William Yeager Cheats the Chair

 

Located in Cooper Township in Montour County, the village of Grovania sits at the halfway point between Danville and Bloomsburg on Route 11. To call Grovania a village is being rather generous; there are people who live in Grovania who have no idea they're living there-- if asked, they'd tell you that they hail from Danville. Yet Grovania, as tiny as it may be, was the site of the only official post office in Cooper Township during the era of the stagecoach, which was the primary mode of transportation until the railroads came along the mid-19th century. 

At the time, Grovania (named in honor of the Grove brothers, who built one of the earliest iron furnaces in Danville) boasted one general store, a tavern, and a handful of farmhouses. Although Grovania existed for over a century as quiet, boring place, things took a turn in April of 1937, when a farmhouse on the hill overlooking the highway became a crime scene.

 It was the evening of Thursday, April 22, when a domestic altercation broke out inside the home of 51-year-old farmer William H. Yeager. Yeager, a former resident of Catawissa and father of eleven, had been tenanting the Grovania farm for twelve years. Thirty years earlier, William had wed the former Miss Gertrude Lydia Knittle, and, by all accounts, the family was happy and healthy. 

The oldest son, 16-year-old Charles "Bud" Yeager, arrived home at 9:30 and heard his mother calling out for help from her upstairs bedroom. He immediately ran up the stairs, and upon entering the bedroom was struck over the head with a lantern. Bud looked up, and saw that it was his father who had struck him. Bud wrestled with his father, and, in the flurry of punches that were thrown, Bud landed one that sent his father reeling backwards and falling down the stairs.

Bud and his mother went downstairs and Gertrude Yeager was cleaning the blood from her face when William returned with a high-powered rifle. Bud had a rifle of his own, and he stood behind a door as his father raised the barrel and took aim at his wife. As he did so, Bud brought the butt of his own rifle crashing down onto his father's head, knocking him out cold. Thinking quickly, Bud saved the life of his mother and his two sisters by hiding them in the nearby woods as the father lie unconscious on the floor. Then Bud started down the road, stopping a neighbor named Joseph Krum, who drove the teenager the home of Sheriff Riley Lidner in Danville. Sheriff Lidner summoned the State Police at Muncy, and two troopers, along with the sheriff and a deputy, went to the Yeager farmhouse to make an arrest.

 

The Murder of a Trooper

The troopers, State Policeman John Fessler and Thomas Hooper, knocked on the door of the house at around 11:00 that evening, announced they had a warrant, and instructed William Yeager to come out with his hands up. There was no response. Armed with flashlights, Fessler and Hooper entered the home. Fessler was in uniform, Hooper was not. Fessler's light fell upon Yeager, who was sitting at a table with his rifle. Before the troopers could react, Yeager fired a shot, striking Fessler in the kidkey.
As he fell, Fessler managed to get off three shots with his revolver, striking the farmer in the right shoulder, arm and hand. Hooper rushed to his partner's side and rendered as much assistance as possible while Yeager attempted to retrieve the revolver dropped by Fessler, but Hooper reached it first, using the butt to strike Yeager in the head. Yeager tried crawling into an adjoining room, but Hooper cuffed Yeager and the lawmen waited for what must have felt like an eternity for an ambulance to arrive.

It was Sheriff Lindner who was dispatched for emergency aid, and the sheriff sped to Danville, returning with an ambulance which transported the wounded trooper to Geisinger Hospital. Trooper Hooper and the handcuffed Yeager followed in a police car. By the time the hospital was reached, Corporal Thomas E. Eshleman and Trooper C.C. Riegel had been apprised of the situation and departed for Montour County. Meanwhile, Gertrude Yeager was transported to the Bloomsburg Hospital in another ambulance, where she was treated for shock and minor injuries.

As for Trooper John Fessler, he was not so fortunate-- he succumbed to his injuries at 4 o'clock on the morning of Friday, April 23. Doctors found that his kidney was so mangled that it had to be removed at once, but the damage was beyond repair. At the time of his death, the 30-year-old trooper had been attached to the Muncy barracks for just six months, though he had been a state trooper for seven years. Fessler was an exceptional athlete in his youth, standing over six feet tall. He was unmarried. After his death, his body was taken to the home of his parents in Cressona and prepared for burial.

The Wife and Son Speak

According to Mrs. Yeager, who spoke to reporters from her hospital bed in Bloomsburg, she had spent the day with her daughter, Mrs. Charles Herring of Catawissa, who was the only Yeager child who was no longer living at home in Grovania. It was "just a family argument" which caused her husband to snap, said Gertrude, and Bud Yeager added that he had never before heard his father threaten the lives of anyone in the household.

 "It was shortly after nine o'clock. My two sisters, Amy-- she is fifteen-- and Erla Mae, twelve, had gone to the Thomas store at Grovania for some groceries," explained Bud. "They wanted some help carrying flour home and they stopped at Peacock Gardens where I work as a fireman. We live about three-quarters of a mile over the hill from the gardens and it is tough walking.  It was about 9:30, I think, when we got home."

Bud said that the other Yeager children were already in bed and asleep by this time. When Bud and his sisters entered the home, they heard the mother crying out for help.

"I rushed upstairs. There were no lights. As i stuck my head in the open door, pop hit me with a lantern over the forehead... I grabbed him by the neck and hit him with my right. He fell on the landing at the top of the stairs... He took another swing at me, but I hit him and he tumbled down about twelve steps to the first floor." After William Yeager had returned with a rifle and was about to shoot his wife, Bud bashed him with the butt of his rifle.

"The stock broke off," explained Bud. "He fell alongside the stove... He then asked me what I was going to do, and I told him, 'I guess leave the country'. He said he would get a gun and kill all of us... Pop then went upstairs for another gun and so I took Mom and Amy and Erla Mae out of the house just as he was coming back down. I told them to go around the barn and back down a hollow while I went for help."

The Yeagers had moved to Grovania from Bloomsburg, where William had been employed for several years in one of the car shops, and William rented the farm from his sister, Mrs. Newton Terry of Verona, New Jersey, who, incidentally, also happened to be married to a policeman. Another sister of the shooter, Mrs. Elizabeth Shuler, resided in Philadelphia, and a brother, Samuel, was in the Coast Guard. Two other brothers also lived ordinary, upstanding lives, and William himself had served with the army during the First World War. So what could have caused him to take aim at his wife after thirty years of happy marriage? Whatever dark change had taken place inside William Yeager was a mystery, as he refused to talk about it. All he said after his arrest was that the police had "no damn business" showing up at his home. According to the district attorney, George Wagner, the shooter had served two jail sentences in Montour County for minor offenses prior to his murder of a state trooper.

 

 

The Yeager Case

The killing of John Fessler was the first murder to take place in Montour County in twenty years, and only the second in a span of three decades. District Attorney Wagner had ample time to lay out a case for a first-degree murder conviction, as Yeager's injuries-- which included a skull fracture-- kept him hospitalized for a considerable length of time. For Wagner, it was a golden opportunity to make a name for himself; at just 29 years of age, he would be one of the youngest district attorneys to ever try a murder case in Pennsylvania. On April 29, William Yeager was taken from the hospital to the Montour County jail where he learned, for the first time, that the trooper he had shot was dead.

The case was tried before Judge Charles C. Evans, who had been the presiding judge twenty years earlier at the trial of Robert Pursel, who murdered Mrs. and Mrs. John Kerns and attempted to kill his estranged wife, Flossie DeHart, on Halloween night of 1916. The trial opened on May 25, with attorney Edward J. Flynn of Centralia representing the defendant, who pleaded not guilty. A week earlier, livestock and machinery from the Yeager farm had been sold to raise money for the defendant's defense. On June 1, the jury returned its verdict, finding William Yeager guilty of murder in the first degree and calling for the death sentence.

On June 29, after the testimony from the murder trial was filed in county court, Edward Flynn filed a motion for a new trial. This did not sit well with the taxpayers of Montour County or the county commissioners, as $12 per day was being spent to pay three guards to keep a round-the-clock suicide watch on Yeager, who was languishing in the Danville jail while awaiting transfer to Rockview Penitentiary. Montour County, being the smallest county in the state, also had the smallest budget, and why should the innocent shoulder the expense of guarding a man who claimed to be not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence? Yeager may have believed otherwise, but the facts in the case were clear-- the police had a warrant to arrest the felonious farmer.

Nonetheless, the motion for a new trial was granted by the state supreme court, though the next step would be an evidentiary hearing. If the defense could provide new evidence or a new legal defense which could exonerate Yeager, the process would be begin all over again. But if the defense could not prove just cause for a new trial, Judge Evans' sentence would stand.  Once the date of the new hearing was set-- November 23-- a local magistrate issued an order to discontinue the condemned farmer's suicide watch. The state supreme court heard the appeal on November 23, but ultimately denied the appeal for a retrial on January 31, 1938. Governor George H. Earle fixed the date of the execution for March 21.

With little left to lose, Yeager fired his lawyer and hired a new defense attorney, John L. Pipa of Shamokin. Pipa believed that the state supreme court would be willing to reconsider his client's appeal for a new trial, but first, it would be up to newly-elected Montour County judge Clinton Herring to hear Pipa's presentation of newly-found evidence. This new evidence came in the form of Bud Yeager's testimony, who testified in his father's behalf. During this hearing, the defense sought to prove that Fessler had been killed by bullets fired by his partner, Trooper Thomas Hooper. Under oath, Bud Yeager testified that he had heard state police corporal Echelman say to Hooper, "We'll have to build up a strong case against Yeager, Tommy, you're not in the clear yourself." During this hearing, Pipa also produced another witness-- an expert from the local gun club-- who testified that the only bullet fired from Yeager's rifle entered a tea kettle in the farmhouse. The tea kettle in question was entered into evidence.

On April 1, 1938, the hearing ended and Judge Herring began to study the testimony in order to determine whether a new trial should be granted, thereby giving William Yeager a reprieve from the electric chair. On Saturday afternoon, December 23, 1939, Judge Herring handed down his opinion, denying the slayer of Trooper John Fessler a new trial. For William Yeager, his last hope lay in the hands of the State Board of Pardons.

A Bullet For Billy Yeager

Not surprisingly, the Board of Pardons chose not to grant William Yeager's request for clemency. With the new date for his execution fixed for February 25, 1940, all Yeager could do was wait for his transfer from the Danville jail to the "death house" in Bellefonte. Early in the morning of February 24, hours before he was to be transferred from Montour County to the Rockview Penitentiary, William Yeager committed suicide inside his jail cell by shooting himself in the right temple with a .32 caliber revolver. But who smuggled the weapon into the Montour County Jail, and why?

Sheriff Steigerwalt was eager to find the answer to this mystery, and called for an immediate investigation. It was 4:25 in the morning when Yeager shot himself, and the sheriff discovered that four members of Yeager's family had visited him in jail the the previous day. Steigerwalt ordered the questioning of nine people, which included family members and guards who were on duty at the time of the suicide. Also questioned were  Ralph Umstead and Paul Sweezy, the inmates who had been playing cards with Yeager hours before his death.

The state police also intervened in the matter, and troopers Melvin Woodring and John Ricketts were assigned to the case.  Because of the seriousness of the crime of giving a firearm to a prison inmate, the governor dispatched a special investigator, John Dempsey, to Danville. Meanwhile, after private funeral services at the Baker Mortuary in Bloomsburg, the body of William Yeager was buried at New Rosemont Cemetery in Espy.

William Gross, the night guard, said that he had played cards with Yeager and some of the other prisoners unril around midnight, and was seated at a table about thirty feet away when the lone, fatal shot rang out. According to Gross, he rushed to Yeager's cell, but the inmate was already on the verge of death, lying in a pool of blood and clutching a revolver in his right hand. Suspicions also fell upon one of the former guards, Glenn Fenstermacher, who visited Yeager in jail the day before the suicide, and Henry Hogendobler, a former deputy sheriff who was friends with Yeager. Other visitors included his wife, his sister, his daughter and son-in-law, a clothier named Fred Howe and the inmate's spiritual advisers, Roy Fox and Abraham Hite. 

Although Steigerwalt ruled out the religious advisers as suspects, he was perplexed; all visitors had been thoroughly searched and all packages delivered to the jail had been opened and their contents carefully examined. The only package Yeager had received was a carton of ice cream. This would suggest that either a guard had chosen to "look the other way" when a relative brought a gun to give to Yeager, or that the former guard or former deputy-- both of whom were probably familiar to the jail staff-- were not searched when they entered the building. Since there was a possibility that a gun might be used by the prisoner to force an escape, it's highly unlikely that a guard would've allowed a relative of Yeager to give him the weapon; after all, even if the guard was aware of the prisoner's suicidal intentions, there was always the risk of Yeager turning the weapon against him. For this reason, one has to believe that it was an "inside job", with either Glenn Fenstermacher or Henry Hogendobler providing the weapon, and the guard on duty, William Gross, keeping out of shooting range until Yeager was either dead or safely hauled off to Rockview.

Was It An Inside Job?

The state police, however, would not entertain this theory. On February 29, one of the William's sons, Floyd Wesley Yeager, was arraigned on a charge of furnishing a weapon to a prison inmate by Justice Austin H. Klase. The charge was filed by state trooper Melvin Woodring. After the hearing, charges were dropped and Floyd was released from custody. Floyd then told reporters that he had been severely beaten by state police investigators during his questioning and had been treated for a possible skull fracture at Geisinger Hospital. Doctor S.J. Hawley, head of the x-ray department at Geisinger, refuted Floyd Yeager's story and asserted that Floyd had not been examined for any such injury. However, hospital officials refused to confirm or deny reports that Floyd had received any other treatment after his questioning at the hands of the state police. (For the record, it should be pointed out that Floyd Yeager later became a decorated veteran, having been injured in France during the Battle of Metz, which adds some credence to his story). 

 

 

Another key piece of information which lends support to the inside job theory was the fact that whomever had given the revolver to the inmate had used a file to remove the manufacturer's name and the serial number from the weapon-- facts that were made public by District Attorney George Wagner. Though this does not prove that Fenstermacher or Hogendobler smuggled the weapon inside the Montour County jail, it's quite difficult to imagine a pastor, a clothier, or a farmer's wife and children or a future war hero performing this task. Though state police ballistics experts assured the public that they could establish the make and serial number of the weapon, no additional arrests were ever made in the case. On April 26, the investigation was dropped.

The Curse of William Yeager?

Until his dying day, William Yeager insisted that he was not the one who had shot and killed Trooper John Fessler. "I didn't kill anybody," he declared the day before his death, "but if they want me to go, I'm ready." Strangely, not long after Yeager's suicide, some key figures associated with the murder trial suffered terrible fates. On March 22, 1940, less than a month after the suicide, Judge Herring succumbed from the flu at the age of 64 at his home in Orangeville. In October, the defense attorney fired by Yeager, Edward J. Flynn of Centralia, suffered a massive stroke which left him incapacitated for the remainder of his life. Judge Charles C. Evans died on July 10 of the following year of cerebral thrombosis.




Sources:

Berwick Enterprise, April 23, 1937.
Berwick Enterprise, April 24, 1937.
Berwick Enterprise, Nov. 13, 1937.
Danville Morning News, Dec. 25, 1939.
Warren Times Mirror, Feb. 24, 1940.
Mount Carmel Item, Feb. 24, 1940.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, Feb. 27, 1940.
Danville Morning News, Feb. 28, 1940.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, Feb. 29, 1940.
Bloomsburg Morning Press, Feb. 29, 1940.
Danville Morning News, March 6, 1940.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, March 8, 1940.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, March 22, 1940.
Sunbury Daily Item, October 29, 1940.