne received a phone call from his dad from California (that he originally hoped was Debbie), who told him his girlfriend was dead and had been murdered: ‘he was home in Palo Alto and was holding that day’s newspaper: ‘Deborah Beeler had been found dead, lying face down on the living room floor of her Berkeley cottage.’ My whole body went cold, ‘Police said an electrical cord was looped several times around her neck,’ my dad had read to me from The Oakland Tribune: ‘Death was caused by strangulation, but there were indications she was struck on the side of the head. She had been dead for at least 24-hours.’’

After the murder Browne was thrown into a deep depression, and: ‘it really sent me through a loop. I withdrew a lot. I think I was really clinically depressed but didn’t know it.’ … ‘I fell into a deep depression. I didn’t leave my apartment. Didn’t eat. Didn’t answer the phone. I missed classes. I was confused and heartbroken (Browne, 62). He also said that where he had always been passionately against the death penalty he wanted Debbie’s killer to be executed if he was ever caught.

In the first page of Browne’s epilogue, he said that people often ask him if he thinks Bundy killed his one-time girlfriend, and to this he said, ‘the short answer is no. Aside from a few coincidences- both she and her manner of death fit the Bundy profile- there is no direct evidence that Ted was active in the Bay area in early 1970. But the question itself brings up all kinds of complicated thoughts. I’ve never been able to shake the knowledge that Ted knew about my loss before he sought me out as his counsel- and that he kept this secret from me for years. More complicated still is the fact that I defended Ted knowing he had killed countless of women just like Debbie. It was the ultimate test: how committed was I to this life of defending the rights and lives of others, even the most heinous, no matter how much their crimes personally impacted me (Browne, 215).’

In an interview with Washington reporter CR Brown with KCPQ-TV, Browne said that and Bundy had signed a document releasing him from attorney-client privilege and that he could disclose anything he wanted about his time as his lawyer: ‘Ted told me things that he’s never told anyone before… he told me his first victim was a man, and that he had killed over one-hundred people.’ … ‘And I was talking to people who kind of introduced me to Ted, and got me involved with Ted, and I now believe that Ted actually ‘chose me,’ and I found out that he had researched me. He knew where I lived, he knew what kind of clothes I had, what kind of cars I had…. and the women I was dating, they were the same kind of women that he was murdering. I kind of put this together recently, and that kind of creeps me out a lot. Because I had also lost a woman friend to a murderer: my girlfriend when I was in law school was murdered in Berkeley, and I was in DC. And so, he knew that.’ When asked if he thought Bundy had anything to do with his girlfriend’s death, he responded, ‘I pray to God that he didn’t, and I never even thought about that until recently because they reopened some of those cases in California.’ … ‘But it wasn’t in the area where he told me he had killed people.’

Browne said that to this day, he’s not entirely sure why he was willing to defend Bundy in court, but he said Deborah was always on his mind: ‘part of the reason involves my relationship with Debbie and her commitment to being anti-death penalty and her being active in anti-death penalty programs. After she was murdered, I became kind of a believer in the death penalty for a while. But then I had this very powerful dream. Debbie came to me and said, ‘don’t honor me by doing things I didn’t agree with.’ And so, I thought it was a good reminder. If she was around, she would want me to continue fighting against the death penalty. That’s why I’ve been doing this for 40 years now.’

According to his Wikipedia page, John Henry Browne was born on August 11, 1946 and he is a criminal defense attorney practicing in Seattle that is known for his ‘zeal’ in defending his clients, his flair for garnering media attention, and his habit to ‘plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.’ In addition to Bundy, he has represented a number of high-profile defendants, including Colton Harris-Moore (also known as The Barefoot Bandit, he was only a teenager when he was charged with the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in property), Benjamin Ng (who was partly responsible for The Wah Mee massacre, which was a multiple homicide that took place on February 18, 1983, in which Ng and two others gunned down fourteen people in the Wah Mee gambling club on Maynard Alley S. in Seattle’s Chinatown), and Martin Pang (an arsonist that served twenty-three years in a Walla Walla prison for the deaths of four Seattle firefighters). Browne has tried over 350 criminal cases and is particularly known for getting sympathetic treatment for his clients by shifting the focus away from the crimes they committed by arguing for consideration of their background, and the circumstances in which the events took place.

At the time Beeler was murdered Ted Bundy was in the early stages of his romance with his long-term girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, and was residing at the Rogers Rooming House on 12th Avenue Northeast in Seattle. He was employed as a ‘messenger and process server’ for an Attorney’s office, and was there from September 1969 to May 1970 and was fired for ‘unjustifiable absences’ after claiming he had been babysitting Liz’s daughter.’ According to the ‘1992 TB FBI Multi agency Team Report,’ he wasn’t a student at that time and didn’t enroll at The University of Washington until June 1970, however he did spend some time in California when he attended Stanford University in 1967; the following year he quit school completely and started traveling around the US, and briefly spent some time in San Francisco.

Mrs. Beeler died at the age of ninety-eight on January 3, 2021, and her husband wasn’t too far behind her: John Hall Beeler Sr. died after having a stroke on April 13, 2001 in Hershey’s Mill, PA. According to John’s obituary, the couple had three grandchildren (two boys and a girl) and were residing at Dunwoody Village in Newtown Square before their death (which is a retirement community that provides nursing care, residential apartments, and wellness care to the elderly). In addition to working with Arundel Corp. and The Precision Tool Company, in his younger years Mr. Beeler was president of JM Schmidt Company in West Chester and retired in 1984 after twenty years of service; before working for Schmidt he oversaw the ‘finished products division’ of the former Dodge Steel Casting Company in the Tacony Section of Philadelphia, and was also there for twenty years. He enjoyed golf and at one time played with a ‘five-stroke handicap.’ At the time of Mrs. Beeler’s death the couple had been married for fifty-eight years, and they are buried next to one another and their daughter in Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Cemetery in Ludwigs Corner, PA. As of September 2025, Deborah’s case remains unsolved and open.

Deborah’s brother Ted attended the University of Utah for his undergraduate degree and went onto graduate school at the University of Michigan; he got married in August 1976. According to familysearch.org, John Beeler Jr. is deceased and passed away sometime in 2023.

Works Cited:
Browne, John Henry. ‘The Devil’s Defender: My Odyssey through American Criminal Justice from Ted Bundy to the Kandahar Massacre.’ (2016).
Gardner, James Ross. (July 18, 2012). ‘The Law and John Henry !*@#ing Browne.’ Taken August 28, 2025 from SeattleMet.com