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, 3 June 1981:
Question raised on Harner jury hearing statement – Judge allows testimony
By MATT PURCELL, Staff Writer
The presiding judge in the murder trial of Tremont resident William J. Harner, 24, ruled this morning that the jury in the case may hear testimony that the defendant passed a lie detector test on the slaying.
A question arose Tuesday afternoon concerning whether or not the jury was to be permitted to hear the part of a statement given by the key witness for the commonwealth which deals with test.
In order to hear legal arguments on the matter, Judge Joseph F. McCloskey excused the jury at about 3 p.m. for the rest of the day. He then heard a defense attorney ask for the admission into the trial of testimony on the lie detector test, and an assistant district attorney argue that knowledge of the test should be withheld from jury.
This morning, the judge said that “after long and careful deliberation,” and “a rather agonizing evening” he decided the entire statement may be heard by the jury, including the section on the test.
McCloskey said he made the ruling so that the jury could fully know the “atmosphere, circumstances” and “state of mind” of the defendant at the time the alleged confession took place. He said this “outweighs the possible prejudice” that might arise from the jury learning of the test.
H e added that he feels the instructions he plans to give the jury concerning the questioned reliability of lie detectors tests will “eliminate” any prejudice knowledge of the test might cause in the jury.
The statement was written for state police by Dr. J. Philip Robinson, Tremont. It gives the doctor’s account of Harner’s alleged confession to him that he had committed the murder of Jennie E. Barr, an elderly Tremont widow, at her home in March 1977. The confession allegedly took place in February this year.
Dr. Robinson, who prior to today had not been called on to testify in the trial, gave testimony at a preliminary hearing later in February that led to Harner’s being held for trial on a charge of criminal homicide in connection with Mrs. Barr’s death.
Assistant District Attorney Maryann Conway sought to have withheld from the jury the part of the statement that deals with Harner allegedly telling Dr. Robinson that he had passed a lie detector test given by state police after the murder. This information is “compound hearsay,” she said.
The section of the statement, read to the court by defense attorney C. Palmer Dolbin, stated that Dr. Robinson felt Harner appeared proud that he had passed the test.
Dolbin told the court that he feels it “cannot be involved in a game of “cut and paste” concerning the statement, and asked that either all of Dr. Robinson’s statement be admitted or none. If the judge had agreed that all of the statement should be excluded, it could have resulted in the loss of Dr. Robinson as a witness for the commonwealth.
Attorneys on both sided cited what they felt were legal precedents for their stands, but McCloskey said after they had concluded their argument Tuesday that the question “appears to be precedent setting.”
This morning, after announcing his decision, the judge read for attorneys in the case the instructions he will give if needed, to the jury concerning the test.
McCloskey said he will tell the jury that under state law testimony on the lie detector test “may and must not be considered by you” in determining guilt or innocence.
Prior to the legal debate Tuesday, the jury heard testimony from witnesses including the pathologist who performed an autopsy on the victim. Also testifying were state troopers who took statements from the defendant in the days after Mrs. Barr’s body was discovered.
Dr. Richard P. Bindle of Pottsville Hospital placed the time of Mrs. Barr’s death at between 10 p.m. March 30 and 6 a.m. March 31, 1977. Neighbors have testified they found her nude body lying on the floor of the den at between 10 and 10:30 p.m. March 31.
The cause of death was manual strangulation, Dr. Bindle said, and the victim’s body had many bruises and contusions, as well as three broken ribs and a broken bone in her neck. The doctor said the autopsy revealed no semen in the body, but the genitalia appeared to have suffered “blunt traumatic injury.”
State Trooper James A. McCann, the prosecutor in the case, read for the jury a statement he and another trooper took from Harner on April 4, 1977, concerning his whereabouts on the night of Mrs. Barr’s death.
McCann said the defendant stated that on March 30 he left home at about 6:30 p.m., heading to the residence of a Tremont friend. At roughly 7 p.m., the two went “driving around,” picking up a six-pack of beer in a Newtown bar before stopping at the “movie corner” in the borough at 8 p.m. Several individuals, whom he named for police were gathered there, according to Harner’s statement.
Later that night he went to his friend’s house and watched a TV program. He said he then went to Stravinsky’s Tavern, Tremont, leaving there to go to another man’s home, where he said he almost got into a fight over money owed to him by the man, according to McCann.
After this, Harner went back to Stravinski’s and bought a bottle of beer, leaving about 12:25 a.m. Harner said he sat on a corner and talked to antoher man outside the bar for a time, McCann testified. He then walked home, the statement said.
Anna Mae Burke, Tremont, whose family owns Stravinsky’s, said she saw Harner come into the bar at about 10:30 p.m. that night. He stayed for approximately 30-40 minutes, left, and then returned about midnight, talking to several people before leaving around half an hour later, she testified.
McCann said that in his statement Harner noted that while at the “movie corner” a man he had met for the first time that evening mentioned that he “liked older ladies” and said “something about five older ladies in Lancaster.” As he was walking home that night, Harner told police, he passed this same individual on Crescent Street, and noticed there was blood on his right hand.
Harner told McCann that that he went directly home, where he said on one was awake, and fell asleep on the couch in the TV room, arising the next morning at about 9:15 a.m.
Still reading from the statement, McCann said Harner stated he was out with friends the following night, March 31, spending part of the evening in Pine Grove. While driving around the borough later that night, he passed Crescent Street, and noticed police cars at the Barr home. Upon going to his own home, he was told by his father that Mrs. Barr had been found dead, according to the statement.
McCann said the defendant stated that he then told his family about the man with blood on his hand that he had seen the previous night, and his mother told him to go to Mrs. Barr’s home and relate this information to police, which the defendant said he did, McCann testified.
Harner said in his statement that he talked to police before seeing Mrs. Barr’s body, and that after he did see the victim, he cried.
McCann said Harner told him that Mrs. Barr “was like a grandmother” to him, that he did chores around her home and took care of her yard.
Troopers testified that Harner was interviewed several more times about information he gave them concerning the man he allegedly saw with blood on his hand, and that Harner was asked and agreed to give them samples of his hair and clothing for crime lab analysis.
Photo Caption:
William J. Harner, left, is escorted from the courthouse to the county prison by Schuylkill County deputy sheriffs after the second day of his trial Tuesday. The deputies are, from left, Terry J. Leitzell and Ronald Griffiths.
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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.