‘DID YOU FIND THE BODY?’

Bucks County cold case: Man charged with homicide in wife's 1981 disappearance

By Holly Harrar and Danielle Gehman

WFMZ-TV
April 18, 2019

WARWICK TOWNSHIP, Pa. - An arrest has been made in a 38-year-old cold case in Bucks County.

William Korzon, 76, was arrested Thursday in his wife's 1981 disappearance and presumed death.

Korzon had long been the focus of investigation after Gloria Korzon vanished in 1981, following years of reported abuse by her husband.

Gloria was last seen leaving work in Horsham Township on March 6, 1981. She was 37 years old.

Police said within days of her disappearance, her husband, William, went to her employer and told them to terminate her because of poor mental and physical health.

In the following months and years, William continued to forge documents and lie to her family and police to make it seem like Gloria was still alive, investigators said.

William forged Gloria's signature on two checks and filed joint taxes for him and his wife four months after Gloria went missing, police said.

Warrington Township police were called to the couple's home numerous times between 1968 and 1981 for violent assaults, where William attacked and threatened to kill Gloria, according to court documents.

Gloria suffered multiple injuries, including a broken arm, broken collarbone, damage to her nasal bone and a black eye, many of which required hospitalization.

Police said she documented the history of abuse in a series of letters she wrote to her attorney and to her father. She told her father not to open the letter unless something happened to her.

Investigators searched William Korzon's Warrington Township home twice in 1986, but didn't find anything and the case went cold.

Korzon insisted she left him, and he divorced her in 1987.

In 1997, a Bucks County court declared Gloria Korzon legally dead.

Investigators reopened the case in 2018 and again interviewed William Korzon, now 76, in 2019.

Detectives said when questioned about her death, Korzon asked police, "Did you find the body?"

Korzon was arraigned Thursday morning on homicide, soliciation to commit homicide, forgery and perjury charges. He's behind bars in Bucks County.