A woman testified Thursday that she heard Charles E. Ream admit to killing 22-year-old Samantha Lang, bolstering the prosecution’s case against him in the 2007 homicide.
Ream’s admission came in 2010 or 2011 while he was smoking crack at a Derry Township mobile home with a few other men, said Carry Armstrong. She was not involved in the drug use, she said.
Lang’s name came up during conversation among the men and Ream said “I did it and then he went into detail about how he did it,” Armstrong testified during a pretrial motion hearing.
Ream was arrested two years ago in connection with Lang’s March 27, 2007, death at her father’s home.
Lang was killed at the home on Route 982 near the Derry Township village known as Peanut. Her throat had been slit, and she was found about 9 p.m. in a pool of blood between the kitchen and living room. Details of an autopsy report in a criminal complaint filed against Ream indicate she was beaten, and one of her fingers was broken.
The home — which state police described in court papers as a hub for drug activity — was ransacked. Police said a rear door apparently had been forced open, and a gray metal safe was left on a bed while a metal lock box was found on the back porch.
Lang lived there with her brother and their father, both of whom were incarcerated on unrelated charges at the time.
Ream’s attorney in a pretrial motion claimed prosecutors didn’t produce enough evidence during his preliminary hearing in August 2023 to have the case held for court. A different witness testified then that Ream admitted to killing Lang.
Prosecutors put Armstrong, 38, on the witness stand Thursday to provide additional evidence. Armstrong testified that she was dating and later married to a man who associated with Ream. That man, now her ex-husband, provided her name in 2023 to authorities who continued investigating the case over the 16 years after Lang’s death.
“(Ream) said that they fought and he needed to get into the bedroom because that’s where the dope was, but he ended up not getting anything anyway,” Armstrong testified.
Ream is charged with homicide, burglary and robbery. Defense attorney Marc Daffner is seeking the lesser charges be dismissed because they were filed outside the statute of limitations.
Assistant District Attorney Leo Ciaramitaro argued that the other crimes are connected to the homicide, which does not have a statute of limitations.
Judge Timothy Krieger ordered that attorneys submit legal briefs supporting their arguments.
Ream remains at the Westmoreland County Prison without bail.
