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, 8 June 1981:
Harner acquitted – Applause, cheers, tears among family at verdict
By MATT PURCELL, Staff Writer
“I was scared. I was nervous.
“(But) I was pretty sure it was going to come back ‘not guilty’
“I knew I did not kill that lady.”
Those were the words of William J. Harner, 24, at his Tremont home this morning, a day and a half after he had been found innocent by a jury on a charge of criminal homicide.
The verdict had brought Harner and members of his family to their feet in an explosion of emotion in Schuylkill County Courthouse late Saturday afternoon.
The announcement by the court clerk of the result of the jury’s four hours of deliberations was greeted by applause, cheers and tears by the defendant’s parents, brothers and sisters.
Family members stood clapping joyously as Harner held his mother in a long embrace, and Mrs. Harner could be seen wiping tears from her eyes as she returned to her seat when Judge Joseph F. McCloskey called the court to order so that the jurors could be polled separately on their verdict.
As Harner sat and looked on, each of the seven men and five women on the jury responded “not guilty” when asked by the clerk how they found the defendant on the charge. McCloskey then thanked the jurors for their service and discharged them.
Harner was arrested by state police in February on the charge, which stemmed from the March 1977 murder of Jennie E. Barr, 76, Tremont, and until Saturday’s verdict, had been held in Schuylkill County Prison in lieu of bail. The trial began Monday morning,. With final testimony and closing arguments completed Friday afternoon.
Prior to beginning its deliberations, the jurors listened to a three-hour-long charge on the law by McCloskey. The jury left the court room to begin weighing the evidence at about 12:45 p.m., and after an afternoon of waiting by Harner and his family, returned with its verdict.
Harner said today he plans to return next week to his job as a miner for the Kocher Coal Company, Valley View.
He described his immediate plans as “getting my head back together.”
During the days of testimony, Harner’s trial drew an average daily attendance of 35 to 50 persons. However, not nearly that many persons were present to witness the handling down of the verdict at about 5:25 p.m.
In his charge, the judge told the jurors that if they found Harner guilty, they could do son on either first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence, or third-degree, which means a sentence of 10 to 20 years imprisonment.
Second-degree murder, defined in Pennsylvania as a slaying committed in connection with a felony, did not apply to the case, he said. The commonwealth had sought a ruling of first-degree murder.
The death penalty also did not apply to the case, as Mrs. Barr’s death took place while capital punishment was not in effect in Pennsylvania.
The case centered on two alleged confessions said to have been made by the defendant in February, and McCloskey told the jurors that they should not allow the fact that he allowed the statements into evidence to affect their consideration of them. Harner, while on the witness stand most of Thursday testifying in his own defense, denied committing the murder of making any confessions.
McCloskey also instructed the jurors that in order to consider the alleged statements, they had to find that a crime had been committed, that a statement was actually made by the defendant, and that it was the ”product of a rational mind and a free will.”
McCloskey noted that is the jury found these three conditions to be met, they should not disallow a statement just because in giving it the defendant would have made a “poor” or “hasty” choice, and might have been better off if he had kept silent.
Later in his charge, the judge told the jurors that “much of the commonwealth’s evidence falls within the term which we in the law call circumstantial evidence.”
The judge also reviewed the testimony in the case for the jurors, which took up much of the time in the charge.
When he concluded his charge, McCloskey called the attorneys for the commonwealth and the defense to side-bar. Afterwards he stressed to the jurors that in summing up a week’s worth of testimony, “there is every possibility that the court may leave out vital testimony.”
He added that his execution of it should not discount its importance, and that it is the juror’s own recollection of testimony that must be used in reaching a verdict.
Serving as jurors in the case were: Mary K. Woods, Tamaqua area, housewife; Joseph McCord, 1 Ferndale Road, New Philadelphia, trackman; Robert Connelly, Beechwood Avenue, Marlin, conductor; Charles Chiao, 202 W. Pine Street, Mahanoy City; Robert Smith, 1629 W. Norwegian Street, Pottsville, clerk; Lillian Bulchie, 606 Turkey Run, Shenandoah, housewife; James Caufield, 201 Schuylkill Avenue, Shenandoah; Theresa Spontak, 1380 Seneca Street, Pottsville, retired; Arva McElvaney, 58 Silver Creek Road, New Philadelphia, housewife; Kenneth Bast, 108 Avenue B, Schuylkill Haven, retired; Anna Andershonis, S. Sixth Street, Frackville, housewife; Francis Bonner, 205 Center Street, Ashland.
Photo Caption
A free man, William J. Harner, 24, Tremont, smiles this morning after stopping off at the county prison to pick up money deposited by his family for use at the prison store during his incarceration of a murder charge. He was found innocent on the charge by a jury Saturday.
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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.