In 1981, a suspect was arrested, charged and tried in an unsolved murder case from 1977. The result of the trial was that the individual was acquitted.
At the end of March 1977, Mrs. Jennie E. Barr, an elderly widow, was found dead in her den in her home in Tremont, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The cause of death was strangulation and she was also sexually assaulted. Investigators ruled the death a homicide.
This murder was the first of four that occurred in the Lykens Valley area in a less than three-year period between 1977 and 1979 – all of elderly widows.. To this day, none of the four murders have been solved.
The story of the arrest, charging and trial is told here in a 12 part series through articles published in the Pottsville Republican.
From the Pottsville Republican, 27 May 1981:
Jury selection starts
Jury selection began Tuesday for the trial of William J. Harner, 24, Tremont, who is charged with criminal homicide in connection with the murder of a neighbor, Jennie E. Barr, 78, in March 1977.
One juror was chosen Tuesday, and the selection process continued today, Schuylkill County Administrator David Workman said. The jury is being picked from the panel of jurors on hand for the May term of civil court.
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For all other parts of this story, see: A Trial & An Acquittal, 1981.
For all parts of the story of the murder, see: Who Killed Jennie E. Barr?
News clipping/article from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.