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ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Their daughters' killer is behind bars, but to the parents of the two Bethlehem girls murdered at the Lehigh University Lookout 20 years ago, the crime remains a riddle. On June 29, 1995, Jennifer Grider, 17, and her best friend, Mary Orlando, 15, were shot to death at the Lookout, a scenic and secluded spot overlooking the city that's been a popular teen hangout for decades. Christopher Bissey, then 18, was charged with the slayings six months later. On Nov. 14, 1996, a jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms with no chance of parole. Bissey, who lived in Salisbury Township and is serving his sentence at the state prison in Graterford, Montgomery County, didn't take the witness stand and never told police why he killed the teens. Jennifer Grider's mother, Joan, visited Bissey in prison seven years after he was sentenced to try to get an answer, but he refused to talk about his motive. "It bothers me still, every day," Grider said in an interview this month. "Everybody and his brother has a theory, but we still don't know why." Mary Orlando, who shares her daughter's name, said she also wants to know why. "Mary had a beautiful smile and everyone liked her. I still don't understand why anyone would want to hurt her," she said recently. "Whatever the reason is, I'll never be satisfied." Jennifer was a senior at Bethlehem Catholic High School. Mary had just finished 10th grade at Freedom High School. The girls lived around the corner from each other on Bethlehem's South Side and had been friends most of their lives. Their bodies were found shortly after 10 p.m., when four teenage girls drove past the scene and flagged down a wildlife conservation officer who was in the area looking for deer poachers. Mary was in the red Camaro that Jennifer had borrowed from Joan Grider that evening. Jennifer lay face down in the grass nearby. Both had been shot several times from behind. Police initially thought they were looking at a murder-suicide, but within hours realized it was a double homicide. Detectives determined that both girls were outside the car when they were shot. Jennifer collapsed in the grass after she was hit, investigators said, and Mary crawled back into the car, where she bled to death. The wall over the scenic lookout was splattered with blood. Near the girls' bodies, police found wrappers from the hamburgers and hot dogs they had been eating. The girls' deaths sent a chill through the Lehigh Valley, which was still reeling from two shocking murders involving teens that year. The neo-Nazi Freeman brothers, with their cousin Nelson Birdwell III, slaughtered their parents and little brother Feb. 26, 1995, in Salisbury Township. And 17-year-old Jeffrey Howorth used his father's hunting rifle to gun down his parents, George and Susan Howorth, at their Lower Macungie Township home four days after the Freeman slayings. Parents on Bethlehem's South Side kept their doors locked as weeks, then months, passed without an arrest. "It created quite the feeling of fear in that area because no one really knew what was going on," said Bethlehem police Chief Mark DiLuzio, at that time an officer with the department's special operations unit. "There were so many rumors and theories floating around. Some were unbelievable." The rumor that hurt most, Joan Grider said, was that the girls were murdered over $400 that Jennifer was said to owe Bissey for drugs. Police heard that from one of Bissey's friends, but detectives found no evidence to support his statement and the boy never testified. His statement, however, was included in the court documents filed in Bissey's arrest and widely publicized. Joan Grider can't shake the memory of the newspaper headlines that made her daughter seem like a drug addict. "Those girls were never in trouble. My daughter did not use drugs. Mary did not use drugs," she said. "But the news reporters heard that and wouldn't let it go." Autopsy reports showed no drugs in the girls' systems when they were killed, and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, who prosecuted the case himself, didn't mention a drug debt at Bissey's trial. He didn't have to present a motive. He had an eyewitness testify that he saw Bissey shoot the girls. Morganelli said the case was one of the worst because of the fear it spread in the community. In an interview at the Lookout this month, Morganelli said he doubts anyone has information that would change the outcome of the case. "Christopher Bissey is a sociopath," he said. "I don't think he even knows why he did it." 'I miss her terribly' Joan and Carl Grider now live in a quiet neighborhood in Bethlehem Township. Carl still has a difficult time discussing his daughter's murder, his wife said, but visits her grave every Sunday, no matter the weather, and leaves roses. Joan Grider's health has declined in recent years. She suffers from stomach problems that leave her nauseated most days. With three grown children and five granddaughters, her life is full, but she feels a void. She fills it by talking about Jennifer. Family gatherings often turn to conversation about the Griders' youngest child, she said. "We always wonder what might have been," she added. Joan Grider worked the overnight shift at a youth group home in 1995. On the night of the slayings, she was running late and hadn't made dinner, so she gave Jennifer $10 for fast food and said she could use the car if she dropped her off at work and picked her up in the morning. "It was a brand new Camaro. She was in her glory," Grider said. At the time, the family lived on Laufer Street in Bethlehem. As the mother and daughter walked to Joan Grider's car, Jennifer looked down the street and saw Mary and her mother. They were going shopping. Jennifer called to her friend to take a ride in the Camaro. "Mary at first said that she didn't want to leave her mother alone, but Jennifer talked her into it. I'll always feel bad about that," Joan Grider said. The girls brought Joan Grider to work. Jennifer left, then ran back a few minutes later and gave her mother a hug and a kiss. "I love you, Mommy," she said. "She didn't say it like she was sad, or worried about anything. She was being silly," said Joan Grider, who has come to see the words as "a sign from God." "My daughter was fine that night," she said. "She didn't have a care in the world. She wasn't worried, or rushed to go meet someone." Mary Orlando's life has been "very empty" without her daughter. "For the longest time, it was just the two of us, and we did everything together. I miss her terribly," she said. Orlando's husband, John, died about eight years before the murder, when Mary was in first grade. Her only other child, a son who had been sick since birth, died at age 15, three years before Mary was born. Mary Orlando was a cheerleader at Freedom and a dancer who taught classes at Miss Linda's School of Dance and Baton in Bethlehem Township. Her mother still has the collection of more than 100 trophies Mary earned in dance competitions. "She was just a happy girl with a beautiful smile. From the time she was little, she would walk through the neighborhood and say hello to everyone she saw. All the neighbors loved her," she said. "I have wonderful memories," she added. Orlando also has health problems. She still lives in the same house in Bethlehem but spends most of her time with a niece, who helps her with daily activities. In the years after Bissey's arrest, the two mothers fought to avenge their daughters' deaths. They were in the front row at Bissey's trial and attended every hearing. They petitioned the court to hold Bissey's friends responsible for not coming forward earlier with information about the slayings. But no one else was ever charged. The Griders sued Bissey over Jennifer's death and, in 1999, a Northampton County judge ordered Bissey to pay the family $3.9 million. When filing the lawsuit, the Griders said they had hoped the civil case would reveal new evidence, including Bissey's motive. But nothing surfaced. In 2002, Joan Grider and Mary Orlando took their fight to Harrisburg after learning that Bissey was featured in a VH1 TV documentary about prison bands. He was a back-up singer in Dark Mischief, a heavy-metal band of inmates showcased on the program "Music Behind Bars." In response to the mothers' complaints, the state Office of the Victim Advocate began notifying crime victims when their loved ones' cases were going to be on television. Joan Grider visited Bissey in prison in 2003 as part of Victim Offender Dialogue, a state program that gives victims an opportunity to meet with inmates. During a six-hour chat, Bissey called her a "nice lady," she said, but refused to give her a reason for the murders. "He was more interested in talking about himself," she said. Bissey told her he couldn't say more because he was appealing his conviction. Court records show he had exhausted his appeals in 2002. Bissey suggested to Joan Grider that his friend Kenneth Dorney, who was 18 at the time of the murders and said to be to be dating Mary Orlando, knew more about the killings than he had let on, she said. Dorney, court records show, was the one who led police to Bissey and alleged that Bissey had killed the girls over a drug debt. Dorney, Joan Grider said, wouldn't talk to her or her family. Dorney did not return recent calls from The Morning Call. Bissey did not respond to the newspaper's request for an interview. DiLuzio recalled the cold look on Bissey's face when he arrested him. That lack of emotion told DiLuzio that Bissey was unlikely to give the families the answers they sought. "The only one who could really say why is Bissey himself, and I don't think that's ever going to happen," DiLuzio said. "Hopefully, he'll stay in Graterford until it's his time to face the devil," he added. "But I think hell will freeze over before he gives anyone a reason why." Reporter Pamela Lehman contributed to this story. ABOUT THE CASE . The crimes: Two girls are found dead of gunshot wounds around 10 p.m. June 29, 1995, at the Lookout at Lehigh University in Bethlehem. . The victims: Jennifer Grider, 17, and Mary Orlando, 15, both of Bethlehem's South Side. . The suspect: Christopher Bissey, 18, of Salisbury Township, is arrested six months later. . The trial: In 1996, a Northampton County jury finds Bissey guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. He is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. . The question: Bissey has never given a motive for the slayings. ___ Online: http://bit.ly/290jLoJ

20 years and still no motive for Bethlehem Lookout murders