Arthur Bomar, who confessed to his ex-girlfriend about luring lacrosse star Aimee Willard with a fake police badge in 1996, was arrested on June 6, 1997, with charges of her murder.
Aimee Willard was a rising star lacrosse player at George Mason University, studying physical education and dreaming of coaching high school sports.
She came from a close-knit family, born as the youngest of three children to her parents: Gail Willard, a nurse, and retired Chester Police Capt. Paul Willard.
However, in the early hours of June 20, 1996, 22-year-old Aimee Willard didn’t return home.
She was driving home from a night out with friends when Arthur Bomar, a man who used a fake police badge to pull her over on a dark highway ramp, ended her life.
Aimee, from Brookhaven, had just finished her junior year studying physical education. She dreamed of coaching high school sports one day, but it remained unfulfilled.
That night, Aimee left a bar in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. She got onto Interstate 476 heading south, toward the Springfield exit and the Media Bypass. That’s when Bomar saw her.
Driving his 1993 Ford Escort, Bomar flashed what looked like a police badge to stop her car.
Aimee saw it and thought it was official, so she stopped her car. However, Bomar forced her into his vehicle and drove off.
Later that morning, he left her body in a trash-filled empty lot at 16th Street and Indiana Avenue in North Philadelphia.
What he did to her was awful; Willard had been beaten, raped, and strangled. Tire tracks from the spot lined up with Bomar’s car, and DNA tests later tied him straight to the murder.
Sadly, for nearly a year, the case went cold, and the police had no solid leads.
Then, on June 5, 1997, Bomar was arrested in Pennsylvania on an outstanding warrant. He had a history of violence, including a second-degree murder conviction from Las Vegas.
As state troopers asked him about Aimee, Bomar let a few things slip that set off warning bells. Later, he owned up to being at the same bar as her that night.
Likewise, Bomar also said he had driven the Esport up until a few months earlier, and that he used I-476 all the time.
Above all, the big break came from people who knew him.
His ex-girlfriend revealed that the investigators had told him he spilled the exclusive story to her. She even said about the idea of how he grabbed him by flashing the fake badge to stop Aimee.
To make matters worse, Bomar’s ex-brother-in-law, already in federal prison for other crimes, agreed to help.
The authorities then transferred him to the same cellblock as Bomar, located in Montgomery County.
While they were there, Bomar muttered more details that dug his hole deeper. Eventually, piece by piece, all the proof just kept stacking up.
It was in October 1998 that a Delaware County jury found Bomar guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, rape, and abuse of a corpse. The judge sentenced him to death by lethal injection.
Today, at 57, Bomar sits on death row at State Correctional Institution Greene.
Over the years, Bomar has filed numerous appeals, claiming everything from bad lawyering to faulty evidence.
In August 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal, upholding the conviction.
District Attorney Jack Whelan called Bomar “pure evil” and vowed to push for execution, even as federal appeals loom.
When Willard’s mother, Gail Willard, heard the news, it brought her relief knowing that her daughter got justice.
On the day she learned of the ruling, she was preparing to serve Thanksgiving meals in North Philadelphia, near where her daughter’s body was found. “I don’t even give him a thought,” she said simply.
