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, 27 April 1979
Gratz murder suspect described as a dropout and ‘fair worker’
By SUE BOOKS, Staff Writer
GRATZ – Gary W. Rank, a suspect in the March 22 murder of Helen E. Horn, quit school when he was 16 and got a job at the Mon Mar Manufacturing Co., Inc., here.
He was a “fair worker,” said another company employee, but had few friends at the company because most of the men are older than he.
Rank, 18, has worked at the blouse manufacturing company a year and a half as a material spreader.
Rank lives three-tenths of a mile west of Mrs. Horn’s home at 343 Market St., where the murder was committed.
Persons living in the neighborhood said Rank had lived in the area all his life. Mrs. Horn, a former teacher at Gratz Elementary School and substitute teacher at several schools, probably had Rank as a student.
Rank was arrested Tuesday by Sgt. Joseph A. VanNort, head of Harrisburg state police troop H crime investigation unit. He was arraigned before District Magistrate Francis Reichenbach of Elizabethville and committed to Dauphin County prison without bail.
A preliminary hearing has been set May 4 at Reichenbach’s office.
Mrs. Horn was found brutally murdered the morning of March 23 by her cleaning lady. According to the death certificate, she died of strangulation and multiple skull fractures.
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For all other parts of this story, see: Who Killed Helen Horn?
News clipping/article from Newspapers.com.
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