Va. man acquitted of 1991 killing of camp counselor from Fla. in northeastern PA
By APTuesday, August 24, 2010
Va. man acquitted of killing camp counselor in Pa.
HONESDALE, Pa. — A Virginia man has been acquitted of killing a camp counselor from Florida nearly two decades ago in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Jurors deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours Tuesday before finding 47-year-old Jeffrey Plishka of Onley, Va., not guilty in the 1991 slaying of 24-year-old Laura Ronning in a remote part of Wayne County.
Plishka was released from custody after the verdict and left the courthouse with his father, Metropolitan Opera singer Paul Plishka, and stepmother.
Ronning was a counselor at Camp Cayuga when she disappeared on July 27, 1991, while walking to Tanner’s Falls, near Honesdale. The body of the 24-year-old from St. Petersburg, Fla., was discovered the next morning.
The defense argued there wasn’t enough evidence to convict and sought to shift blame to two unknown men seen flirting with the victim a few days earlier.
Information from: The Times-Tribune, thetimes-tribune.com/
