'Helen Vogt can finally rest in peace': Victim remembered after verdict in '88 Erie murder

After 36 years, some memories were almost certain to slip away in the case of Helen Vogt, the 77-year-old grandmother who was found stabbed and beaten to death in her Erie townhouse on July 23, 1988.

But at the long-awaited trial at which Vogt's grandson was convicted in Erie County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday , many aspects of the cases never faded.

One was the strength and staying power of the DNA evidence.

Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz used the DNA to convict the grandson, Jeremy C. Brock, 57, of first-degree murder, robbery and other charges after a nearly week-long trial that resolved what had been one of Erie's oldest cold cases.

Many memories of Vogt also never faded.

Though she had been dead for more than three decades, and the investigation into her death had gone cold for many of those years, a vivid portrait of Vogt emerged based on testimony in court.

Vogt's murder ended the life of a devoted grandmother who was a fashion aficionado, avid golfer and card player who was just getting used to living alone following the death of her beloved husband six months earlier.

"She was really a woman who lived life well," Hirz said after the verdict.

Vogt's family grateful for verdict

Vogt's relatives said they will continue to cherish the memories of her as they take solace in the conviction.

"After 36 years Helen Vogt can finally rest in peace," a group of her nieces and great-nieces, who attended the trial, said in a statement. They traveled as far away as Arizona and Alaska to be in court.

"We would like to thank the jury who carefully listened to the testimony for five long days," the relatives also said.

They praised those work worked on the case.

Hirz prosecuted the case with First Assistant District Attorney Jessica Reger. The arresting officers were Erie police Detective Sgt. Craig Stoker and Pennsylvania State Police Master Trooper Todd Giliberto, who specialize in cold cases.

"We would also like to thank the Erie County District Attorney’s office, the City of Erie Police Department, the original officers who came out of retirement to testify, the Crime Victims Center and the many others who testified and helped bring this case to a close.

"The horror of anything happening like this in our family is incomprehensible.

"For the grief that our family has borne for the past 36 years, we can finally feel peace that justice has been served and that we finally have closure.

"For those we hold most dear never truly leave us. They live on in the kindness they showed, the comfort they shared and the love that they brought into our lives."

A loving grandmother learning to live by herself

For much of her life, Helen Vogt was inseparable from her husband of 54 years, Herbert "Hubby" Vogt, who died at 81 on Feb. 11, 1988. He was the golf pro at Erie Golf Club for 37 years and the 1926 Erie District Golf Association champion.

Hubby Vogt died following a heart attack after he finished the first hole on a golf course in North Miami Beach, Florida, where he and his wife had a winter home.

After her husband's death, Helen Vogt returned to live by herself at the couple's summer home — a townhouse in the 2800 block of Zimmerman Road in southeastern Erie, in the area behind where a Walmart is today.

The Vogts bought the newly built townhouse in 1985, after years of living in a house on Parade Boulevard in Erie.

Helen Vogt was known to spend hours outside gardening. And when she wasn't gardening, she and her husband were most likely to be on the links.

"Her favorite place to be was on a golf course," Vogt's granddaughter Bethany Parish, who is Brock's sister, testified at trial. "She could hit the ball straight every time."

Parish, who lives in Texas and is two years younger than Brock, testified for the prosecution about how her grandmother became "hyper-conscious" about security after her husband died, and that she would not let strangers into her townhouse.

Parish said she and her grandmother talked on the phone about how she was struggling to adjust without having Hubby Vogt around.

"She was feeling sad that she missed him so much," Parish said.

'Always a big part of my life,' granddaughter says

Parish testified that she and her brother grew up near where her maternal grandparents lived in Florida until Parish and her family moved to Texas when she was around grade-school age. Parish said she and her still family visited Florida.

"She was always a big part of my life, ever since I was small," Parish said of her grandmother.

Parish said Helen Vogt taught her how to play gin rummy, took she and her brother swimming and helped support her when she pursued a modeling career overseas in her late teens. Parish said her grandmother was also interested in fashion.

"She had impeccable taste," Parish testified. "She followed all the rules — never wear white shoes after Labor Day. She just had a really great style about her."

Parish said Vogt and her grandfather paid for Parish and her mother to go to New York City to visit modeling agencies. She said she and her mom stayed at the ritzy St. Regis hotel.

"They really splurged on us," Parish testified.

Brock questions DNA, says he is no 'monster'

Vogt's generosity also extended to her grandson.

He and his sister were heirs to their grandmother's modest fortune of approximately $358,000 — about $950,000 in today's dollars, according to court records. And when she died, Vogt was giving Brock, who was 21 at the time, an allowance of $100 a month — a little over $265 a month in today's dollars.

Brock did not testify at trial. But he spoke of his grandmother — and denied killing her — in an interview with WJET-TV in Erie shortly after he was arrested in August 2022. The prosecutors — Hirz and First Assistant District Attorney Jessica Reger — played the interview for the jury in Judge Daniel Brabender's courtroom.

Brock said his grandmother had been "a big part of his life" and that he had fond memories of staying with her in Florida and playing cards.

"She would take all the pennies in your pocket," Brock said.

Brock said his affection for his grandmother was one reason that he would have never killed her. He also claimed that he was never at her townhouse, though his DNA was found on a bloody washcloth that police said he used to clean up after the murder.

Investigators tested the washcloth over the years. But advances in DNA technology starting in 2020 finally allowed police to match Brock's DNA to the DNA found on the washcloth and on other blood found in Vogt's townhouse. The matches led police to charge Brock and extradite him from Texas to Erie in 2022.

"I did not kill my grandmother," Brock said in the interview. "I am not a violent person."

"I have been made out to be this horrible Frankenstein monster."

WJET anchor Jennifer Mobilia, who interviewed Brock, asked him how is DNA was found in his grandmother's townhouse if he had never been there.

"That's the $64,000 question," he said.

Motive for murder not offered as DA relies on DNA

Hirz answered that and other questions in her closing argument to the jury.

She said Brock somehow traveled from elsewhere to Erie to see his grandmother the night of July 22, 1988. The townhouse showed no signs of forced entry, and Vogt — vigilant about security since her husband's death — let her grandson in because she knew him.

An argument broke out. Brock used a knife and a two-pronged barbecue fork to stab his grandmother 51 times and beat her, Hirz said.

Police early in the investigation surmised that Brock was angry at his grandmother because he wanted a larger allowance than what she had been sending him, according to court records. But Hirz at trial offered no motive for the killing, and highlighted that she did not have to provide a motive under the law.

Hirz said the DNA and other evidence was enough to convict Brock — no matter what the motive.

"How do you get inside someone's head who commits such a heinous crime?" Hirz said in her closing argument. "We may never know."

DA urges jurors to give a voice to Helen Vogt

Hirz asked the jurors to remember Helen Vogt, the vivacious 77-year-old grandmother about whom they had learned so much at trial.

But because the jurors could never meet Vogt in person, "it's easy to lose sight of the fact that Helen was a real person who experienced a horrible death and the ultimate betrayal," Hirz said.

Hirz urged the jurors to focus on the DNA. It explains, she said, what happened in that townhouse — events that Vogt was never able to testify about herself

"She knows what happened all those years ago," Hirz said of Vogt. "Jeremy Brock knows. And now you know."

"She has been waiting for you," Hirz said, again referring to Vogt. "Let her know that you have heard her."

Brock will be sentenced on Sept. 3. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com or 814-870-1813. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella .

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: 'Helen Vogt can finally rest in peace': Victim remembered after verdict in '88 Erie murder