Fatal Fantasies: Caleb Fairley — Talk Murder With Me

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A fascination with mythical creatures like vampires and dragons is nothing out of the ordinary. Role-playing, specifically the game Dungeons and Dragons, has become an immensely popular pastime for tens of thousands of people across the globe. And who wouldn't want an escape from this intense, messed up world from time to time?

Lisa Manderach was beautiful, with a mane of shiny, black curls and a beaming smile. I know it's a cliché, but she genuinely looked like the sort of person who would light up a room upon entering. Her beauty became a curse, however, when she crossed paths with Caleb Fairley, a perverted vampire fanatic with a disturbing addiction to violent pornography.

A Beautiful Young Family

Lisa Marie (Agostinelli) Manderach was born Sept. 30, 1965 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Norristown High School in 1983.

James, Devon and Lisa Manderach (source: Youtube)

In 1992, Lisa married James “Jimmy” Manderach and the young couple settled in Limerick, PA (also known as Limerick Township). Lisa and Jimmy had known each other since elementary school, but were just friends for a long time before entering a romantic relationship. Jimmy had been married and divorced before he and Lisa got together.

Their daughter, Devon Marie, was born on Feb. 4, 1994. The family attended St. Clare Lutheran Church in Linfield, PA near Limerick.

Limerick was named for early settler William Evans, who first arrived in 1698 from Limerick, Ireland. About 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Limerick was estimated to be home to around 19,000 people in 2016, a huge increase from the 1990 estimate of just 6600. Like many towns and cities in Montgomery County, Limerick is experiencing a development boom, and with that, a rapidly growing population.

Limerick has always been viewed as an ideal place to raise a family. It's quiet and safe, with good schools and a number of interesting historical sites, several of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Those who knew Lisa described her as a happy, upbeat person who always made people smile. She worked extremely hard, driving a forklift for Fleming Cos., a food distributor in King of Prussia, PA, running a weekend janitorial service with her husband, volunteering for Meals on Wheels and caring for little Devon.

A Miserable Existence

A deeply unhappy person, Caleb Fairley was known to retreat into his own world more often than not.

Caleb Fairley in high school (source: Youtube)

Born Oct. 21, 1973 in Gulph Mills, PA, Caleb was the oldest of five children born to James, a pharmacist, and Ruth Fairley, a small business owner. Tragically, in 1989, his four year old brother, David, died as a result of an accidental suicide; he had been playing with a gun that he got his hands on and it went off. Moral of the story: don’t leave guns lying around if you have young children. Actually, maybe just don’t leave them lying around in general.

Neighbors said that they often saw Caleb and David playing together in the family’s swimming pool, and Caleb never really got over his brother’s death.

I could not find much information about Caleb’s relationship with his father, but his relationship with his mother was not good. Ruth Fairley was a domineering and controlling woman who viewed her son with disdain, calling him stupid and constantly telling him couldn’t do anything right.

Caleb attended Upper Merion High School in King of Prussia. He was quite a good student, according to his neighbor, Toni Trachtmann. According to Toni, Caleb was enrolled in some classes for gifted students, which she found surprising, because he had always struck her as “slow” and “lacking drive”.

In high school, Caleb was badly bullied by other students, who made fun of his weight, the way he dressed, pretty much everything about him. He was odd, socially awkward and spent most of his time by himself, making him an obvious choice for bullies. He never fought back or stood up for himself.

Unsurprisingly, Caleb had little experience with women. He did, however, have a girlfriend for a short while during high school (or at least a girl he went on some dates with). Melissa Arcadia described him as smart, but someone with a lot of “inner pain”, who was afraid of women - probably due to his poor relationship with his mother. In 1992, there were several incidents in which Caleb was accused of sexual harassment, specifically grabbing women by the buttocks.

At every job he ever had (he worked a few restaurant jobs in his teens) he was laughed at and picked on by co-workers.

Given the constant ridicule from his mother, and the torment from his classmates and co-workers, it is no surprise that he preferred to be alone, in his fantasy world. Caleb spent almost all of his time in his bedroom, where he dressed up as a vampire and played the role-play game Dungeons and Dragons.

Far more sinister was the collection of violent and sadistic pornography he kept under his bed.

On graduating high school, Caleb briefly attended West Chester University, where he studied computer science. However, I’m not sure he even completed an entire semester. He dropped out and enrolled at Montgomery County Community College, and earned pretty good grades. But he did not return for the fall term in 1995, claiming he didn’t have the money. More than anything, he wanted to save so he could move out of his parents’ house.

Dave Rosenthal of the Baltimore Sun summed up Caleb rather well:

“If ever there was a lost boy, it was Caleb Fairley.”

Lisa and Devon are Missing

Sunday, Sept. 10 1995, felt like a good day for some shopping, Lisa thought. Her husband, Jimmy Manderach was parked in front of the TV that afternoon watching football, which Lisa had little interest in. There was a new kids clothing store, Your Kidz & Mine, that had recently opened in Collegeville. It was about a 15 minute drive from Limerick and Lisa had been wanting to go have a look around.

At around 3 p.m., Lisa told Jimmy that she was taking Devon to Collegeville Shopping Center to check out the new store. They wouldn’t be gone long, she added. She walked out to the car, a 1988 Pontiac Firebird, placed Devon in her carseat, and then drove away.

This would be the last time Jimmy would see his wife and daughter alive.

When dinnertime rolled around and Lisa was not home, Jimmy became concerned. He distinctly remembered her telling him she would be back soon. Not wanting to seem alarmist, Jimmy called his brother, and then his sister, asking them what he should do. Both siblings told him he was overreacting and not to worry.

Jimmy and Lisa really were happy in their marriage, so nobody could fathom the idea that Lisa just up and left with Devon.

I could only find reporting which put the time Jimmy called the police as 9 p.m. that Sunday. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this is inaccurate and he actually called earlier; if he began to worry around dinnertime (probably 6pm or so), I find it hard to believe he waited another 3 hours.

An officer came to the Manderach home and told Jimmy to check if any of Lisa’s toiletries were missing, or if any luggage was gone. But everything was where it was supposed to be, indicating that Lisa had not just left.

The Investigation

Jimmy explained to police what had happened that afternoon: he had been watching football, and Lisa took Devon at around 3 p.m. to the new store, Your Kidz & Mine, in the Collegeville Shopping Center.

Police made their way there, and sure enough, there sat Lisa’s Pontiac Firebird, but Lisa and Devon were nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of a struggle, in or around the car.

What Jimmy didn’t know was that before he even called the police that Sunday, some hikers made a devastating discovery as they walked in Valley Forge National Park in King of Prussia. They had been making their way along a trail at the base of an embankment; about 50 yards above the trail at the top of the embankment was a road.

The lifeless body of a baby girl lay amongst the fallen autumn leaves. It looked as though she had been thrown from a car, landing about halfway down the embankment.

She was fully clothed, but there was bruising on her neck and head.

Jimmy’s brother, John, agreed to go to the hospital and see whether or not the little girl was Devon; Jimmy was too distraught to go. It was her, John confirmed. The autopsy showed that her collar bone was broken. Her cause of death was manual strangulation.

Investigators were unable to recover any hair or fibre evidence from Devon’s clothing. If there had been any, it had likely been lost when she was thrown from the car or when she lay in the elements.

**The Husband Didn’t Do It**

Naturally, as always is the case when a wife and/or child disappear and turn up dead (although Lisa had not been found at this point), the husband comes under immediate suspicion.

The lead investigator in the case, Det. Lt. Richard Peffall said in an interview on the episode of Forensic Files that covers this case, that he was suspicious of Jimmy for refusing to identify Devon at the hospital, adding that this was a very unusual choice on the part of a husband. I personally don’t find this all that strange, given Jimmy was likely so upset at the possibility that his daughter had been found dead, that he did not think he could cope with seeing her body lying there on a gurney. The detective obviously knows a lot that I don’t know, but I just can’t imagine a husband jumping at the chance to identify his dead daughter, and might want to hold out hope that the body found might not be hers.

Family members of Lisa’s took Jimmy’s side, insisting that Lisa and Devon were his whole world, and he would never do anything to hurt them.

The Manerach’s neighbors also told police that Jimmy’s car had been parked in the driveway all afternoon, providing him with an alibi.

The Investigation Continues

Ruling out Jimmy as a suspect, detectives began looking elsewhere for clues as to what happened to Lisa and Devon.

As Lisa was still missing, a massive search of Valley Forge National Park, where Devon’s body was found, took place on Monday, Sept. 11. Helicopters were used and bloodhounds brought along, as well as dozens of searchers, but they turned up nothing.

Back at the Collegeville Shopping Centre, detectives began asking store owners if they had seen Lisa and Devon the previous day. Detectives got a break in the investigation when a woman, who had been shopping at Your Kidz & Mine (where Lisa told Jimmy she was going) on Sunday, came forward and said she had seen Lisa and Devon the previous day. She made a purchase at the store, and as she was leaving, she saw Lisa browsing the clothing racks.

They went to Your Kidz & Mine and were able to confirm the woman’s account by examining receipts in the cash register from the day before. She paid at 3:39 p.m; it was the last transaction of the day. Detectives were able to determine that Lisa and Devon were alive at that time.

They found out that the store was owned by a woman named Ruth Fairley, and that her son, Caleb Fairley, had been working there alone on Sunday. They called Caleb, asking if he had seen a woman of Lisa’s description with a toddler in the store the day before. He denied seeing anyone of that description, but agreed to meet detectives to look at photos.

Caleb Fairley, Mosh Pit Fighter

Caleb Fairley with the scratches he was attempting to hide from detectives (source: Youtube)

When they met Caleb that afternoon, they noticed that the young man was wearing thick, poorly applied makeup. The detectives asked him to wipe it off, and there it was: his face was covered in scratches. He told them that he had been to an Electric Hellfire Club concert the night before at a Philadelphia nightclub called The Asylum. During the concert, he got caught up in a mosh pit, which was how he sustained the scratches. The detectives were not convinced by this story.

They served Caleb with a search warrant of his home and his mother’s store. In Caleb’s room, they found his stash of vampire-related items and his collection of porn magazines, many of which were disturbingly brutal in nature. They also found what they described as “strange sexual devices”.

They also found a t-shirt (pictured below) with a drawing of a woman being groped by vampires on either side of her. Many sources I found say that the woman in the drawing looks like Lisa Manderach, but honestly, it really just looks like a drawing in an adult comic of a typical “sexy woman” with a low-cut dress and long dark hair.

Some go as far as to say that the drawing on the t-shirt inspired Caleb to attack Lisa. I think this is kind of ridiculous; I’m pretty sure he would have done what he did regardless of some drawing on a t-shirt.

Then again, if the women in his games and magazines, which he spent hours every day playing and looking at, bore a resemblance to Lisa, this may well contribute to him being more attracted to women with this particular appearance.

The t-shirt with the vampire design found in Fairley’s room (source: Youtube)

They also found several pornographic video tapes stashed away at the store, and that peepholes had been installed in the dressing rooms.

Forensic Evidence

A witness came forward to detectives saying they saw someone in Your Kidz & Mine vacuuming the store just before it closed on Sunday. On examining the vacuum cleaner, detectives discovered a number of long, black hairs tied around the brush of the vacuum.

They apparently could not match these to Lisa because they had not found her body. I don’t know why they couldn’t ask Jimmy Manderach for a hair sample from Lisa’s hairbrush?

Ultraviolet light was used to identify bodily fluids on the carpet at the store. UV light sources can reveal bodily fluids, such as seminal fluid, saliva and sweat on soft materials such as clothing, towels, bed sheets and carpet. The UV light identified stains on the carpet which turned out to be Devon Manderach’s saliva.

There were also semen stains several feet from the saliva, which were a match to the blood sample taken from Caleb Fairley.

But what did this really prove?

However, these pieces of evidence did not actually prove that Caleb Fairley was responsible for Devon’s murder or Lisa’s disappearance when looked at individually. Devon’s saliva being in the store did not prove that Caleb murdered her, it just proved that she had been in the store.

As for semen stains, you could just put that down to Caleb being a pervert who looked at porn in the store. They did not prove that he had raped anyone.

They were 99.9% convinced that the scratches on Caleb’s face were a result of him attacking Lisa, but in order to prove this, they needed to find her body.

A Surprise Move

Detectives informed Caleb of the forensic evidence they uncovered at the store. Perhaps they were hoping he would just confess, but arguably, what happened next was even more beneficial to the detectives.

Caleb Fairley told them that he would lead them to Lisa’s body if they did not pursue the death penalty against him.

The Assistant District Attorney for Montgomery County, Bruce Castor (just an interesting aside, if you recognize that name, he represented Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial), explained that this was a shock move from Caleb and his attorney, because without the body, they did not have a solid case against him, as I explained above. Maybe Caleb knew he would end up being charged, as he figured the evidence they had against him was pretty strong, and they would no doubt find more of it.

If the most important thing to him was avoiding the death penalty, this made sense. But by leading them to Lisa’s body, he was incriminating himself further. Not only did he know where her body was, detectives had no doubt that they would find his DNA under her fingernails.

Montgomery County District Attorney Michael Marino would later say that the decision to take Fairley up on his offer was the most difficult of his career.

“Police desperately needed to find the woman's body to preserve forensic evidence that could convict Fairley. The clerk had at least 10 fresh scratches on his face and wrist, indicating Mrs. Manderach struggled furiously for her life,” Marino said, explaining his decision.

However, I will just point out that while Pennsylvania technically still has the death penalty, there have only been three people executed in the state since 1978, when capital punishment was reinstated. The last was in 1999.

Death penalty cases can take years to go to trial. These years bring unnecessary pain and anguish to families of victims who must sit and wait for justice to be served for their loved ones. And even if Caleb Fairley had been sentenced to death, it is highly unlikely that his execution would have actually been carried out.

In 2015, Governor Tom Wolf put in place a moratorium on executions in PA.

Lisa’s Body is Found

On Sept. 12 1995, Caleb led detectives to Lisa’s body, five miles from where Devon was found in Valley Forge National Park. It was in the woods behind an industrial park, very near a health club Caleb was a member of in King of Prussia.

Lisa was nude, except for a black lace top, which had been pulled up around her neck to expose her breasts. She was posed in a sexual manner with her legs spread apart; which was no surprise to anybody given that they had already established that Caleb was a disgusting pervert. Her face was covered by her long, dark hair.

As detectives suspected, Lisa’s hands were battered; many of her fingernails were broken and bloody. Sure enough, forensic analysis of Lisa’s fingernails revealed Caleb Fairley’s DNA, confirming how he had really gotten the scratches all over his face.

The long dark hairs found in the vacuum cleaner were also found to be microscopically similar to Lisa’s.

Lisa sustained several other wounds and injuries from the attack. Her body was covered with bruises, and five of her ribs were broken, which the pathologist later said resulted from being kneeled on. Like Devon, she had also been manually strangled.

The pathologist said that he did not find physical injury that indicated sexual assault. They did take vaginal swabs from Lisa, but I could not find the results of these tests.

Caleb Fairley was arrested and charged for the murders of Lisa and Devon Manderach. He pleaded not guilty.

Caleb Fairley’s mugshot from September, 1995 (source: Wikipedia)

The Trial and Sentencing of Caleb Fairley

Warning: This section may be difficult for some readers, please proceed with caution.

The trial began on April 10, 1996. The charges Caleb faced included: two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and abuse of a corpse.

The jury was brought in from another county due to the publicity of the case in Montgomery County.

The prosecution painted a picture of Caleb Fairley as a porn-addicted pervert who saw Lisa Manderach as fitting the “physical description of the woman in his sexual fantasies”. Castor described Lisa as “the woman of (Caleb’s) dreams”.

Prosecutors went on to describe what happened on Sunday, Sept. 10. When Lisa and Devon entered his mother’s store, Lisa instantly caught Caleb's attention. Once it was just him, Lisa and Devon alone inside, he snuck to the front door and locked it.

Lisa and Devon were near the back of the store when he cornered Lisa. He knocked her down on the ground and tried to rape her, but she fought him with everything she had. She kicked, screamed and scratched his face. Enraged at her resistance, he put his hands around Lisa’s neck and strangled her. Then he did the same to Devon.

Frustrated that he was unable to carry out the rape, he then masturbated on her body, which explains the semen stains on the carpet. This act was what resulted in the abuse of a corpse charge. I could not find whether he actually engaged in sexual intercourse with her corpse.

He then dragged the bodies out to his car, throwing Devon’s from the vehicle in Valley Forge National Park, and posing Lisa’s in the woods behind the industrial estate.

Thomas Egan, Caleb’s court appointed attorney, made it clear from the beginning that the jury was not there to decide whether his client was guilty of the murders, but whether he planned them.

"I will take away some of the mystery in this case. Mr. Fairley did commit those killings,” Egan proclaimed.

He argued that his client was guilty of third-degree murder, not first-degree, because he did not mean to kill his victims.

"On Sept. 10, 1995, that 22-year-old man put on his pants and shirt and went to work. He had no idea who Lisa Manderach and Devon Manderach were," Egan said, arguing against the idea that the murders were premeditated.

"If you're going to commit some kind of premeditated murder, you don't do so during store hours during back-to-school season at 4:15 in the afternoon,” he added.

Caleb did not testify during his trial. Egan claimed that his client was so blind with rage that he was not thinking clearly when he strangled his victims. Referencing scientific studies, Egan explained that it can take as little as 10 - 15 seconds to strangle someone.

Castor refuted this, claiming that it took Caleb much longer to strangle Lisa, citing the testimony of forensic pathologists who performed the autopsies on Lisa and Devon. They said that it takes at least four minutes to manually strangle someone to death, or even longer if the victim fights back, as Lisa did.

Therefore, even if Caleb actually was out of his mind, he had plenty of time to come to his senses and stop strangling his victims, Castor argued.

After four days of testimony, the jury deliberated for three hours before finding Caleb Fairley guilty on two counts of first degree murder and one count of abusing a corpse. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

Explaining his decision to hand down the maximum sentence, Judge William Carpenter said that Caleb Fairley killed a toddler who was "innocent, helpless and incapable of defending herself".

He referred to the terror the killings inflicted on the community, saying that people used to think that "a mother and daughter could shop on a Sunday afternoon in Collegeville without being murdered."

Reactions to Caleb Fairley’s Punishment

Lisa’s mother, Lorraine MacKay, said she believed that Caleb Fairley avoided the death penalty not because of the deal he and his attorney made with prosecutors, but rather her daughter’s opposition to the death penalty.

"She believed that only God could take a life," Lorraine said to Caleb. "You were the monster that took her life. I hope there's a monster out there that will take you."

Lisa’s brother, Ronald, speaking on behalf of the family, said they were "very happy with the outcome." He added that he hoped Caleb Fairley would receive justice in prison of some kind.

"It's only a symbolic victory," said Bruce Castor. “But it recognizes this is the most horrendous crime you could imagine."

Thomas Egan said he believed that, “there isn’t a chance in hell Mr. Fairley will ever get commuted.”

Caleb’s Bid for a New Trial

Caleb Fairley is currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution Fayette in La Belle, PA. As of March 2021, he is 47-years-old.

He has filed a number of appeals for a new trial, the latest in 2012. None have been successful.

2019 mugshot of Caleb Fairley (source: PA Dept. of Corrections)

Judge Carpenter (who oversaw his 1996 trial) dismissed his appeal in October 2012 for a new trial, saying it had "no merit". His court appointed attorney agreed with the judge's assessment.

The following month, Fairley filed with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to have the judge's decision overturned.

Caleb’s appeal was based on the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “mandatory life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for defendants under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.”

Except...Caleb was not under the age of 18. He was 21 when he murdered Lisa and Devon in cold blood. He argued evidence shows that "a person's biological process is typically incomplete until the person reaches his or her mid-twenties".

So basically, he was really arguing that the Supreme Court should have ruled that it is unconstitutional to sentence persons 21 and under to life in prison without parole. Or, he just wanted there to be an exception made for him. Either way, I believe he is exactly where he is supposed to be.

As far as I could tell, this 2012 appeal went nowhere. His attorney at the time said the appeal "lacks any basis in either law or fact and is, therefore, frivolous."

Remembering Lisa and Devon

Devon Marie Manderach, 2.4.1994 - 9.10.1995 (source: Facebook)

Lisa Marie Manderach, 9.30.1965 - 9.10.1995 (source: Facebook)

Lisa and Devon Manderach were buried together in a single casket at Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Norristown, PA.

In 1996, Ginger Childs, a mother of two whose children were toddlers at the time of the murders, later described how she could not forget the horrific details of the killings. She remembered how it consumed the community for months.

So Ginger made the decision to turn these painful memories into something bright and joyful to remember Lisa and Devon by. She organized and led a group of volunteers, eventually raising $500,000, which they put towards building the Manderach Memorial Playground at Limerick Community Park. Hundreds of Montgomery County residents got together and helped construct the playground. The finished product was dedicated on Sept. 12, 1998, exactly 3 years after Caleb Fairley was charged with the murders.

The playground is located at 180 Swamp Pike, Neiffer, PA 19473. If you’re ever in the area, it’s definitely worth a visit. It is a beautiful tribute to two people whose lives were cut short far too soon.