A newspaper photograph of Anna Veronica McNellis, who died after leaping from a moving car driven by John Young from a carnival in Tower City in June 1925. Photo from Harrisburg Evening News, June 10, 1925.
Young and two male companions met two women at the carnival and the women asked the men to drive them home. After passing her home and that of her female companion, Rose Bartosic, Anna said that she would jump from the car if Young didn’t stop and let her out. Young didn’t stop and Anna jumped. The young men picked her up off the road and drove to the hospital, where five minutes after arriving there, she was pronounced dead. Young was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
At the trial, Rose and the two male companions of Young testified that there was no misbehavior on the part of Young and no unwanted advances were made by Young to Anna McNellis. All who testified said Young was driving carefulle, the car was not speeding and that Young was sober. The jury returned an acquittal after only 30 minutes of deliberation.
The story is told here as it was reported in the local newspapers.
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From the Lykens Standard, June 12, 1925:
MISS McNELLIS MEETS DEATH
Jumped From Fast Moving Ford Car – Her Widowed Mother Prostrated
In jumping from a moving automobile on the road near the Fairview Cemetery, one mile below Williamstown, about 10 o’clock Monday night, Miss Anna Veronica McNellis, 30 years old, of Williamstown, suffered a fracture at the base of the scull. She died of cerebral hemorrhage five minutes after she was admitted to the Williams Valley Hospital.
According to Dr. H. A. Shaffer, superintendent of the hospital, three young men, who gave their names as Glenn Kopp, John Young and George Shindler of Tower City, took the girl to the hospital in their automobile shortly after 10 o’clock Monday night. The physician said they informed him that they had bringing Miss McNellis and another girl, Miss Rose Bartosic, both of whom live in Williamstown, home from a carnival at Sheridan. They came to Williamstown but then decided to take a longer ride, according to the story they told the physician.
They had gone thru Williamstown and were about a mile below when Miss McNellis asked to get out of the machine. As they wished to continue the ride, the young men said, according to Dr. Shaffer, they refused to stop when she asked them. The young woman then started to get up and Miss Bartosic, who was in the the machine with her, cautioned her not to jump. Disregarqding her friend’s advice, however, Miss McNellis jumped from the car which was going at considerable speed. She fell to the road and her had struck the bed of the roadway with such force that her scull was fractured at the base.
The three Tower City youths immediately stopped the car, they told Dr. Shaffer, and placing the girl in it they hastened to the hospital. Five minutes after they arrived there, Miss McNellis was dead.
Young was driving the car at the time of the accident. The boys gave Dr. Shaffer assurance they would make themselves available for questioning in event of any inquiry. No arrests have been made.
Miss Bartosic and Miss McNellis had been attending a carnival at Sheridan Monday evening. They expected friends to take them home in an automobile but when the friends did not arrive, it is said, they accepted the offer of the Tower City youths to bring them to their homes in Williamstown.
Miss Anna Veronica McNellis was 30 years old, and was born in Williamstown. She was the daughter of the late John McNellis and Mary McNellis, of 157 East Market Street. She is survived by her mother and three sisters, Mrs. George Flynn and Mrs. Lee Kramer, of Philadelphia, and Miss Mae McNellis, at home. Miss McNellis was employed at the Durbin-Mellon Hosiery Mill in Williamstown. Funeral services will be held on Friday morning at 9 o’clock in Sacred Heart Catholic Church with Requiem Mass sung by the Rev. Father Clarke. Burial will be made in the Williamstown Catholic Cemetery.
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From the Pottsville Republican & Herald, June 11, 1925:
TO INVESTIGATE GIRL’S DEATH
Coroner Kreider, of Dauphin County, was instructed by District Attorney Fox to make a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Miss Anna McNellis, 21 years old, of Williamstown., who leaped from a speeding motor car. According to the Coroner, the girl jumped from the car, in which another Williamstown girl and three young men from Tower City were riding, only after she had pleaded in vain to be permitted to get out and return to her home. The girls are said to have accepted an invitation to ride home from a carnival in Tower City with the young men. After the car had sped through Williamstown, Miss McNellis demands were refused, she leaped out, fracturing her scull, and dying a few minutes after being admitted to a hospital. Rose Bacrosie, of Williamstown, said to have been the other girl, was questioned, and according to the Coroner, she said that Joseph Shindler, Glenn Robb and John Young, of Tower City, whose ages range from 15 to 20 years, invited the two girls to get into the car.
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From the West Schuylkill Herald, June 19, 1925:
YOUNG CHARGED WITH INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER
John Young, aged 19, driver of the car from which Anna McNallis leaped to her death Monday night of last week, was committed to the Dauphin County jail at Harrisburg on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Bail was fixed by the court at $1500, and up to this time has not been secured. The coroner’s inquest was conducted at Geist’s Hotel, Williamstown, on Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock by Dr. J. H. Kreider, county coroner, when the evidence presented lead to a verdict by the jury as follows: “Anna McNellis came to her death as a result of a hemorrhage and shock from a fractured scull, caused by jumping from an auto while in motion, about one-half mile west of Williamstown, Pennsylvania. We further find the driver of said auto, John Young, failed to make any effort to bring the car to a stop after having been requested several times by the above-named Anna McNellis and Rose Bartosic, who accompanied her.”
Following the verdict of the coroner’s jury, a preliminary trial was held at the office of Justice of the Peace at Lykens on Thursday afternoon at 2 o’clock. The companions of Young were witnesses at the inquest and will appear at the trial only as witnesses, no charges having been preferred against them.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, June 25, 1925:
HELD FOR COURT
John Young, of Tower City, was given a hearing at Squire Samson’s office, Lykens, last Friday on the charge of involuntary manslaughter, and was held under $1,000 bail to appear at the next term of court.
Miss Anna McNellis of Williamstown lost her life by jumping from Young’s car on June 8th.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, October 1, 1925:
JURY ACQUITS TOWER CITY YOUTH OF MANSLAUGHTER
A jury in the Dauphin County Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon acquitted John Young of involuntary manslaughter brought against him in June after Miss Anna McNellis, 30, of Williamstown, leaped from his automobile and was killed. Young was ordered by the jury to pay the court costs.
The trial lasted by two hours and the jury rendered the verdict after less than a half hour’s deliberations.
Miss McNellis jumped from the automobile driven by Young while she was returning from a carnival at Tower City to Williamstown with Young, Miss Rose Bartosic, 23, John Shindler, 16, and Glenn Kopp, 17, all in Young’s automobile.
Miss Bartosic was called as a Commonwealth witness and denied that any insulting remarks or advances had been made to her and her companion, Miss McNellis during the ride or that Miss McNellis made any complaint before leaping from the front seat of the machine where she had been riding beside Young.
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From the West Schuylkill Herald, October 2, 1925:
TOWER CITY YOUTH FREED OF CHARGES
John Young, of Tower City, was acquitted in the Dauphin County Court Tuesday afternoon of a charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Miss Anna McNellis, 30, of Williamstown, Dauphin County, who was killed when she jumped from Young’s automobile at Williamstown, on the night of June 8 [1925].
Miss Rose Bartosio, of Williamstown, who was in the automobile at the time of her companion’s death, testified that no improper advances had been made by Young.
Miss McNellis leaped from the automobile when Young refused to stop at her home while driving with two girls.
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From the Lykens Standard, October 2, 1925:
TOWER CITY YOUTH ACQUITTED OF INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE IN McNELLIS DEATH
Trial of John Young, of Tower City, accused of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Anna McNellis, Williamstown girl who leaped from his automobile on the night of June 8 [1925], began in Court No. 2 Tuesday morning.
Young was indicted last week by the grand jury on the involuntary manslaughter charge.
He and two other youths were returning from Tower City to Williamstown with Miss McNellis and another girl when the tragedy occurred. The McNellis girl was killed when she jumped from the machine near Williamstown.
Michael E. Stroup acted as counsel for Young. The case went to the jury at 12:20 o’clock after the defense had decided it was unnecessary to place Young on the stand. Stroup maintained that the Commonwealth had failed to make out a case against the defendant. As a result the defense did not place a witness on the stand.
Judge Wickersham, in his charge to the jury pointed out that in involuntary manslaughter it must be found that death was the result of some unlawful or negligent act on the part of the defendant.
Rose Bartosic, 23, of Williamstown, the other girl in the automobile, declared on the witness stand that no improper advances had been made by any of the boys to her or to Miss McNellis during the ride from Tower City to Williamstown.
She said that she and Miss McNellis, who was 30 years old, had been attending a carnival in Tower City, having walked there early in the evening from Williamstown. There, she testified, they met Young, who is 16; John Shindler, also 16; and Glenn Kopp, 17, all of Tower City.
After walking about the carnival grounds, Miss McNellis asked the boys whether they would take her home to Williamstown.
“The boys agreed,” Miss Bartosic testified, “and we started for home. When we arrived in Williamstown, at my home, I asked them to let me off. They just smiled and drove on. After we passed Anna’s home, she asked them to stop and let her off, but they didn’t say anything and drove on.”
The witnesses then said that as they approached the cemetery, west of Williamstown, Miss McNellis declared that if they did not stop the machine she would jump. She then suited her action to her word, leaping off the running board so quickly, Miss Bartosic said, that nobody in the machine saw her until she had struck the ground.
“We picked her up and took her to Dr. Shaffer’s where she died five minutes later,” the witness continued. “I made no complaint and I didn’t hear Anna make any complaint,” she said in reply to one of Stroup’s questions.
She also said there had been no misbehavior, that Young had been driving carefully, that he had been sober and that the automobile “wasn’t going very fast.”
The only discussion in the machine during the trip, Miss Bartosic said, was about the bad roads which caused them to make a detour.
William Miller, a State policeman, was the first witness for the Commonwealth called by E. LeRoy Keen, assistant district attorney. He testified that the distance from Miss McNellis’ home to the cemetery at which the girl jumped is one and a quarter miles.
Joseph Shindler, one of the youths in the machine, followed Miss Bartosic to the stand. He testified to meeting the young woman at the carnival grounds and asking them as to how they expected to get home. The two young women said they had no money for bus fare, Schindler said. Later they asked the young men whether they had an automobile and whether they would drive them home, the witness testified. The youths agreed and the trip home was started.
No witnesses were called by the defense. Michael E. Stroup, counsel for Young, cross-examined the Commonwealth witnesses exhaustively and at the close of the Commonwealth’s case contended that the State had failed to make out its case and asked the Court to direct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal. Judge Wickersham refused the request and the case was sent to the jury after counsel had submitted their arguments and the Court made its charge.
The trial was in progress less than two hours.
After less than thirty minutes’ deliberation, the jury returned a verdict acquitting Young of the charge of involuntary manslaughter.
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