The Body Beneath the Floorboards: The Murder of Betty Mowry

 

Harry and George Starchok

On Friday, March 14, 1931, police and fire departments from Cambria County dragged a river in search of a seven-year-old child who had gone missing. Just one day earlier, Betty Mowry vanished from her home in East Conemaugh (known at the time as Conemaugh), a small village two miles upriver from Johnstown. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Mowry, suspected that she had been playing near the Little Conemaugh River and had fallen in. They had no reason to believe otherwise; for they lived in a quiet, close-knit community comprised of hard-working coal miners, railroaders and ironworkers. East Conemaugh was the sort of town where neighbors knew each other by name, where the church pews were filled every Sunday morning. And, of course, neighbors of the Mowry family diligently looked for the little girl. They were soon joined by policemen and local Boy Scouts, who scoured the surrounding hills. Only after hours of fruitless searching did they turn their attention to the river.

By Saturday, the search had extended all the way to Johnstown. It was only called off on Saturday evening, when police received a tip from a young boy. According to this four-year-old boy, he saw Betty Mowry enter his house-- and she never came out again.

That four-year-old boy was George Starchok, who lived on Greeve Street with his mother, Margaret, and his father, Harry, a 28-year-old laborer who did odd jobs around town. To help make ends meet, the Starchocks opened their home to boarders, and they had rented a spare room to George Andrews. Late on Thursday afternoon, March 13, Harry and his wife, along with George Andrews and a friend named Albert Potter, went five blocks down the street to the Mowry home to pick up a stove, which John Mowry had been storing for the Starchoks. As Harry was leaving, he suggested that seven-year-old Betty come over to their house to play with their young son-- something she had done previously on several occasions.

Potter and Andrews left the Starchock home while Betty and George were playing, and Harry decided to install the stove, but he didn't have the right tools for the job. He asked his 22-year-old wife, Margaret, to go to his mother's house to borrow the tools he would needs for the stove's installation. She was happy to oblige, and when she returned home she noticed that Betty Mowry was gone. Harry explained that she had left a short time earlier with two other girls. 

On Friday morning, after Betty had failed to return home, the Starchoks and Mowrys met each other in the street. Harry asked to borrow some chewing tobacco from John, and he expressed concern over Betty's disappearance. "Haven't you found her yet?" asked Harry. "That's too bad. I hope nothing has happened to her." The Starchoks told their neighbors that Betty was over their place last night, but left around seven o'clock. The Mowrys notified the police, believed that their daughter had wandered away from Greeve Street. A search party was hastily organized, and the decision was made to drag the river for the little girl's body.

A Hell of a Peck of Trouble

Early on Saturday morning, while most of the neighborhood was engaged in looking for the missing child, Harry, accompanied by Albert and Anthony Potter, came home with a few bottles of whiskey for a drinking party. To Margaret Starchok, it seemed rather vulgar to host a party while the rest of the community was searching for her little boy's best friend. Harry's indifference seemed especially cold considering that it was Betty Mowry, along with her two sisters, who often brought food to the home of the impoverished Starchoks, which Harry accepted without gratitude. "There's a hell of a peck of trouble about that girl," Margaret reminded her husband, who showed no interest in the matter.
Harry's indifference didn't go unnoticed, and law enforcement thought it might be wise to look into his background. Harry had dropped out school at the age of 12. Two years later he was sent to the State Reformatory in Maryland, before being shipped to another reform school in Pennsylvania. As an adult, he had served three lengthy sentences at the Cambria County Jail for a litany of serious crimes. On Saturday afternoon, detectives paid a visit to the Starchok residence.

Harry seemed surprised by the appearance of County Detective John M. Gross; the Starchoks and Mowry's had been friends for years. Harry repeated his story that Betty had left their house to play with two other girls he didn't recognize, but he assumed that the Mowrys must know who they were because they were "cross-eyed". But no local children fit the description Harry had provided. The detectives asked Harry if he'd mind if they took a look around the house. He had no objections, but when their four-year-old son, George, innocently remarked that he had seen Betty and his father lying on a bed together, Harry was taken away in handcuffs and held on suspicion. The search of the Starchok home led detectives to the attic, where they found Betty's bloodied body in a burlap sack, concealed beneath a loose floorboard. Her body was covered with ash and cinders, but it was evident that her skull had been crushed by a blunt object.

Harry's Confession

In custody at the state police barracks, Harry attempted to pin the crime on his wife, Margaret, and their boarder, George Andrews, claiming that the murder must've occurred while the three of them were drinking. Both were taken to jail and held as material witnesses while the investigation continued. But then Harry was taken to the undertaking parlor and forced to view the remains. Confronted with the corpse of Betty Mowry, Harry confessed to District Attorney D.P. Weimer.

According to Starchok, he had been drinking when he carried her down to the basement, where he tied her up, sexually assaulted her, and then struck her repeatedly in the head with a hammer. making sure that his wife and George Andrews were out of the house, he returned to the basement and scooped her from the floor, covered in cinders, and carried her body up to the attic, where he put her into a sack and hid it beneath some loose floorboards. Some people, including the coroner, later speculated that Betty Mowry might've still been alive when she was placed into the burlap sack. "I don't know why I did it," Starchok said to District Attorney Weimer. 

News of Harry's arrest swept through East Conemaugh and a mob of angry citizens assembled and marched to the jail, intending to lynch the prisoner. And as the gruesome details of Harry's confession leaked beyond the jailhouse walls, authorities feared not only for their prisoner's safety, but for their own safety as well. State Police arrived to drive back the seething crowd, while Harry was hurried into the back of an automobile and whisked away to Johnstown city jail.

Trial and Conviction

Harry Starchok went on trial for the murder of Betty Mowry in Ebensburg on Monday, May 11, 1931, with Judge John E. Evans presiding. During the trial, the true depths of Harry's depravity were revealed, and testimony disclosed shocking details which were released to the public for the first time. The defendant, attired in a black sweater with a green shirt and a blue tie, sat impassively during the proceedings with his arms crossed. 

After the first witness, County Detective Gross, testified about removing Starchok from the East Conemaugh jail, the prosecution called Dr. H.B. Anderson to the stand. Anderson, a pathologist at Johnstown Memorial Hospital, described the injuries he found on Betty's body during the autopsy on March 17. There were three wounds on the left side of the head caused by a sharp object, and a depressed fracture on the right side of the skull which had been caused by a blunt object. Practically all the upper teeth were knocked out, and the girl's lower jaw was fractured. There were numerous abrasions to Betty's face, knees and legs, and a vaginal rupture that may have directly caused her death, which Dr. Anderson attributed to shock caused by loss of blood.

The next witness was John Mowry, the victim's father, who told the jury about the close friendship which had existed between the two families. According to Mowry,Betty and George had played together almost every day, and so he had no reason to suspect Harry Starchok, though the defense never asked him if he was aware of Harry's lengthy rap sheet. Mowry broke down in tears on cross-examination after only two questions and couldn't continue. The next witnesses were Betty's sisters, Ethel and Dorothy, both twelve years of age. They testified that they had gone to the Starchok home searching for their sister, and Mrs. Starchok told them that Betty had left around seven o'clock with two "cross-eyed girls".

But the most dramatic moment of the trial came on Tuesday, when Conemaugh borough council president Isaac Jones told the story of the murder as it had been told to him and Undertaker Carl Davis by the defendant himself. "He told us how he took Betty into the bedroom and put her on the bed," testified Jones. "She started to cry and he tied her with a rope fastened around the bedpost and ravished her. When she was still crying he put one hand over her mouth, carried her to the cellar, put her on the ash pile and picked up the axe, striking her several blows on the head. He said that he buried her in the ash pile and later took the body to the attic."

Harry Starchok, who had entered a plea of no guilty, took the stand in his own defense, once again pinning the blame on his drinking buddy, George Andrews. He also claimed that his confession had been beaten out of him by the state police. But Harry's rambling excuses fell apart on the witness stand, and when the jury retired on Wednesday afternoon to deliberate, it took them just forty minutes to find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, with a sentence of death.

A Monster Pays With His Life

Early on the morning of November 30, 1931, a swarthy little man with brown eyes was awakened in his cell at Rockview Penitentiary in Bellefonte. After breakfast, he went quietly through a gray door, flanked by emotionless guards and a Catholic chaplain. It was one minute after seven o'clock when Harry Starchok was strapped to the electric chair, quietly mumbling a prayer. He died without a final request or a final specially-prepared meal, and without making a final statement. In fact, his execution was so unspectacular that, unlike the atrocious crime he had committed, it warranted a mere blurb in most newspapers-- a fitting end to an unspectacular and unrepentant criminal whose act of sickening violence has been called "Pennsylvania's Most Atrocious Murder."

Unfortunately, the same tiny town would be thrust into the spotlight just twenty-years later, when six-year-old Karen Mauk was fatally beaten and strangled while trick-or-treating by a sexual deviant also named Harry. This killer, Harry Gossard, was also executed in Rockview's electric chair.  

 

 
 
Sources: 

Johnstown Tribune, May 11, 1931.
Johnstown Tribune, May 14, 1931.
Ebensburg Mountaineer-Herald, May 14, 1931.
Tyrone Daily Herald, March 17, 1931.
Franklin News-Herald, March 17, 1931.
Lancaster New Era, March 17, 1931.
Lancaster New Era, Nov. 30, 1931.
Ebensburg Mountaineer-Herald, Dec. 3, 1931.