The Ghostface Mask & A Serial Killer’s Halloween Secret

In a haunting episode of “Shall We Brew?”, the stories of Jennifer Still and the Greaves family—Heather, Lisa, and young Avery—are woven together by the obsession of John Eichinger. Jennifer’s brutal murder leads investigators to Eichinger, whose violent spree mirrors her fate. The episode unveils how rejection can transform into a chilling delusion, illustrating the devastating consequences of obsession and vengeance. “Shall We Brew?” honors the lives lost, compelling listeners to confront the dark realities of these tragic events.

Chapters

0:08 The Mask of Horror

2:00 Welcome to Shall We Brew

4:45 The Life of Jennifer Still

10:30 A Triple Tragedy

15:31 Connections Unveiled

19:28 Confessions of a Killer

25:01 The Trial of John Eichinger

27:54 The Aftermath and Reflection

Please note: Just because certain sources are referenced, does not mean that their information was utilized. We strive to rely on the most credible and trustworthy sources available.

[0:00] You’ve seen the mask before. It’s white with hollow eyes and the mouth is frozen in a screaming position.

[0:09] Every October, it’s supposed to be harmless. A Halloween costume, a movie reference, a way to just scare your friends for a laugh. But in this instance, it wasn’t harmless. Picture this scene. porch lights glowing jack-o’-lanterns flickering on the front steps the sound of candy rustling inside plastic pumpkins and children’s laughter floating through the streets, and somewhere in the middle of it all is a man wearing the ghost face mask you know the one from Scream. He’s handing out candy to children, and he’s wearing clothes stained with blood and a bloodied knife. The problem? It’s not fake blood you buy from Spirit Halloween. He was wearing someone else’s blood as a Halloween costume. This isn’t a horror movie.

[1:22] This is the case of Jennifer Still, Heather Greaves, Lisa Greaves, and Avery Johnson.

[2:00] Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Shall We Brew? First, I’d like to apologize. Today’s episode is a little late. I had recorded this, but I just wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the episode. I felt like I could do better. So I do apologize. It is going to be one day, or it is one day late. Anyways, as always, there is a trigger warning. I’ll be honest. Today’s case includes very gruesome and graphic details associated with these specific murders, and I will be mentioning and talking about the murder of a three-year-old child. So listener discretion is strongly advised. Please take care of yourselves and feel free to skip this one if you need to. Now, with that being said, let’s get started. Because once we start brewing, the truth can’t be unsipped. you.

[3:03] Jennifer Still was born on July 4, 1979, in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. Jennifer didn’t have the easiest start in life. She was born with a cleft lip and a palate and later diagnosed with scoliosis. She faced more than her share of challenges growing up. Jennifer had undergone numerous operations, beginning when she was just three months old and continuing into her adulthood, her most recent being a reconstruction surgery of her face. And even though her treatments were successful, it was still difficult for Jennifer to find her place because she was often bullied for her physical differences. Her mother describes her as a happy, inquisitive child with a beautiful smile. Jennifer loved all kinds of animals, but she especially loved cats. As she grew up, she discovered a love for music and theater, after going to see The Phantom of the Opera several times with her mother.

[4:19] By 1999, Jennifer’s world was starting to feel brighter. She had found a close-knit group of friends through Dungeons & Dragons, and she was living in Bridgeport with her boyfriend, Kevin. After years of struggling to find her place, things were finally starting to look up.

[4:45] Until one afternoon, Kevin opened their front door and stepped into a nightmare he would never forget. On July 6, 1999, just two days after her birthday, her boyfriend Kevin returned home from his job at a local car wash. He found Jennifer lifeless on the bedroom floor and immediately called 911. one. When detectives arrived on the scene, it would be one of the most brutal crime scenes they had ever seen. They describe the level of violence as uncontrollable anger and rage. It indicated a crime of passion. There was no sign of forced injury, and the level of brutality suggested that Jennifer knew her killer. A trace of blood was found in the bathroom sink. Investigators realize this blood is too far from Jennifer’s body. Since stabbing someone is not an easy thing to do, aggressors usually end up cutting themselves too.

[6:06] Police were hoping the stray drop of blood could be the murderers, so they took a sample of that blood. Then investigators started looking at people closest to Jennifer, including her boyfriend, Kevin. However, Kevin is cleared pretty quickly because he was at work at the time of the murder, and he had no scrapes or cuts that likely would have occurred during the attack. His DNA revealed that the blood in the sink wasn’t his, so ultimately, he is officially cleared as a suspect.

[6:48] After Kevin is cleared, investigators interview neighbors, friends, anybody who had previously left messages on Jennifer’s answering machine. And if you don’t know what that is, it’s possible you’re too young to even be listening to this podcast. But secondly, whenever we used to have landlines, you had a telephone and it was like a voicemail for your phone where people could just leave messages and you could call them back.

[7:18] This leads detectives to take a closer look at some of Jennifer’s friends, especially the group that the couple played Dungeons & Dragons with. Several of Jennifer and Kevin’s friends were also into the fantasy role-playing game, and this game is set in a world of wizards and warriors, witches, and one of those friends included a young woman named Heather Greaves, and a young man named John Eichinger. Eichinger was a longtime friend of Jennifer, and in his late 20s, he is known as Acme John thanks to his job at a local market. John explains to detectives that he had been in New Jersey the day of the murder. He proceeds to tell police about two specific Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts named Danny and Destiny. And he tells detectives, Danny and Destiny might have more information for you.

[8:26] Detectives learned that Destiny believed she was a witch and that she was still in love with Jennifer, so much so that she and Jennifer were wed in a Wiccan ceremony.

[8:41] Destiny also believed that she was possessed by demons and was going to perform an exorcism to rid her of the evil spirit. She even told investigators that she had a dream where she violently stabbed Jennifer. The Dungeons and Dragons game was not as widely accepted in society as it is today. In the 1980s, it gained a significant amount of unfavorable coverage in the media, especially from fundamentalist religious groups who feared the power it had over young minds and in turn created a moral panic. The game was thought to be associated with witchcraft, suicide, satanic-like rituals, voodoo, and murder. By 1999, when Jennifer was 20 years old, there was still a fascination with the idea that D&D was turning players into demonic murderers. So when the information came out that Jennifer had played D&D and had a friend who talked about being possessed, well, the media ran with the idea that her murder was in some way linked to the game.

[9:59] Jennifer’s mother decided to speak out on those reports. She said it devastated her. And they don’t see someone who’s dead. They see a witch.

[10:11] Even though Destiny had come off as suspicious, Destiny and Danny agreed to have their DNA collected. However, their DNA was not a match for that blood sample collected at the crime scene.

[10:27] So, investigators are back to square one. With no potential suspects, no DNA matches, and no additional leads, Jennifer’s case went cold. Nearly six years later, another tragedy struck. A triple homicide just 10 minutes from where Jennifer Still was murdered. It was Good Friday, March 25, 2005. Around 4.30 p.m., when local police in King of Prussia answered a 911 call from a shaken man who could barely get the words out. There’s blood all over the place. it looks like a slaughter here.

[11:14] George Greaves returned to his home and discovered a horrifying scene. His daughters, Heather and Lisa Greaves, and his three-year-old granddaughter, Avery, had been brutally murdered. The carnage was so horrific, the detective said he is still haunted by the sight of little Avery. Heather Greaves was just 27 years old in 2005. Heather was described as someone who was full of life and would look for the good in everyone. She stayed home to raise two little girls, and she was a Girl Scout alongside her older daughter, who was just six years old. I will not be naming her oldest daughter for privacy reasons. Her youngest daughter, Avery, was just three years old around this time. She was full of energy, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl who loved to sing, dance, and play with her dog, Zeus. She had just started preschool that fall and knew every dog’s name on her block. To her family, she was pure sunshine, curious, fearless, and full of joy.

[12:30] Her aunt, 21-year-old Lisa Greaves, which is also Heather’s younger sister, Lisa was just as full of light in her own way She was studying to become a surgical technician Already dreaming about continuing on to nursing school Lisa loved cats, her friends, the color pink And just about every kind of music you could think of, The people who knew her said it best If you knew Lisa, you couldn’t help but love her.

[13:04] Heather’s friend had planned to stop by that afternoon Partly to drop something off Partly to talk.

[13:12] Heather had ordered purple flowers for her upcoming birthday and arranged for a friend to deliver them to her home in King of Prussia. She was expecting a visitor. She was just completely unaware that something far darker was on its way. The male had carried a large knife and a pair of rubber gloves in his waistband and wore a jacket over to conceal the items. He goes into the house to speak with heather when an argument ensues he pulls out the knife and stabs her in the stomach repeatedly heather’s three-year-old daughter avery is in the room and witnesses everything heather cries to avery call 9-1-1 the man turns away from heather and slashes Avery in the neck. Avery somehow takes off running down the hallway before she falls. The man follows her and runs into Heather’s sister, Lisa, when she was exiting the bathroom. Lisa tries to run back into the bathroom and shut the door, but he was able to overpower her, and he proceeds to stab Lisa in the stomach over and over and over, giving her a total of 35 stab wounds.

[14:38] The man makes his way back towards the kitchen where Heather was, but not before he stabs Avery once more in the back. He stabbed Avery with such force, the blade came out of her chest, pierced her heart, and pinned her to the floor. He goes back to the kitchen and stabs Heather in the diaphragm and slit her throat. The man goes to the sink to wash his hands and notices he has a cut. He uses one of the rubber gloves to prevent his blood from being left at the crime scene. Just before leaving, he cuts open Lisa’s shirt to make it seem that she had been the target of the rampage and hopes that this confuses the police. The killings heavily resembled Jennifer Still’s murder from 1999.

[15:32] So authorities look into whether the four victims had any connections.

[15:38] Then, one of the investigators remembered that Heather had been interviewed early on in Jennifer’s case. Although there wasn’t much evidence at the scene, there was an eyewitness. And the connection between the two cases became clear when a neighbor reported to police that she had seen 33-year-old John Eichinger leaving the house in a bloody shirt. Heather and John had known each other for years. They first met through a circle of friends who played Dungeons & Dragons together, the same group Jennifer Still had once been a part of.

[16:25] Over time, John developed feelings for Heather, but she didn’t feel the same way. She valued his friendship, but she made it clear she didn’t want anything romantic. Once detectives received the information from the eyewitness, investigators interviewed John’s mother, Marie. She told detectives that on the morning of March 25th at 8.42 a.m., Heather had called their home asking for John. Marie said the next time she saw her son was around noon, and he had blood on his hand. When she asked what happened, John told her he’d cut himself pushing trash down into a garbage can and that he had just had a bad day. While speaking with her, one of the detectives actually uses their bathroom and they notice something unsettling. Bloody gauze, a rubber glove, and several bandage wrappers sitting in the trash.

[17:36] That same day after speaking with John’s mother, law enforcement swarms the Acme Food Market located in Summers Point, New Jersey, and this is where John was working. When John was found by authorities, of course he had a bandage wrapped around his hand, but he claimed he had been bitten and scratched by his dog.

[18:02] They detained him from 8.30 p.m. until 1.30 a.m. John had agreed to talk to authorities. At first, he made a statement concerning his whereabouts the morning of March 25th. He was insisting he was at Ocean City Boardwalk at the time of the murders, but the detectives knew his statement was a lie. Detective Nielsen left the room and stood out in the hallway for a few moments He went back into the room and told John, He had just received information That the police would find DNA in the Greaves driveway That would link John to the murders, John drops his head Starts crying and says I did it, In order to clarify, Detective Nielsen asked Do you mean that you killed Lisa, Avery, and Heather Greaves? John says yes.

[19:10] Detective Nielsen had worked on Jennifer’s case just six years earlier, and the similarity of the murders provoked him to ask John about Jennifer. And this is when John also gives a signed statement confessing to her murder.

[19:28] But we’re first going to go over his confession over the March 25th murders. In his confession, he states he intended to kill Heather Greaves unless she ended her relationship with her most recent boyfriend. He admitted that he purposefully stabbed Heather in the stomach because while he had heard in movies and books that it’s easier to puncture organs rather than trying to stab through the chest where it’s more difficult because of hitting bone, he also admits he had to stop Lisa too because he couldn’t go to jail. He essentially states he had to kill three-year-old Avery by saying, I couldn’t even let the three-year-old identify me. I hadn’t known her since she was born, and she knew my name. She could speak my name. So like I said, during the same conversation, John admitted to police that he had killed Jennifer.

[20:28] But he says she rejected him in order to stay with her fiancé, and that’s why he killed her. He goes on to describe the murder and what i’m about to say Is graphic and these are in his exact words, I had the knife in my hand I turned away from her for a second and couldn’t believe she was doing that to me She got real close to me I thought you’re ripping my heart out and now you’re getting close to me.

[21:00] She put her hand on my shoulder, so I turned around and stabbed her in the stomach. After I stabbed her the first time, she stepped back, but didn’t fall. Her blood splattered out at me. I lunged at her and I just kept stabbing her. I slit her throat as she slid down the wall. I let her body weight cut her throat against the knife.

[21:30] Investigators thought the confession had closed the case for them, but the case just kept revealing darker layers. A subsequent search of his home turned up haunting reminders of what he’d done and the secrets he had kept carefully hidden. John saved his clothes from that day on July 6, 1999, and he collected articles about the murder to serve as reminders.

[22:02] After using the knife to kill Jennifer, he stored it in a sheath inside a cooler. John had confessed to police, quote, I had it in the cooler with rubber gloves and the scream mask. Every Halloween, I put the mask, gloves, and knife on and handed out candy at the door. It turns out the six-inch heavy bladed knife he had used on Jennifer was the same exact one he’d used on Heather, Lisa, and Avery. Following his confession, John was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, along with burglary and possession of an instrument of crime. He waived his right to an extradition hearing, meaning he voluntarily agreed to return to Pennsylvania without fighting the process. Soon after, he was transported back to Montgomery County to face the charges. And during his pretrial hearing, he bizarrely testifies that the only reason he confessed to the murders was because the detective interviewing him had a gun. He claimed, the store’s policy was clear. Don’t resist a man with a gun, and when you see a gun, give the person what they want.

[23:25] Which I’m sure this has to do with being robbed at gunpoint when working in a store. In October 2005, Eichinger waived his right to a jury trial and opted for a bench trial. So the difference between bench trial and jury trial is jury trial is kind of long and drawn out, and the jury decides whether or not they’re guilty. And in a bench trial, it’s just the judge deciding whether or not the suspect is guilty or not.

[23:56] And obviously, the judge finds him guilty. But when it came time for sentencing, Pennsylvania law requires a jury to weigh the punishment. So the courtroom soon filled again, this time with 12 jurors tasked with deciding whether or not John would receive the death penalty. In November 2005, during the penalty phase, John took the stand and he admitted responsibility for all four murders. He and his defense team urged the court to impose life imprisonment rather than death, citing several mitigating factors. His attorneys argued that he suffered from schizoid personality disorder and that he had acted under extreme emotional distress following his father’s recent death from Alzheimer’s disease. However, prosecutors countered that narrative. They pointed out that Eichinger had no documented history of mental illness and that his actions showed clear premeditation.

[25:01] From the weapons he brought to the Greaves’ home, to the calculated decision to kill Lisa and three-year-old Avery to eliminate witnesses.

[25:10] In November of 2005, the jury returned the verdict. He was given three death sentences for the murders of Heather, Lisa, and three-year-old Avery, and a life sentence for killing Jennifer Still.

[25:27] During the hearing, Greaves’ mother told the court she’d hoped she’d live long enough to see justice done. In the years that followed, John filed several appeals, claiming his confession shouldn’t have been used or that his sentence was unfair. But every appeal was denied. In 2008, Pennsylvania’s governor at the time, Ed Rendell, signed his first death warrant. Although the execution never happened. Then, in January 2023, a new notice of execution was signed, setting the date as March 7th. But once again, it did not go forward. A few weeks later, Governor Josh Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania would continue its moratorium on the death penalty, which means no executions, including John Eichinger’s, would take place.

[26:28] In the court, victims’ families shared the depth of their grief and the weight of what had been stolen. Heather and Lisa’s father, George Grieve, said, In my assessment of this horrendous tragedy perpetrated by John Eichinger, there is no justice that can satisfy me short of his termination and no restoration can replace what was lost. Jennifer’s mother echoed that pain, a pain that stretched back six long years before she ever learned who killed her daughter.

[27:06] Jennifer’s mother says, he deserves the death penalty. No amount of time spent in prison could ever make up for the agony and suffering he caused Jennifer. He is a violent man who has no regard for life and no respect for the law.

[27:27] She described Jennifer as a loving, caring, kind, and considerate person. She says, My daughter was a very bright, independent young woman. We will never know what she could have made of her life. She was robbed of that opportunity. Her life was cut cruelly short. When it came time for John to face the families in court, he showed little emotion.

[27:55] He didn’t cry, didn’t apologize, didn’t appear shaken by the impact statements read in front of him. Reporters noted that he mostly stared straight ahead or down at the table, avoiding all eye contact with the victim’s families. Even as the desonances were read aloud, he remained still, quiet, and almost detached. His defense team later claimed that he suffered from depression and social isolation They described him as remorseful and private But that remorse was never something the courtroom ever saw.

[28:37] In the aftermath, detectives and psychologists alike have debated what really drove him. Was it premeditation? A plan years in the making, sparked by Jennifer’s rejection and reignited when Heather turned him down? Or was it something darker, less rational? Maybe something like an obsession that festered over time, blurring fantasy and reality until he couldn’t tell the difference? Some believe the Dungeons and Dragons group that once brought them together became a fixation point, a world where he could control the story when real life refused to play along. Others think he wasn’t living in a fantasy at all, just a fragile one. A version of reality where no doesn’t exist. And affection was something owed, not offered.

[29:41] Heather and Jennifer both said no. That’s all it was. A simple human boundary. But to John, it wasn’t a word. It was a wound. Something his ego just couldn’t stop bleeding over. He was obsessed with the idea of being chosen. And when the women he wanted did not choose him, he decided if he couldn’t have Jennifer or Heather, no one could. Then he proceeded to take more innocent lives because they were witnesses to the crimes.

[30:19] You see it over and over again. The way entitlement dresses itself up as heartbreak. The way fragile men rewrite rejection into revenge. Maybe that’s why this case feels so haunting. Because on the surface, it’s about a man in a horror mask. But underneath, it’s about something even darker. not the mask he put on but the one he had been wearing all along when someone says no it’s not an invitation to change their mind it’s a boundary and some people would rather destroy what they can’t have than face themselves in horror movies the mask hides the monster, In real life, sometimes it reveals one. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode. Stories like this one are heavy, but remembering the people behind the stories and the cases is what matters. If you found this episode meaningful, please consider sharing it with someone else who might too. And if you’d like to hear more cases like this make sure you’re following the show so you don’t miss the next one stay safe stay curious and i’ll see you next week bye.