Margaret Eckard was a 92-year-old resident of the Kearsley Home, a rest facility connected with Christ Church Hospital in Philadelphia, when she died on January 12, 1983. Staff initially treated her death as natural because of her advanced age and medical vulnerability, though troubling signs were later reported around her body. Medical testimony at trial described Eckard as suffering heart failure after being attacked and sexually assaulted in her private room; the assault was said to have aggravated her heart condition and caused her death.

Eckard’s death was later linked to a series of similar killings at Kearsley Home that included Kathryn Maxwell, Elizabeth Monroe, Lily Amlie, Mildred Alston, and Eugenia Borda. Investigators focused on an employee, former kitchen worker Anthony Joyner, who had access to the building and was arrested on August 1, 1983. He confessed to multiple killings, including Eckard’s, though his defense disputed the reliability of those statements. At the 1984 trial the jury convicted him of murder, rape, and burglary in connection with the six deaths; he received six consecutive life terms after jurors could not agree on death.

Does anyone have information about Eckard’s time at Kearsley Home or recollections of staff or residents from that period?