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, 28 April 1983
Crime record ordered cleared
The state Superior Court has ordered that the criminal record of Gary W. Rank, acquitted of the murder of a Gratz woman in 1979, be erased.
Rank, of Gratz, was found innocent of the March 1979 killing of Helen Elizabeth Horn, after an eight-day trial in Dauphin County Court before Judge John C. Dowling.
After the trial, Rank asked the court to clear his record, but Dowling refused saying, “A verdict so contrary to evidence, while it must be accepted, cannot in all good conscience bind the presiding judge.” Dowling said he was “totally unconvinced of Gary Rank’s innocence” in Horn’s death.
The Superior Court found that Dowling abused his discretion in refusing to grant Rank’s petition to clear his record.
The Dauphin County District Attorney’s office, at a hearing in late 1979, “presented no compelling reason” to maintain Rank’s record, the high court said.
Rank was accused of entering Horn’s home on March 22, 1979 and strangling and beating her. Horn’s nude body was found the next morning in a pool of blood.
Rank denied the slaying, saying he had no reason to kill her.
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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.