Sentenced to life in prison for murder of a Levittown teen, he's now paroled. Here's why

The frustration for Barb Thomas is there’s nothing left to do for her friend, Diane Goeke, now that one of Diane’s killers will be freed from prison.

“How long has it been,” she said. “I always have to the math in my head: ’78 to ’88 to ’98 to ’08 to ’18 to ’23.”

45 years.

“People will say, oh, it’s so long ago, let it go. I can’t let it go. It never goes away,” she said.

Four and half decades ago, John Lekka and Bobby Buli lured Diane, 17, into woods near their Cobalt Ridge neighborhood in Levittown, then murdered her. It’s a crime that still shocks, But Lekka was granted parole in August.

He may be out by Thanksgiving.

“Their sentence was life without parole. They both plead guilty. They both agreed to it. But there is no justice if they both get out,” she said.

The U.S. Supreme Court cut them a break.

In 2005 the court, swayed by arguments about “adolescent brain science,” ruled that killers who commit murder prior to turning 18 can’t be given a death sentence or life without parole. It’s cruel and unusual punishment, the court decided. The order was made retroactive.

Lekka and Buli were resentenced in 2017, making them eligible for parole.

Buli was 16 and Lekka was 17 at the time of the Nov. 13, 1978 killing. At the time, both faced the death penalty, since they conspired and planned Diane’s death.

Diane Goeke and Bobby Buli were neighbors, and became boyfriend and girlfriend. He fathered a child with her at 16 and the baby was given up for adoption. He later broke it off with her.

But Diane, a teen in love, told him she was pregnant again. Buli decided he would kill her rather than tell his parents about the second pregnancy. He recruited his neighborhood pal, Lekka, to help.

Buli got Diane to meet him to discuss getting back together. In the woods, Buli put Diane in a headlock and Lekka smashed her skull with a 2x4. They took turns beating her with a metal pipe. They put her in a shallow grave and left.

Then, a macabre twist.

Lekka catches a break Man who killed girl as a teen in Middletown resentenced to 45 to life

Later that night, in Tullytown, they bragged to an acquaintance about “wasting a girl” in the woods. The acquaintance asked to see. They took him to the woods. Diane was still alive, barely. There was gurgling and other noises coming from the grave, according to testimony.

They pulled her out, got a concrete boulder and dropped it on her head and chest.

“When they went back, John could have done the right thing and stopped it, but they jumped on that boulder until it was in the ground,” Thomas said, repeating chilling details she’s kept in memory for nearly a half-century.

Another twist, this time with the autopsy. Diane wasn’t pregnant.

A plea from Goeke's sister MULLANE: A dying request for Diane Goeke’s killers

Diane’s twin sister, Suzann, in a 2017 interview with the Courier Times, said her parents, Bill and Mary, now deceased, never fully recovered from the shock. The murder was so violent they could only identify their daughter from her coat and Neshaminy High School class ring.

“That’s not Diane,” she recalled her father repeating over and over as they drove home from the morgue at St. Mary Medical Center, a few miles from their home.

Suzann was desperate to keep her sister’s killers in prison for life. She was dying of end-stage COPD. Aside from an older sister who has mental disabilities, she was the last immediate family member left.

“I want both of them to draw their last breath in prison,” she said.

She died in July 2022.

Which leaves Barb Thomas to fight.

“I’m not sure what I can do,” she said.

Trusting a killer Mullane: She has no problem living with a convicted killer from Bucks County

She testified before the parole board on why Lekka should stay put. She received the board’s letter stating that Lekka has been granted parole.

“I dreaded opening it,” she said.

But when she did, it detailed the parole board’s reasons.

“Basically, it says he’s been a good boy so they’re letting him out,” she said. “I hope he didn’t make any friends in prison who say, ‘John, I need to kill someone, will you help me?’

She called Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office for help.

“He has no interest. If Diane had been his sister, or if she had been the friend of a relative of someone famous or powerful, do you think John or Bob would be let out? No way,” she said.

Buli is eligible for parole in 2026.

“That’s my next worry, that he’s out, too,” she said.

One more twist. The parole board’s letter states Lekka is eligible to walk as soon a Nov. 17, 2023.

“That’s 45 years to the week that he and Bob killed Diane,” Thomas said.

JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: 'Juvenile killer' in '78 Levittown murder of Diane Goeke paroled