The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 10

FOURTH N-accident stirs criticism during PUC hearing in Allentown B2 MARCH 30, 1979 CALL FRIDAY, MORNING METRO B12 B12-15 NOTABLE FAMILY QUOTABLE SECTION THE B8 BREAKFAST CHATTER Women's center files appeal over Hanover zoners' ruling By DICK COWEN was improperly issued. Of The Morning Call Ms. Arenz noted the board has not yet The Allentown Women's Center. has prepared a written decision in support of its filed an appeal in Lehigh County Court over rulings. two rulings against it last week by the She cites six reasons for her appeal.

But Hanover Township Zoning Hearing Board. she reserves the right to file additional The two-page appeal was filed yesterday reasons once the board comes down with by Atty. James G. Kellar in behalf of Erna its written decision. Arenz who heads the center's corporation.

It refers to the center simply as a medical The listed reasons for her appeal include: clinic though the case involves an abortion -The attempted appeals filed with the clinic and the attempts of some anti-abortion board by the four residents were not filed residents of Hanover to close it down. within the time required by law. The appeal noted that the Zoning Hearing Therefore, the attempted appeals were Board on March 22 ruled by a 2-1 vote "that totally ineffective and void, and the board Henrietta Wyker, Bernard Kuczynski, Betty was totally without jurisdiction to hear them. Krisovitch and John Witko had filed timely The board acted on the matter when it appeals to the board from the granting of a didn't have jurisdiction. permit to Ms.

Arenz by the township zoning -It abused its discretion in saying the officer for the operation of a medical clinic in appeals by the four were timely when they the building at Steel Stone and Airport weren't. roads. -It further abused its discretion by ruling It said further that by that decision the the four individuals had proved the permit board ruled those four persons had met their issued to Ms. Arenz had not been properly burden of proof that the permit for the center issued. Murder suspect told police she was beaten, bound to bed By BUZZ CRESSMAN Of The Morning Call Murder suspect Constance Harman complained to police in May 1978 that she was beaten.

handcuffed 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 CONSTANCE HARMAN claimed Bordes had kidnaped her mother and was holding her against her will.

The apart- stories from the Harmans. ment was leased during the early months of He said Mrs. Harman was cooking when an apparently nine-month stormy rela- he arrived on May 1 16. tionship between Mrs. Harman and the Hai- He could find no visible traces of tian native.

injuries from the reported beatings. On the earlier Clark said he went to the apartment investigation. he said, she was hesitant to complex May 12 with Mrs. Shapiro and her leave the apartment complex despite the husband and met with Mrs. Harman.

urging of police. The woman. separated from her police- Defense counsel John M. McClure atman husband. claimed Bordes had been tempted to show that police may have minkeeping her against her will in the third-floor imized the situation at the apartment.

conapartment and was beating her. She said she sidering it an on-going domestic dispute on occasionally left the apartment but returned one hand while taking precautions so they because of threats against her and the fami- weren't shot on the other. ly. the patrolman said. The trial's first witness was Margaret Clark said police attempted to help her Dunne, resident manager of the apartment and pursue the issue but she hesitated to complex.

who described how Mrs. Harman prosecute. picked up a six-month lease application She contended. Clark said. that the man which later was returned signed by a Mr.

and would be free on bail shortly after she Mrs. Yves Bordes. pressed charges before a justice of the peace. Mrs. Dunne said apartment records listed Clark quoted the 45-year-old defendant as the names Bonnie and Yves Bordes.

She said saying she planned to shoot Bordes on May 7 an eviction notice was filed after rent paybut was disarmed by him. She reported he ments stopped I in June. had two pistols in the apartment and warned Prosecutor Dale A. Reichley, a Bucks police he might gun them down. County deputy district attorney, termed the The patrolman said he was called to the murder a "thoughtful, willful and preapartment four days later to investigate a meditated killing" in his opening remarks to charge by Bordes that Mrs.

Harman had the jury. taken his car without permission. He said the He said the woman planned to kill Bordes matter was resolved when he got to the earlier and but at one time considered poisoning apartment used the visit to question him. Bordes about the woman's earlier charges. His body was found Aug.

28 near a Bordes was surprised." Clark testified. Philadelphia parking lot where Bordes denied the charges, he said. was dumped after the police said it shooting in a Lower The couple got into a dispute, and Mrs. Bucks motel. Harman denied ever making the allegations.

said witnesses Reichley will testify that the patrolman continued. the couple was seen in the motel the day of Clark said he had doubts about all the the slaying. Photography by MARK WEBER Bethlehem police and detectives examine grounds of the Branagan home on Pine Top Trail Senior at Freedom High found stabbed to death in her Bethlehem home By MARK WEBER and PEG Of The Morning Call A Bethlehem girl murdered with multiple stab day morning in the kitchen of exclusive residential section Moira Branagan Trail. a 17-year-old Freedom senior. was found dead by her RHODIN serious knife wounds.

three slight wounds and two defensive" wounds of the hands apparently received while trying to ward off was found the knife blows. There were indications of wounds yester- some struggle on the home in an body. her of the The residence a modern. two-level wood and concrete home with city. a circular of 469 Pine Top drive on a hillside is owned by the victim's High School father.

W. Richard Branagan. brother Sean 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. According 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 vesterday found no signs of burglary, robbery or forced entry.

Northampton County Coroner Joseph F. Reichel. in ruling the death a homicide. reported to Gallagher Miss Branagan had been dead since Wednesday and had not been sexually assaulted. An autopsy showed the victim had 15 Branagan, a sales manager with Lone Star Cement Nazareth.

was out of town afternoon and night and again yesterday on business yesterday. He was contacted by morning. he became worried and returned phone and returned to Bethlehem. The vic- home. tim's mother.

Mrs. S. Peggy (Kucher) According to a neighbor. a girl friend Branagan, died in November 1976. from school had stopped for the victim at her Gallagher said Miss Branagan had called home early yesterday morning, but left when her father, who was in Atlantic City.

shortly, the Branagan girl did not respond to the door after 5 p.m. Wednesday. The telephone in the bell. girl's room was off the hook when police Miss Branagan was born in Mont Clare. arrived.

Montgomery County. Gallagher said a friend from school had She was a member of St. Anne's Catholic dropped the victim off at the house after Church. Bethlehem. school on Wednesday, and she had changed Surviving with her father and brother is clothes before the murder occurred.

her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Lisa Miss Branagan's brother, a Lehigh Uni- Kucher of Vancouver. B.C.. Canada. versity student, also lives at the residence.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be at noon According to Gallagher, he was staying with Monday in the church. Calling hours will be a friend yesterday because they were work- private. The Connell Funeral Home. 245 E. ing on a car.

When he kept getting a busy Broad Bethlehem. is in charge of arsignal in trying to call his sister Wednesday rangements. Murder victim described no State reason last to fall. counsel When she her. had He helped difficulty her with file a an physics application course, to he Penn helped her drop the subject.

He had no other contact with her this as 'happy, a fine student' year. "She but had was been happy her and adviser appeared for the past three years. and well-adjusted. pleasant, attractive fairly tall, about 5 feet, 7 or 8 inches, had shortish Moira "Holly" Branagan "was happy and appeared well- dark hair. a nice circle of friends.

adjusted." was a good student especially interested in music and "I've never had any discipline problems with her. She came mathematics, and planned to enter Penn State University in the from a nice family. I knew her older brother, Sean. He was fall. according to teachers and other school officials who knew her.

friendly and outgoing: Miss Branagan. 17, a Freedom High School senior, was found "She had a 'B' average. I don't think she had decided what she slain in her Bethlehem home yesterday. wanted to do in life yet." Joseph McIntyre is of Freedom from which Mrs. Jean Ocker, Miss Branagan's music teacher, has known Miss Branagan would have principal graduated this High, her for three years.

She described Miss spring. He said she was balanced. mature student who faithful Branagan as a thought of. a fine student, a member of the school's concert very was and devoted in her choir and concert orchestra. She was planning to enter college in attendance to musical activities.

the "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.

Frank Delluva, her adviser at Freedom, said Miss Branagan no problems. Her attendance was good" and he had little or ANNE Lehigh jury finds AI Allentonian guilty of robbery, 2 rapes By DICK COWEN Judge John E. Backenstoe revoked thrown into a blue Pinto station wagon testimony supporting his She said Of The Morning Call bail, which Ross had been unable to by her assailant. driven to the Morris story. afterward, the man told he said he got upset because his sister raise earlier.

Ross was returned to Black near 3rd and Union Various defense witnesses traced he was George Ross, sang her a and her boy friend argued all the time. her George Ross. 30. of Allentown, was Lehigh County Prison where he has streets where she was in the Ross's movements earlier in the eve- song he had composed and gave her At another point, he said he got upset property found guilty yesterday by a Lehigh been since his arrest in October. raped ning beginning around 6 p.m.

when some poems he had written. The poems after the sex with the 22-year-old when County jury of raping and robbing a 19- early back of the vehicle. he and his manager, Morning Call had his name on. she went into the bathroom and made vear-old woman last summer and rap- No date was set for sentencing. She said that when the man drove movie critic Dale Schneck went to Ross said the encounter all up her face.

was a 22-year-old year woman last pending any post-trial motions by the her back to the area of 13th and Maple Quakertown. voluntary and that he had not punched Of the Oct. 3 incident. he said. "It ing fall in after-midnight incidents in Allen- defense.

town. Asst. Dist. Atty. Robert Steinberg and told her to take a good look at him.

-The 22-year-old victim said Ross. streets. he turned on the interior light- the woman or bitten her. He said he was body language, body language. in blue discussed with her a poem he had Then later.

do you explain body handled the prosecution Ross. who had a Pinto station wagon, cut off written on homosexuality, but he as- language?" And still later. "It's hard The offenses occurred while Ross She identified Ross as her attacker. her car about 12:30 a.m. Oct.

3 on was on parole in a 5 to 20-year jail been a professional singer. was repre- South Side street a sured her that he was not gay. explain body language. sentence for the and beating of sented by Public Defender Armando said he was at home at 370 home. Steinberg, in his summation to the Steinberg asked Ross if he forced Ross as she was heading rape Salazar and private counsel Malcom Hickory Lane from 11:30 p.m.

with his two age girls in 1972 on the Lehigh jury, termed Ross "a man wanting to himself upon the woman on Oct. 3. University campus. Gross. girl sister a.m..

alone She said she got out when the man be caught." by telling the first victim friend and until 2 Ross paused for awhile. then said. -'The 19-year-old testified she was briefly while the women went out with repeatedly claimed her car damaged to get a good look at his face and by physically force. The jury of nine men and three grabbed behind shortly after mid- and then with his girl friend the rest of his. She said she was subsequently giving the second woman his name and It from his car (a blue Pinto station wagon) 16 was Judge David E.

Mellenberg women deliberated about four hours night Aug. near 13th and Maple that night. grabbed, punched, bitten on the face taking her to his apartment. who ruled sometime shortly before the before coming in with their verdicts streets while walking home. and then driven by him to an apartment Ross rambled and digressed fre- trial against a defense that the request about 8:30 p.m.

She said she was beaten. then His girl friend and hissister gave at Valley View where she was raped. quently in his testimony. At one point. two rape cases be tried separately.

MOIRA BRANAGAN.