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, 5 June 1981:
Harner denies committing murder or confessing crime
By MATT PURCELL, Staff Writer
William J. Harner, charged with the slaying of elderly Tremont widow Jennie E. Barr, took the witness stand in his trial Thursday and denied committing the 1977 murder or confessing earlier this year to the crime.
Harner’s attorney asked him at the start and again at the finish of his questioning whether he had killed Mrs. Barr. “No, I did not,” the 24-year-old Tremont resident replied firmly both times.
He also denied prior testimony by Dr. J. Philip Robinson, Tremont, and two state troopers that on two occasions in February he made verbal confessions to the crime.
Harner, the first witness called on to testify by the defense, said he and Dr. Robinson did talk about the Barr murder while seated in an auto in the early morning of February 12 of this year, as Dr. Robinson testified. However, Harner claimed that he never made any confession.
Clad in a dark blue three-piece suit and often folding his hands in his lap, Harner maintained a calm demeanor during a morning and afternoon of testimony —- testifying, although his manner became somewhat combative during cross-examination by the prosecution.
Harner testified that after he and Dr. Robinson had driven around on roads west of Tremont for several hours, they headed back to the borough.
Known doctor since childhood
The defendant said Dr. Robinson was formerly his family physician and that he has known the doctor since his early childhood. They had picked up a six-pack of beer and driven around on other occasions as well, he said.
They arrived in Tremont at about 3:25 a.m., making “a couple of laps around” the town before Harner brought the car to a halt at a stop sine at Line and Union Streets, the witness testified.
Harner said he shifted his position in the seat because “my back was bothering me” from sitting and driving for so long.
With the auto stopped, the two talked about HJarner’s back problems, with the doctor asking where it hurt and “touching certain areas,” Harner said. They also spoke of Harner’s scheduled return to work the following Monday and problems related to it, he said.
Says hypnosis failed
Harner said the doctor remarked that he seemed “a little nervous” and asked Harner if he had stomach pains. He said he answered that he was “a little queasy,” and the doctor suggested that “maybe I can induce hypnosis to you and find out what the problem is.” But the attempt failed, Harner testified.
The defendant said he told the doctor that for hypnosis to be induced he “had to be comfortable, like I was before” during hypnosis sessions in 1977 during the police investigation of the Barr murder.
Harner said the doctor remarked, “Yes, I remember you had a pretty hard time with that.”
Conversation about murder
Accord to Harner, he and Dr. Robinson then engaged in a conversation about the murder, with Harner noting that “It seems to me that they actually thought I killed Jennie Barr.”
Dr. Robinson disagreed with this, Harner said. The defendant testified that he then asked the doctor how he would feel towards him if he said he had killed Mrs. Barr.
Harner said Dr. Robinson responded that he would “feel the same,” saying to Harner that he knew “you just don’t have that in you (to kill Mrs. Barr).”
Harner said he told the doctor that he had taken a polygraph test after the murder, as well as attending hypnosis sessions for police. He testified that he explained to the doctor “what I had gone through in a period of four years” with police since the murder.
The defendant said that as he pulled the auto away from the intersection the doctor told him that he did not understand why Harner had asked what his reaction would be if Harner had committed the murder.
Harner said he told the doctor that it “was just basically more or less like a test of friendship.” Dr. Robinson responded, “Don’t do that to me, you scared me,” according to Harner. They then talked about who might have committed the murder, Harner said.
The witness testified that last February 18, when state police allege he made a verbal confession to them concerning the murder, he was questioned at the Pottsville state police barracks but made no admission to committing the crime.
He said that he was questioned by trooper James A. McCann, the prosecutor in the case, and trooper Ronald Haberstroh. He said Lt. Donald Holloway also participated in part of the interview.
Tells of denials
Harner said Dr. Robinson’s statement was read to him, and that he responded, “I don’t know where he got that from, but I don’t believe it.”
When questioned by the officers, he denied portions of the statement that said he had told the doctor that he had committed the crime and how he had done it, Harner testified. “I just told them, I never told that man that,” he said.
The statement claimed Harner told Dr. Robinson that he was on heroin at the time of the murder. Defense Attorney Wallace C. Worth asked Harner if he has “ever been on heroin” and the defendant responded that he has not, saying that he has never used drugs.
Harner said he was picked up in the morning, and after lunch was shown pictures of the victim. He said he was told of another man in a similar case who served only about “two months in jail.”
The defendant said that at this point he asked, “You mean you’re accusing me of killing her?” He was then told by Holloway that he would be placed under arrest for the murder, and when he requested a lawyer, he was told to “calm down,” Harner claimed.
He testified that before he was placed under arrest he told officers he wished to leave and would come back, if needed, for more questioning on another day, but was not allowed to go and was told by Holloway that he was going to be arrested.
The defendant claimed he was not permitted to call an attorney until he declined to answer any more questions and was being processed at the station.
Harner underwent lengthy cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Maryann Conway.
Asked if he had ever had problems communicating with Dr. Robinson in the past, he replied, “No, I didn’t.” She reviewed the portions of the doctor’s statement which allege that Harner committed the murder, as well as points from his alleged confession to state police, stopping to question him on their truthfulness. Harner denied each part of the statements.
Noting that Harner did not discount the portion of Dr. Robinson’s statement prior to the part in which the doctor claims the confession took place. Conway asked the defendant if he wishes the jury to believe that half of the statement is correct and half is “pure fiction.” “That’s what I’m telling you,” he responded.
She then asked him if he could offer a reason why Dr. Robinson might make up the incriminating information.
Harner replied that he could, and after Conway asked what this reason could be, the defendant responded, “He wanted to get queer with me that night and I said no.”
Conway also questioned him on his allegation that he saw Delbert R. Straub, Marietta, on Crescent Street near Mrs. Barr’s residence as he was walking home early on March 31, 1977, a time included in the period during which it is thought Mrs. Barr was killed.
She noted that records of interviews Harner had with police in the first two weeks after the discovery of Mrs. Barr’s body indicate that he didn’t state to all the interviewers that he was sure it was Straub he saw. Also, at first he said he saw blood on both Straub’s arms and face, but later said he saw it only on his right hand, she noted.
Conway asked Harner if he could offer a reason why his statement “would vary so much/” “I don’t see that they vary that much,” he replied.
Harner said he was told by both friends and police to be sure of what he said about what he allegedly saw.
Conway asked Harner whether he performed chores for Mrs. Barr. He said that between 1971-75, he would trim the hedges once every monthly or two, except in winter, most often not using her power trimmer. He added that he mowed her lawn when needed. Harner said he received payment from Mrs. Barr for the work.
Account of activities
Harner also testified as to his whereabouts on the nights of March 30-31, 1977. In previous testimony, an autopsy report placed the time of Mrs. Barr’s death at between 10 p.m. March and 6 a.m. March 31. The victim’s body was found in her home, located a few doors from Harner’s, at between 10 and 10:30 p,m. March 31, according to earlier testimony.
The accounts Harner gave Thursday of his activities on those evenings differed little from what prior testimony indicated he told police in interviews following the murder in 1977.
A point Conway questioned Harner on was that in 1977 he told state police that no one else was up when he returned home at about 12:30 a.m. March 31.
However, Thursday, he said that after he had laid down on a couch shortly after returning home, his father came down the steps and went to the bathroom.
Conway asked which account was true, and Harner responded that he does not think of an early-morning trip to the bathroom as being up, such as a person is while watching television.
When the assistant district attorney questioned why he failed to mention to police that his father saw him, Harner answered that there were “a lot of things that I forgot to tell them.”
At the end of the day’s court session, Marlin Hoff, Tremont, said he saw Harner in Stravinsky’s Tavern, Tremont, on two occasions on the evening of March 30. Harner had earlier testified that he visited the bar twice that night.
Also, Joan Koch, Tremont, other of Scott Koch, a friend of Harner, said he was with on the evening of the 30th, testified that she saw Harner watching television in the basement of her home with her son between 10 and 10:30 o’clock that night.
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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.