ifindedout
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2022
- Messages
- 3,788
- Reaction score
- 17,060
On Thursday, May 16, 2024, Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan announced homicide and burglary charges against Michael Breisch, now 65, in the 1989 murder of 78-year-old Rose Hnath.
Man charged in 1989 cold case murder of woman, 78, in the Lehigh Valley
More than 30 years after an elderly woman was stabbed to death inside her Lehigh Valley home, an arrest has been made in her murder.www.nbcphiladelphia.com
The murder of Rose Hnath
At the time of her murder, Hnath was a widow who lived alone in her home along the 2600 block of 2nd Street in the Coplay section of North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Lehigh River.After she never appeared at a church she normally attended, family members went to her home the night of Jan. 21, 1989, and found her body. Her home had also been ransacked.
Investigators said Hnath died of multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Holihan says investigators found DNA evidence on the weapons used in the crime, they just didn't have the technology to find it in 1989.
Arrest made in brutal 1989 killing of Lehigh County woman
A man is behind bars, accused of brutally stabbing and beating to death a 78-year-old woman in 1989.www.wfmz.com
"There was a knife that was used, there was a pellet gun that was used. Those things, and the remarkable thing about it is that there was no concept of being able to utilize touch DNA at the time, and yet they were preserved," Holihan said.
He said there is obvious evidence that Hnath fought back against her attacker, and that is part of the reason why there was evidence that could be preserved.
Breisch, of Wind Gap, was arrested this week in Ohio and has since been extradited to Pennsylvania, the DA said. He had been living in Pennsylvania until recently moving to Ohio.
He is now behind bars in Lehigh County without bail, Holihan said.
There's no previous thread for Rose. Now she has one, and hopefully she'll have justice as well.
