Reward Offered in 1997 Lower Saucon Homicide Cold Case

State police are hopeful that despite the passage of a significant amount of time, someone out there who knows something will have the courage to help them solve a murder that has haunted the Saucon Valley for nearly 30 years.

PSP Tips–an investigative organization which is part of the Pennsylvania State Police–on Wednesday announced a $5,000 reward for information needed to help investigators solve the 1997 Charlotte Fimiano homicide.

Fimiano, 40, was a successful local realtor who on Sept. 11, 1997, failed to return from a scheduled showing of a home at 2147 Chelsea Lane, Lower Saucon Township, Northampton County, to an unknown client. The secluded property is located in an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Hellertown.

Police discovered Fimiano’s body in the vacant home early the following morning, and determined that she had been shot and strangled.

Despite a large-scale investigation and continued media publicity over the years–including more recently via true crime podcasts and social media threads–Fimiano’s murder remains one of the Lehigh Valley’s most baffling unsolved crimes. Violent crime remains rare in Lower Saucon Township, a community of approximately 11,000 people, in which the most recent homicide occurred in 2019.

Several years ago, on the crime’s 25th anniversary, the author of a Medium post about Fimiano’s murder asked “All these years later, can Charlotte’s family ever get the justice they deserve?”

Investigators and many members of the community who still remember Fimiano are apparently hopeful that the question posed by the blogger might soon be answered in the affirmative.

Anyone with information regarding the murder of Charlotte Fimiano is asked to please contact Pennsylvania State Police at Bethlehem at 610-861-2026 or PSP Tips Toll Free at 1-800-472-8477 or online.