During the December 1880 trial of Jonathan Moyer, Sallie (Sarah) Bingaman testified that Moyer had repeatedly told her three years earlier that he was connected with the murders. He had done so in the context of trying to convince her to go out west with him. Bingaman admitted that she had asked Jonathan to get the crime off his chest by admitting his role to her, thus there was some question as to whether he had confessed to salve his conscience or to get her to run away with him.Of course, Mary Hartley’s and Sallie Bingaman’s stories were not the only narrative of the events of December 1877.
Uriah Moyer made a confession shortly before he was put to death on the Middleburg gallows. Uriah claimed that the idea for the murders was Israel Erb’s and that robbing the couple of their money was the motive. In addition, Uriah said that Israel had called John Kintzler a “mean old devil” and a “rail thief.”
Jonathan Moyer confessed right before his execution that Emanuel Ettinger had come to him three weeks before the killings to ask him if he’d come along to get the Kintzlers’ money. Ettinger, Moyer said, promised that he’d kill the old couple but split the money with Moyer. Jonathan said he told Ettinger that he wouldn’t do it. But a day before the murders, his brother Uriah had come to ask the same thing–would Jonathan accompany him and Emanuel to get the money. He declined, then heard two days later that the deed was done. Jonathan claimed that he went with the men that night to search for money and burn the cabin down around the Kintzlers.
J.G. Moyer, cousin of Jonathan Moyer, testified in December 1880 that Jonathan had told him that no one in the vicinity would miss the Kintzlers if they died. J.G. also said that Jonathan remarked that his problems would be over if he had the kind of money that he suspected the Kintzlers of hoarding in their cabin.