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0 TWOHarding to stand trial forBy NANCY LOWRY News Staff WriterRobert Leroy Harding was ordered held for court yesterday on charges of criminal homicide and murder in the first degree.Harding, 35, was arrested by Trooper Richard Matas of the state police, the prosecutor in the case, following the shooting of his estranged wife Betty Ann Harding, 31, at her home at 8 E. Ranney Ave., South New Castle Borough on Nov. 25.He was represented yesterday by Attorneys Peter E. Homey and Carmen F. Lamancusa.At the preliminary hearing yesterday before District Justice Ruth E. French, assistant district attorney Paul W. Johnson said Harding had potential motive for the crime.“THIS WOULD appear to have been a family matter since there was no evidence that any other crime, such as burglary, might have taken place. Since Mrs. Harding had been shot in the back with a shotgun, it would not appear to be a case of suicide,” Johnson added.William and Doris Fletcher of Savannah Road, with whom Harding had been living prior to his wife’s death, testified that Harding wasagitated about job and family problems and had become upset following a phone conversation with his wife that day.Johnson added that Harding left the Fletchers’ home that evening with a shotgun which he kept at their house.At the Ranney Avenue home, police found Harding’s jacket which had 12-gauge shotgun shells in one pocket. More shells, a shotgun and a rifle were found in his car which was parked in the driveway.Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher testified that Harding was upset when he left their home between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Nov. 24. He was almost incoherent when he returned at about 1:30 a.m. the next morning and woke them, they said.“He said ‘I think I killed her. I think she’s dead, ” said Mrs. Fletcher, who is Harding’s aunt.FLETCHER, WHO dressed and returned with Harding to his South New Castle Borough home, said he found Mrs. Harding’s body in the kitchen. “I called my wife and said ‘Betty’s dead, ” he said. Mrs. Fletcher, he said, gave him the number of an ambulance. He then waited with Harding for the ambulance andstate police to arrive. Fletcher added that although a glass panel in the kitchen door had been broken and pieces of glass lay on the floor, there were no signs that a struggle had taken place in the Harding kitchen that evening.Mrs. Fletcher and her daughter later came to the Harding residence. She was asked by the state police to provide them with a written statement of what she recalled happening that night and asked to remain with the Harding children until arrangements could be made to care for them.Wayne Joseph Alexander, of the William F. and Roger M. DeCarbo Ambulance Co., responded to the call at the Harding residence about 2 a.m. on Nov. 25, 1980. He recalled meeting Fletcher outside the residence.“He told us, ‘I think he shot her,’” Alexander said. “We asked if he was still in the house and still armed. He was there, but not armed.”ALEXANDER SAID he examined the body fa- evidence of life. Finding none, he said, “I contacted the dispatcher, told him that there had been a shooting and asked that he contact the state police and coroner. We waited outside for them,” he said.NEW CASTLE NEWmurderCoroner Howard H. Reynolds said Mrs. Harding had been shot in the lower back, “at close range with a shotgun.”Lamancusa took exception to Reynolds’ statement on the death certificate which said that Mrs. Harding had been “shot by her husband in the kitchen.”“That is what was reported to me,” Reynolds said.All witnesses testified that there was little blood at the scene. Mrs. Harding’s body, they said, had fallen face up on a throw rug on the kitchen floor.Trooper Matas, the prosecutor in the case, said he had found 12-gauge shotgun shells in the pocket of a jacket identified as belonging to Harding in the kitchen of the South New Castle Borough house. He found more shells in Harding’s car, which was parked in the driveway of the house, and found a shotgun and rifle in the car.Both Horney and Lamancusa asked that they be given photographs, police reports and the list of witnesses questioned by the state police following the shooting. Johnson advised them to submit their request, in writing, to the district attorney’s office.
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New Castle News
New Castle, Pennsylvania, US
Sat, Jan 17, 1981
Page 2
Full Page
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FL, USA 28 Feb 2025
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