Delaware

Convicted former Delaware state auditor trounced in bid to win House seat

Published

1 year ago

September 11, 2024

Convicted former Delaware state auditor trounced in bid to win House seat

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Cast out of office two years ago after being convicted of criminal corruption as Delaware state auditor, Kathy McGuiness attempted a comeback this year by running for a state House seat in her hometown, Rehoboth Beach.

McGuiness campaigned tirelessly against two opponents in the Democratic primary. She filled her Facebook page with photos of her smiling with voters, and had the backing of former House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, who has held the seat for 22 years.

But in Tuesday’s primary election, McGuiness finished a distant third.

McGuiness was endorsed, to no avail, by her friend and incumbent, former House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf. (Courtesy of Kathy McGuiness}

Claire Snyder-Hall, who stepped down as head of the government accountability group Common Cause to run for the House, won with 41% of the nearly 3,600 votes cast.

Marty Rendon, 74, a former congressional aide who sits on the Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission, finished second with 32%.

McGuiness, 57, a pharmacist and business owner who spent 16 years as an elected Rehoboth Beach town commissioner before she won the statewide race for auditor in 2018, only received 27% of the votes Tuesday.

Snyder-Hall faces Republican Mike Simpler, a Beebe Medical Center employee and youth sports leader, in the Nov. 5 general election. Simpler did not have a primary opponent.

Democrats hold a strong registration advantage in the growing district, a popular summer tourist destination that has grappled for years with traffic congestion, rising sea levels, lack of medical care and a dearth of workforce housing.

Snyder-Hall, 59, who ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2014 against then-incumbent Republican Ernie Lopez, would be the first woman to represent the Rehoboth Beach area in the General Assembly.

Claire Snyder-Hall celebrates her primary victory Tuesday night. (Courtesy of Claire Snyder-Hall)

The primary winner said she was “elated” by the outcome and looks forward to November.

“We knocked on thousands of doors all over the district,” Snyder-Hall told WHYY News. “We worked really hard and I just really want to thank the voters and my 95 volunteers and almost 350 unique donors. We all pulled together to make this happen.”

During the campaign, Snyder-Hall said she was “a little surprised that Kathy McGuiness decided to run” but was “betting they want an ethical and effective leader who was well-respected in Dover.”

After defeating McGuiness, however, Snyder-Hall didn’t respond to questions about the former auditor, who was convicted of misdemeanor conflict of interest for hiring her daughter to a job that continued remotely after she returned to the College of Charleston in South Carolina.

Instead, the primary winner focused on her connections in Dover from her advocacy work. “I think that’s what the voters saw, that I’m somebody who can deliver results and who has the relationships that will make me successful,” Snyder-Hall said. “The people have spoken.”

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

8 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

20 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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