The disappearance of Charles E. Haas on 30 April 1932, a deliveryman for a Shamokin bakery, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, generated much interest in the Lykens Valley, because of the proximity of the possible crime as well as the number of relatives Haas had in the area. From the initial report which appeared in the Elizabethville Echo within a week of when he went missing, to the finding of Haas’ murdered body more than a year later, and finally to the official closing of the case in 1934, the story of the crime is told in selected news articles.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, 5 May 1932:
Believe Missing Shamokin Man May Have Been Murdered
Police who have been investigating the case of Claude E. Haas, 53, employee of the Shamokin Baking Company, missing since Saturday night, have injected a theory of murder in their search.
At the time of Haas’s disappearance it is believed he carried nearly fifty dollars with him. When he failed to return Saturday evening, his family notified police. A checkup revealed he had been last seen in a store on Gowen City, It was also known that he was to deliver some bread to three men who were living in a shanty near the North Franklin Colliery Reservoir at Trevorton. The bakery truck which he operated was found abandoned in Shamokin late Saturday night.
Foul play was immediately considered and the following morning, Samuel Haas, a son, investigated the environs of the Trevorton shanty and dam. He discovered his father’s wallet floating on the surface of the dam and a bloody handkerchief nearby. The wallet contained no money but automobile license cards of the missing man. Although the dam was drained, it revealed no further clues.
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From the Lebanon Evening Report, 18 July 1933:
Body Claude Haas Missing For Year Is Found In Shamokin
SHAMOKIN, Pennsylvania, July 18 [1933] — (INS) — Missing for a year, the body of Claude Haas, Shamokin bakery truck driver, who disappeared after making collections, was uncovered by three boys playing on a sawdust pile in an abandoned mine stable. Police were convinced today that Haas was murdered.
A fine wire was around the man’s neck and a burlap bag was drawn tightly over his head. The body was identified by the victim’s former housekeeper, Sadie Rohrback, through clothing he wore at the time of his disappearance.
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From the Shamokin News-Dispatch, 7 April 1934:
CLAUDE HAAS CASE CLOSED ON RECORDS AS UNSOLVED
Strange Slaying of Bakery Driver Still Enshrouded in Mystery After Almost Two Years
PROBE OF KILLING TO BE ABANDONED
The mysterious death of Clause E. Haas, local bread and cake salesman who disappeared from his bakery route on April 30, 1931, and whose body was found during the razing of the old stable at North Franklin Colliery, Trevorton, on July 17, 1932, has been placed on the county records as one defying solution.
Two specially assigned state troopers in plain clothes recently completed an investigation, occupying an entire month, into the death of Haas and according to a statement made by District Attorney Robert M. Fortney, no clues leading to the actual murderer of Haas could be located.
Haas, it will be recalled, disappeared from his truck on the afternoon of April 30, 1931, while making bread deliveries in the vicinity of Trevorton. Early on the morning of May 1, the truck was discovered parked near the local trolley company barns on West Arch Street, where it had been abandoned, presumably by the slayer of Haas.
Following the disappearance of the bakery salesman, the reservoir at the abandoned North Franklin Colliery, near Trevorton, was drained after some of Haas’ papers had been found near the breast of the dam. Later, relatives and Boy Scouts made an extensive search through the woods near Trevorton and in mine breaches on the nearby mountains.
It was not until the afternoon of July 17, 1932, that Trevorton boys, playing in the ruins of the old colliery stable, were attracted to a mound of sawdust. In probing into the heap they discovered the body of a man later identified as that of Haas.
Immediately county authorities and state troopers began their long investigation into his death. About the neck of the victim was found a tightly drawn wire, indicating Haas had been strangled.
Donald Bastress, of Trevorton, who was a fugitive from justice and whom Haas had been serving with bread and cakes at his hideout near Trevorton, was subsequently arrested for a series of crimes and was interrogated many time but without success. Since his incarceration in the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Bastress has several times been quizzed concerning his dealings with Haas in the way of purchases of bread and cakes while he was a fugitive, but the the youth has steadfastly denied any knowledge as to how the bakery salesman met his end.
Every phase of the murder and hiding of the body of Haas was gone into by the two plain clothes troopers assigned the case and their recent completion of the investigation without obtaining any definite facts indicates further inquisition unlikely.
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