The Story of Susan Mummey: The Witch of Ringtown Valley
On the night of March 17, 1934, a single gunshot cracked through the stillness of Ringtown Valley, Pennsylvania. It was the kind of cold, brittle night where sound carries for miles, echoing off the mountains and slipping through the dark seams of farmhouses. Inside one of those homes — a small, weathered structure perched on a lonely stretch of land, 60‑year‑old Susan Mummey fell to the floor, a bullet lodged in her heart.
Her death was instantaneous. The legend that followed was anything but.
For decades, locals had called her “The Witch of Ringtown Valley.” It was a name spoken with equal parts fear, fascination, and grudging respect. But behind the folklore was a real woman, widowed, isolated, and deeply misunderstood, whose life and death reveal far more about rural superstition and mental illness than about magic.
To understand why Susan became a figure of such intense speculation, you have to understand the world she lived in.
Ringtown Valley in the early 20th century was a place where Pennsylvania Dutch powwow traditions still thrived. Folk healing, charms, protective prayers, and whispered warnings were woven into daily life. People believed in signs. They believed in curses. They believed in the thin veil between the natural and the supernatural.
Susan fit neatly into that landscape.
her willingness to speak openly about spirits
her reputation for “second sight”
She wasn’t a witch in the Hollywood sense. She didn’t cast spells or summon spirits. But she lived in a community where being different, especially as a woman, was enough to earn the title.
Her husband had died in a gunpowder factory explosion in 1910, leaving her alone with her children and a growing sense of independence. She was outspoken, stubborn, and unafraid to confront neighbors or family members when she felt wronged. Over time, that boldness hardened into a reputation: Susan wasn’t just eccentric, she was dangerous.
The man who killed Susan was William “Bill” Moyer, a neighbor who lived just across the fields. Moyer had been struggling for years with hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He believed he was being tormented by unseen forces. He believed someone was controlling his thoughts. And eventually, he became convinced that the source of his suffering was Susan.
In his unraveling mind, she wasn’t a widow living alone in a drafty farmhouse. She was a witch. A threat. A supernatural enemy.
The more his mental state deteriorated, the more fixated he became.
On March 17, 1934, Moyer walked through the darkness toward Susan’s home. He carried a rifle. He believed, truly believed, that killing her was the only way to free himself from the torment he felt.
He stood outside her window. He raised the gun. He fired.
The bullet pierced the glass and struck Susan in the chest. She collapsed instantly, dead before she hit the floor.
The shot echoed across the valley, but no one knew what had happened until morning.
Moyer confessed quickly. He signed his statement in Tamaqua, explaining that he had been “hexed” and that Susan had been controlling him through supernatural means. His words were not the ramblings of a cold‑blooded killer, they were the desperate explanations of a man lost in his own mind.
The court declared him insane, and he was committed rather than executed.
Susan’s death, meanwhile, became a brief national sensation. Newspapers seized on the witchcraft angle, framing the murder as a relic of colonial superstition surviving into the modern age. But just as quickly as the story flared, it faded. The Great Depression swallowed it whole, and Susan’s name slipped into the margins of local memory.
The truth is that Susan was not a witch. She was not a murderer. She was not a villain.
and carried a reputation she never asked for
Her death was not the result of magic, but of fear, mental illness, and a community that blurred the line between folklore and reality.
The murder of Susan Mummey is a reminder of how easily a person can be transformed into a myth and how dangerous that transformation can be.
the power of superstition
the fragility of mental health
the way communities create villains
and the tragic consequences of misunderstanding
Susan’s life and death sit at the crossroads of folklore and fact, a place where truth becomes tangled with fear and where a woman can be killed not for what she did, but for what people believed she was.
Her story deserves to be remembered, not as a witch, but as a woman whose humanity was overshadowed by legend.
