On 22 March 1979, Helen E. Horn, a widow, returned home from an evening meeting of the Gratz Historical Society, where she was the treasurer and had just collected money for an upcoming bus trip for the group. Within minutes of entering her house in Gratz, she was on her dining room floor – naked and dead in a pool of blood. The next morning, her cleaning lady discovered the body. The coroner, the autopsy, and the investigation supported that she was murdered.
Although a Gratz man, Gary W. Rank, age 18, was charged with her murder, at trial he was acquitted. The prosecution never established a motive and the only “real” evidence presented were dubious fingerprints. Later, Rank’s innocence was further supported by a law suit he filed in Federal court claiming that his civil rights had been violated and that the evidence presented against him had been falsified by the state police The jury ruled in his favor and three of the murder investigators from the state police were forced to pay both compensatory and punitive damages.
A few years following his exoneration, Gary W. Rank was killed in a vehicular accident.
There is no known record that the state police ever investigated any further leads in this case. If the murder was not committed by the original suspect who was tried and acquitted, then it is possible that the real murderer is still alive and at large!.
What follows here is a “Table of Contents” for 19 posts chronicling the story of the murder and the trial as reported in a Pottsville newspaper.
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Obituary of Helen E. Horn
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Widow’s Death Suspicious
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Gratz Shaken By Woman’s Brutal Murder
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Intense Murder Investigation Continues
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Suspect Arrested in Gratz Murder
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Gratz Murder Suspect Described as a Dropout and Fair Worker
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Gratz Murder Suspect Bound Over For Trial
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Murder Trial to Start
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Rank Trial Jury Selection Starts
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Gratz Man on Trial for Woman’s Murder
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Focus Put on Fingerprints
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Print Identification Challenged
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Rank Admits Touching Cellar Window
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Rank Acquitted
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Claiming He Was Framed, Gratz Man Sues Police
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Gratz Man Awarded $55,000 in Damages
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Crime Record Ordered Cleared
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2 Die in Head-On Accident
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Obituary of Gary W. Rank
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Photo of Helen E. Horn from Gratz Sesquicentennial Book, 1955, taken when she served as the treasurer of the Gratz Bicentennial Committee, at about age 44. She was 68 when she was murdered.
News clippings are from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.