The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 10

FOURTH N-accident stirs criticism during PUC hearing in Allentown B2 B8 BREAKFAST CHATTER B12 NOTABLE QUOTABLE B12-15 FAMILY SECTION FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1979 VWM MM W-v, SBBSk Women's center files appeal over Hanover zo tiers' ruling By DICK COWEN Of The Morning Call The Allentown Women's Center. has filed an appeal in Lehigh County Court over two rulings against it last week by the Hanover Township Zoning Hearing Board. The two-page appeal was filed yesterday by Atty. James G. Kellar in behalf of Erna Arenz who heads the center's corporation.

It refers to the center simply as a medical clinic though the case involves an abortion clinic and the attempts of some anti-abortion residents of Hanover to close it down. The appeal noted that the Zoning Hearing Board on March 22 ruled by a 2-1 vote "that Henrietta Wyker. Bernard Kuczynski, Betty Krisovitch and John Witko had filed timely appeals to the board from the granting of a permit to Ms. Arenz by the township zoning officer for the operation of a medical clinic in the building at Steel Stone and Airport roads'' It said further that by that decision the board ruled those four persons had met their burden of proof that the permit for the center was improperly issued. Ms.

Arenz noted the board has not yet prepared a written decision in support of its rulings. She cites six reasons for her appeal. But she reserves the right to file additional reasons once the board comes down with its written decision. The listed reasons for her appeal include: The attempted appeals filed with the board by the four residents were not filed within the time required by law. Therefore, the attempted appeals were totally ineffective and void, and the board was totally without jurisdiction to hear them.

The board acted on the matter when it didn't have jurisdiction. It abused its discretion in saying the appeals by the four were timely when they weren't. It further abused its discretion by ruling the four individuals had proved the permit issued to Ms. Arenz had not been properly issued. Murder suspect told police she was beaten, bound to bed Photography by MARK WEBER Bethlehem police and detectives examine grounds of the Branagan home on Pine Senior at Freedom High found stabbed to death in her Bethlehem home By MARK WEBER and PEG RHODIN Of The Morning Call A teen-age Bethlehem girl was found murdered with multiple stab wounds yesterday morning in the kitchen of her home in an exclusive residential section of the city.

Moira Branagan of 469 Pine Top Trail, a 17-year-old Freedom High School senior, was found dead by her brother Sean and a friend shortly before 11 a.m. They telephoned Bethlehem police from a neighbor's home. Investigators found the murder weapon, a 10-inch kitchen knife, in the victim's back. She was fully clothed and had been stabbed repeatedly. It has not yet been determined if the knife was from the Branagan kitchen.

Ac cording to Northampton County Dist. Atty. John E. Gallagher, investigators have no immediate suspects in the slaying. Nor do they have a motive.

Investigators on the scene yesterday found no signs of burglary, robbery or forced entry. Northampton County Coroner Joseph F. Reichel. in ruling the death a homicide, reported to Gallagher that Miss Branagan had been dead since Wednesday and had not been sexually assaulted. An autopsy showed the victim had 15 serious knife wounds, three slight wounds and two "defensive" wounds of the hands apparently received while trying to ward off the knife blows.

There were indications of some struggle on the body. The residence a modern, two-level wood and concrete home with a circular drive on a hillside is owned by the victim's father. W. Richard Branagan. Branagan.

a sales manager with Lone Star Cement Nazareth, was out of town on business yesterday. He was contacted by phone and returned to Bethlehem. The victim's mother. Mrs. S.

Peggy (Kucher) Branagan. died in November 1976. Gallagher said Miss Branagan had called her father, who was in Atlantic City, shortly, after 5 p.m. Wednesday. The telephone in the girl's room was off the hook when police arrived.

Gallagher said a friend from school had dropped the victim off at the house after school on Wednesday, and she had changed clothes before the murder occurred. Miss Branagan brother, a Lehigh University student, also lives at the residence. According to Gallagher, he was staying with a friend yesterday because they were working on a car. When he kept getting a busy signal in trying tot-all his sister Wednesday By BUZZ CRESSMAN Of The Morning Call Murder suspect Constance Harman complained to police in May 1978 that she was beaten, handcuf fed to the bed and held a virtual prisoner by the man she allegedly killed in August, a Falls Township policeman testified yesterday. Patrolman David Clark said he had doubts about her charges and said the Northampton Township civic leader and Republican figure denied ever making them when he brought them up to Yves Bordes in her presence four days later.

Bordes was slain in August. Clark testified at the fourth day of Mrs. Harman's trial on first-degree murder charges before a jury of seven men and five women in Bucks County Court. Clark said he was asked by Holly Shapiro, one of Mrs. Harman's four daughters, to investigate her situation at the Sweetbriar Falls Township, where the daughter claimed Bordes had kidnaped her mother and was holding her against her will.

The apartment was leased during the early months of an apparently nine-month stormy relationship between Mrs. Harman and the Haitian native. Clark said he went to the apartment complex, May 12 with Mrs. Shapiro and her husband and met with Mrs. Harman.

The woman, separated from her policeman husband, claimed Bordes had been keeping her against her will in the third-floor apartment and was beating her. She said she occasionally left the apartment but returned because of threats against her and the family, the patrolman said. Clark said police attempted to help her and pursue the issue but she hesitated to prosecute. She contended. Clark said, that the man would be free on bail shortly after she pressed charges before a justice of the peace.

Clark quoted the 45-year-old defendant as saying she planned to shoot Bordes on May 7 but was disarmed by him. She reported he had two pistols in the apartment and warned police he might gun them down. The patrolman said he was called to the apartment four days later to investigate a charge by Bordes that Mrs. Harman had taken his car without permission. He said the matter was resolved when he got to the apartment but used the visit to question Bordes about the woman's earlier charges.

"Bordes was surprised." Clark testified. Bordes denied the charges, he said. The couple got into a dispute, and Mrs. Harman denied ever making the allegations, the patrolman continued. Clark said he had doubts about all the CONSTANCE HARMAN stories from the Harmans.

He said Mrs. Harman was cooking when he arrived on May 16. He could find no visible traces of injuries from the reported beatings. On the earlier investigation, he said, she was hesitant to leave the apartment complex despite the urging of police. Defense counsel John M.

McClure attempted to show that pplice may have minimized the situation at the apartment, considering it an on-going domestic dispute on one hand while taking precautions so they weren't shot on the other. The trial's first witness was Margaret Dunne, resident manager of the apartment complex, who described how Mrs. Harman picked up a six-month lease application which later was returned signed by a Mr. and Mrs. Yves Bordes.

Mrs. Dunne said apartment records listed the names Bonnie and Yves Bordes. She said an eviction notice was filed after rent payments stopped in June. Prosecutor Dale A. Reichley, a Bucks County deputy district attorney, termed the.

murder a "thoughtful, willful and premeditated killing" in his opening remarks to the jury. He said the woman planned to kill Bordes earlier and at one time considered poisoning him. His body was found Aug. 28 near a Philadelphia parking lot where police said it was dumped after the shooting in a Lower Bucks motel. Reichley said witnesses will testify that the couple was seen in the motel the day of the slaying.

Top Trail MOIRA BRANAGAN afternoon and night and again yesterday morning, he became worried and returned home. According to a neighbor, a girl friend from school had stopped for the victim at her home early yesterday morning, but left when the Branagan girl did not respond to the door bell. Miss Branagan was born in Mont Clare. Montgomery County. She was a member of St.

Anne's Catholic Church. Bethlehem. Surviving with her father and brother is her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Lisa Kucher of Vancouver. B.C..

Canada. A Mass of Christian Burial will be at noon Monday in the church. Calling hours will be private. The Conhell Funeral Home. 245 E.

Broad Bethlehem, is in charge of arrangements. he said he got upset because his sister and her boy friend argued all the time. At another point, he said he got upset after the sex with the 22-year-old when she went into the bathroom and made up her face. Of the Oct. 3 incident.

he said. "It was body language, body language." Then later. "How do you explain body language?" And stilf later. "It's hard to explain body language." Steinberg asked Ross if he forced himself upon the woman on Oct. 3.

Ross paused for awhile, then said. "Not physically force." It was Judge David E. Mellenberg who ruled sometime shortly before the trial against a defense request that the two rape cases be tried separately. Murder victim described as 'happy, a fine student' Moira "Holly" Branagan "was happy and appeared well-adjusted." was a good student especially interested in music and mathematics, and planned to enter Penn State University in the fall, according to teachers and other school officials who knew her. Miss Branagan.

17. a Freedom High School senior, was found slain in her Bethlehem home yesterday. Joseph Mclntyre is principal of Freedom High, from which Miss Branagan would have graduated this spring. He said she was "well thought of. a fine student, a member of the school's concert choir and concert orchestra.

She was planning to enter college in the fall." Frank Delluva. her adviser at Freedom, said Miss Branagan "had no problems. Her attendance was good" and he had little or no reason to counsel her. He helped her file an application to Penn State last fall. When she had difficulty with a physics course, he helped her drop the subject.

He had no other contact with her this year, but had been her adviser for the past three years. "She was happy and appeared well-adjusted, pleasant, and attractive fairly tall, about 5 feet, 7 or 8 inches, had shortish dark hair, a nice circle of friends. "I've never had any discipline problems with her. She came from a nice family. I knew her older brother, Sean.

He was friendly and outgoing- "She had a B' average. I don't think she had decided what she wanted to do in life yet. Mrs. Jean Ocker, Miss Branagan's music teacher, has known her for three years. She described Miss Branagan as a "well-balanced, very mature student who was faithful and devoted in her attendance to musical activities.

"I'd say she was a very stable, beautiful person," Mrs. Ocker said. "Her brother is a great boy, too. He belonged to the band." ANNE KOVALENKO Lehigh jury finds Allentonian guilty of robbery, 2 rapes By DICK COWEN Of The Morning Call George Ross. 30.

of Allentown. was found guilty yesterday by a Lehigh County jury of raping and robbing a 19-year-old woman last summer and raping a 22-year-old year woman last fall in after-midnight incidents in Allentown The offenses occurred while Ross was on parole in a 5 to 20-year jail sentence for the rape and beating of two teen-age girls in 1972 on the Lehigh University campus. The jury of nine men and three women deliberated about four hours before coming in with their verdicts about Judge John E. Backenstoe revoked bail, which Ross had been unable to raise earlier. Ross was returned to Lehigh County Prison where he has been since his arrest in early October.

No date was set for sentencing, pending any post-trial motions by the defense. Asst. Dist. Atty. Robert Steinberg handled the prosecution Ross, who had been a professional singer, was represented by Public Defender Armando Salazar and private counsel Malcom Gross.

The 19-year-old testified she was grabbed from behind shortly after midnight Aug. 16 near 13th and iMaple streets while walking home. She said she was beaten, thf thrown into a blue Pinto station wagon by her assailant, driven to the Morris Black property near 3rd and Union streets where she was raped in the back of the vehicle. She said that when the man drove her back to the area of 13th and Maple streets, he turned on the interior lights and told her to take a good look at him. She identified Ross as her attacker.

Ross said he was at home at 370 Hickory Lane from 11 30 m. with his girl friend and sister until 2 a.m.. alone briefly while the women went out with his car (a blue Pinto station wagon and then with his girl friend the rest of that night. His girl friend and hisster gave testimony supporting his story. Various defense witnesses traced Ross's movements earlier in the evening beginning around 6 p.m.

when he and his manager. Morning Call movie critic Dale Schneck went to Quakertown. The 22-year-old victim said Ross, in a blue Pinto station wagon, cut off her car about 12: 30 a.m. Oct. 3 on a South Side street as she was heading home.

She said she got out when the man repeatedly claimed her car damaged his. She said she was subsequently grabbed, punched, bitten on the face and then driven by him to an apartment at Valley View whee she was raped. She said afterward, the man told her he was George Ross, sang her a song he had composed and gave her some poems he had written. The poems had his name on. Ross said the encounter was all voluntary and that he had not punched the woman or bitten her.

He said he discussed with her a poem he had written on homosexuality, but he assured her that he was not gay. Steinberg, in his summation to the jury, termed Ross "a man wanting to be caught." by telling the first victim to get a good look at his face and by giving the second woman his name and taking her to his apartment. Ross rambled and digressed frequently in his testimony. At one point..