On a summer morning in Aug. 1975, 16-year-old Debbie Gama left her home in Erie and never returned. Days later, her body was discovered in a creek nearly 30 miles away. What unfolded in the aftermath was a case that shook Erie, led to the arrest of her English teacher Raymond Payne, and tested the limits of justice, grief, and forgiveness.
Half a century later, local author and historian Justin Dombrowski revisits the case in his new book The Murder of Debbie Gama: Justice and Absolution in Erie. Drawing from newspaper archives, court files, and investigative records that had never been made public, Dombrowski reconstructs the tragedy that scarred Erie while exploring the resilience of a mother who turned unimaginable loss into advocacy.
For our October issue, I sat down with Dombrowski to talk about Erie’s dark history, the delicate art of writing true crime, and why stories like Debbie’s still matter today…