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, 11 November 1982:
Gratz man awarded $55,000 in damages
HARRISBURG – A federal court jury Wednesday awarded $55,500 in damages to a Gratz man who was charged with murder and later acquitted after ruling that three state policemen violated his civil rights during the murder investigation.
Gary W. Rank, 22, was acquitted of 22 March 1979 slaying of Helen Elizabeth Horn, a 68-year-old Gratz widow.
He filed suit against Trooper Dean B. Shipe, a fingerprint analyst, retired police Cpl. John C. Balshy, a fingerprint expert, Sgt. Joseph A. VanNort, who headed the investigation, and Trooper John Holtz, an investigator.
Judge R. Dixon Herman acquitted Holtz of the allegations in the civil trial, saying too little evidence had been presented against him to warrant consideration by the jury.
Shipe, Balsy, and the estate of VanNort, who died since the investigation, each was ordered to pay $18,500 to Rank, $1,500 for compensatory damages and the other $5,000 as punitive damages.
Herman also ruled that Rank was not assaulted by VanNort as he had alleged, but he was denied the right to counsel following his arrest.
The jury was asked to consider several allegations against the officers, including whether they planted Rank’s fingerprints on the crime scene and obtained search and arrest warrants without justification. However, the jury was asked only to determine whether Rank’s civil rights had been violated.
Rank testified that on the day of his arrest, April 29, 1979, he was offered a job by TRW Inc. that paid up to $2.93 more an hour than his present job. However, he remained in Dauphin County Prison from that day until his acquittal the following September when he returned to his present job as a fabric spreader.
A Drexel University economist, Andrew G. Verzilli, testified that Rank would have made $8,112 a year more in wages had been able to accept the TRW job.
Rank also hopes to recoup $17,333 paid by his family and his wife’s parents for his legal fees and expenses during the criminal trial.
____________________________________
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.