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, 14 April 1981:
Man charged with homicide wants bail set
A Tremont man charged with criminal homicide in connection with the March 1977 strangulation murder of his neighbor, Jennie E. Barr, 78, has entered a petition in Schuylkill County Court seeking that bail be set for him.
Judge Joseph F. McCloskey said he will make a ruling at a later date by the defendant, William J. Harner, 24.
Hasner testified Monday that he has been charged with crimes four times in the past, and that he has always shown up at the required time for court proceedings, except for the one occasion when a notification letter did not reach him because he was in the process of moving from Minersville to his parents’ home in Tremont.
Pending McCloskey’s decision, Harner remains in Schuylkill County Prison, where he has been held without bail since his arrest in February.
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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.