Convicted child molester dies in Mexico
The state attorney general’s office is preparing to close its case against former Connellsville resident John B. Shallenberger after learning of his death last month in Mexico. Shallenberger, 87, died Jan. 2 in Chapala of a heart attack, according to a death certificate issued by Martha Amlin, U.S. vice-consulate. His remains were cremated and turned over to a family member.
Kevin Harley, state attorney general’s office press secretary, confirmed Monday that the office had received and verified information of Shallenberger’s death and would begin the process of notifying other law enforcement agencies and the court in order to end all ongoing investigations.
Harley said the action would include withdrawing Shallenberger’s name from the National Crime Information Center in connection with an active criminal warrant for his arrest and alerting the state Commonwealth Court.
The charges were filed in 1998 after Shallenberger placed an advertisement in an alumni magazine seeking young people to join him in Mexico, where he was purportedly serving as a Christian missionary.
Because he did not disclose his criminal history as a pedophile anywhere in the solicitation, the state said he violated a 1978 Assurance of Voluntary Compliance (AVC) and reinstated an earlier suspended jail sentence.
In addition to being charged with direct criminal attempt, he was also charged with flight from justice when he failed to return to Pennsylvania to face the charges.
“The long, dark chapter of John Shallenberger is now closed,” said Harley.
A family member, who declined to be identified, did verify Shallenberger’s death, but refused to discuss the matter.
Shallenberger’s legal problems began in California when police twice arrested him in 1958 and again in 1961 on molestation charges.
Nearly 25 years later he was arrested on child molestation charges at the Kennedy Airport in New York, as he was about to take 11 choir boys on a European tour.
He was convicted of indecent assault, indecent exposure and corrupting the morals of a minor in October 1985 for an incident with an 11-year-old boy.
He was sentenced to serve six to 23 months in prison in April 1986 but was paroled after serving four months.
The courts in November 1986 added a stipulation forbidding Shallenberger to advertise for young boys for his choir after the Fayette County District Attorney’s office learned he had been advertising for sopranos in a St. Petersburg, Fla., newspaper.
His parole was lifted in February 1988 after he again advertised in the “Mensa Bulletin,” seeking 8- to 13-year-old boys for a two-week European trip.
Over the next six years Shallenberger was in and out of Pennsylvania courts answering to charges he was soliciting youngsters through various advertisements in a myriad of states.
In 1996 he served a 15-day jail term for a 1994 incident that involved the solicitation of a suburban Chicago choral youth group for a Mexican festival.
At that time, Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Emil E. Narick further restricted Shallenberger from associating with the organization of choir tours and festivals, the recruitment of children for tours and the sale of choir-related material in the U.S.
Shallenberger sold his 125 S. Fourth St., Connellsville, residence along with three factory buildings that housed the Connellsville Corp. in 1997 to Dom and Susan J. Mongell. The Connellsville Corp. manufactured coal mine elevators of which Shallenberger served as board chairman.
The South Fourth residence now serves as the office of District Magisterial Judge Ronald Haggerty.
After completing the sale, Shallenberger returned to Mexico. It was from there, he posted notices in alumni publications for the private Hill School in Pottstown recruiting church groups to visit the Trinidad Christian Retreat Center and assist with orphans.
Shortly after Pennsylvania authorities saw the notice, the state filed a petition requesting that the formerly suspended jail sentence be imposed.
Shallenberger, however, denied any wrongdoing.
“I am not allowed to have choir tours, but I’m not soliciting children in any case,” he said when contacted at his Mexican residence in 1998. “In church terms, youth groups mean college students.”
Shallenberger went on to say that help was needed to build shelters and teach Mexican Indians and street children on behalf of the center.
During interviews with the Herald-Standard he denied ever harming any child.
“I have never molested a child,” said Shallenberger. “I may have slapped a child, but never have or would I do something like that.”
Also in 1998, Canadian law enforcement agencies were probing reports that Shallenberger was slated to be overseeing a children’s choir while they attended an international children’s festival in Monterey, Mexico.
The youngsters were students at the Shallenberger Centre for Performing Arts.
After Ontario Provincial Police were contacted by Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies about Shallenberger’s record, the trip was cancelled.
According to the Guadalajara Colony Reporter that printed what appeared to be a self-written obituary, Shallenberger used the name John Berger while living in Chapala.
In the account, Shallenberger (Berger) was “well-known for his unflagging and generous interest in promoting education for needy children, many of whom addressed him affectionately as ‘abuelito’ or grandpa.”
The article said that Shallenberger (Berger) founded a charitable and educational foundation and taught computer classes in local grade and technical schools along with holding weekly raffles that would offer a reconditioned computer to students and install it in their homes.
A second founded by Shallenberger, “served nutritious breakfasts to all of the children in a neighboring mountain community and purchased groceries and supplies for a local church to feed prisoners and the homeless.”
In addition to noting a vast educational background and military career, Shallenberger (Berger) is listed as serving as the chief executive officer of seven struggling companies, including the elevator manufacturer, a chain of restaurants and co-founder of Memorex Corp.