On 22 March 1979, Helen E. Horn, a widow, returned home from an evening meeting of the Gratz Historical Society. Within minutes of entering her house, she was on her dining room floor – naked and dead in a pool of blood. Although someone was charged with her murder, at trial, he was acquitted. The crime was never solved.
This post is one of 19 chronicling the discovery of the body, the arrest and trial of the suspect, and his acquittal. The story is told through articles that appeared in a Pottsville newspaper.
From the Pottsville Republican, 21 October 1982:
Claiming he was framed, Gratz man sues police
Gary W. Rank, 22, of Gratz, who was acquitted by a Dauphin County Court jury on charges of murder in September 1979, has filed suit against state police in U.S. Middle District Court, alleging they fabricated evidence against him.
Gratz [sic] was accused of strangling Helen Elizabeth Horn, 68, also of Gratz.
Rank alleges that clothing fibers found at the murder scene and used by state police to obtain a search warrant of the accused’s home never existed. Rank is seeking more than $90,000 from retired state police Cpl. John C. Balshy, troopers Dean B. Shipe and John J. Holtz and the estate of state police Sgt. Joseph VanNort, who led the murder investigation.
Rank’s civil suit claims there is nothing in the state police crime lab report about fibers Shipe testified he obtained from a broken window in the cellar of the victim’s home.
An affidavit for a search warrant of Rank’s home stated that police wanted to look for blue clothing to match fibers found by police. But the report of substances analyzed at the state police crime lab does not mention blue fibers, Rank’s attorney claimed.
But Joseph Kleifnelter, Dauphin County chief deputy district attorney, who prosecuted Rank, testified that the materials believed to be fibers were not tested because they proved to be cat hair.
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For all other parts of this story, see: Who Killed Helen Horn?
News clipping/article from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.