Strangulation Murder a Boon to Tour Operator.

(Lancaster, PA) Glenn Wilson, proprietor of Amish Country Tours, has seen his business ebb and flow over the years. The movie "Witness" had created the tourism demand that gave him his start many years ago. However, the current recession has been particularly difficult. Recently, he had reached the brink of bankruptcy. Then on a Sunday afternoon in May, something unusual happened.


"We was driving the tour like always. There was only a handful of customers on the bus. Then, as we was going by the Stoltzfus farm, everyone start screaming and pointing out the window. I just kept driving. I didn't know what to make of it."

What the people were pointing at, was the murder of local farmer Daniel Stoltzfus by his neighbor John Fisher. Fisher brutally strangled Stoltzfus with his own suspenders in a heated dispute over some borrowed shoes. "That was a real lucky break for us", Wilson said.

"Over the next few weeks, business really picked up. Everyone wanted to know where the 'suspenders murder' happened."

"So, like any business on hard times, we've had to adapt. We changed the name from Amish Country Tours to Suspenders Murder Theater. We don't have enough seats on that little bus for all the new business.  We don't do the old tour at all anymore. My brothers Jack and Louis come along now. We just drive out to the spot, and they put on their Amish farmer costumes and reenact the choking."

"Of course, the murder only took a few minutes. Jack and Lou do the whole thing in super-slow motion so to give the crowd their money's worth. Jack strangles Lou for almost 20 minutes before Lou finally goes into that good night. Sometimes I think he's really doin' it! Those boys have some real thespian in them."

"Then we open up a table and sell lemonade and funnel cake."