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Styling: 3 ways to handle past poor purchases

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Their view: Maybe campaign reform isn’t so quixotic

<p>Seventeen years after women began being selected as jurors in Luzerne County, a woman from Ashley became the first female to serve as a juror for a homicide trial in 1937.</p><p>Lucy Graham, a housewife who lived at 33 N. Main St., was the lone female juror for the trial of Horace &#8220;BowWow&#8221; Bowers, 25, who stood accused in fatally shooting state police Private John J. Broske.</p><p>Years after Bowers and his accomplice Victor Andreoli, 22, were sentenced to life in prison, they escaped from the famed Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia.</p><p>Broske, 42, of Plains Township, was a member of the state police motor unit and a deputy fire marshal. He was inside the Boulevard Inn on East End Boulevard, Bear Creek Township, on Aug. 14, 1937, when Bowers and Andreoli entered with plans to rob the tavern and patrons.</p><p>Bowers was armed with a sawed-off shotgun and Andreoli brandished a revolver.</p><p>When Broske intervened, Bowers shot the state policeman in the back during a struggle. Broske died during surgery at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital hours later, the Times Leader reported Aug. 15, 1937.</p><p>Bowers and Andreoli fled the Inn with $75.</p><p>Within days, Bowers and Andreoli were arrested outside their homes in Philadelphia. The shotgun was recovered in Lake Wallenpaupack where the two men stayed before and after the fatal shooting, reported the Times Leader on Aug. 24, 1937.</p><p>A Luzerne County grand jury on Aug. 31, 1937, indicted the two men on murder charges. Bowers and Andreoli each pleaded guilty to first-degree murder but as court procedures dictated in the early 1900s, they were awarded separate trials for juries to decide their punishment &#8211; life-in-prison or death by electric chair.</p><p>Bowers&#8217; trial commenced first before Judge William S. McLean.</p><p>&#8220;The jury includes Mrs. Homer Graham, wife of the Ashley undertaker, who is the first woman to pass judgment on a homicide case in the history of Luzerne County,&#8221; the Times Leader reported Sept. 28, 1937.</p><p>When the trial began late in the afternoon of Sept. 28, 1937, Bowers made a dramatic appeal to jurors.</p><p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t shoot this man maliciously. It is the truth if ever the truth were spoken. That shotgun was discharged accidentally. If you jurors think I killed that man in cold blood I shall welcome the extreme penalty which is death,&#8221; Bowers told jurors as reported in the Times Leader the same day.</p><p>The jury deliberated a total of 51 hours before reaching a verdict of punishment for Bowers, who was sentenced to life-in-prison. Judge McLean upheld the jury&#8217;s verdict despite expressing his reluctance that he should have met his maker, the Times Leader reported Oct. 2, 1937.</p><p>&#8220;The penalty of life imprisonment under the circumstances of the killing came as a surprise to the district attorney&#8217;s office which demanded and expected the punishment to be death in the electric chair,&#8221; the Wilkes-Barre Record reported Oct. 2, 1937.</p><p>Graham&#8217;s historic moment as the first female juror to sit on a homicide trial came to an end.</p><p>A separate all-male jury was selected to determine Andreoli&#8217;s punishment, which verdict rendered life-in-prison.</p><p>Bowers and Andreoli were housed at the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia to serve their sentences</p><p>Their stories didn&#8217;t end at the famed prison.</p><p>Andreoli escaped on Oct. 27, 1943, by concealing himself in a truck that left the prison yard, the Times Leader reported Oct. 28, 1943.</p><p>During his flight, Andreoli went to a friend&#8217;s house in Philadelphia where he held a knife to the throat of a 6-year-old girl while demanding a change of clothes, food and keys to a vehicle, a Philadelphia newspaper reported Oct. 28, 1943.</p><p>Eleven days after Andreoli escaped, he was killed during a gun battle with state police when he was found at the Rainbow Grille restaurant in Chester.</p><p>&#8220;Andreoli was dropped in his tracks by four bullets from the pistols of three state policemen, who closed in on him as he huddled over is food at a lunch counter,&#8221; reported the Times Leader on Nov. 6, 1943.</p><p>Less than two years after Andreoli&#8217;s escape, Bowers and 11 other inmates crawled through a tunnel dug under the high prison walls on April 3, 1945. Five inmates were immediately captured when they emerged from the tunnel 97 feet in length.</p><p>A Philadelphia newspaper reported the tunnel was dug by two inmates who planned to flee at breakfast time, but other inmates, including Bowers, learned of the escape plot and rushed to the hole, alerting prison guards.</p><p>The Times Leader reported April 4, 1945, Bowers jumped into a milk truck throwing the driver out of the cab.</p><p>&#8220;Police said Bowers drove the truck which a squad car overtook after a seven block chase. They said Bowers swerved the truck into the police car and knocked a wheel off the milk truck,&#8221; the Times Leader reported.</p><p>Bowers jumped out of the truck&#8217;s cab and charged at the police officer who shot him once in the chest. He survived.</p><p>The state Board of Pardons commuted Bowers&#8217; life sentence in 1962 and he was released on parole in June 1963, the Times Leader reported April 21, 1970, when Bowers was arrested for being involved in a multi-state theft ring. </p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Lucy-Graham-TL-09281936.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Lucy Graham </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Lucy-Graham-TL-09281936.jpg</photo0><caption0>Lucy Graham </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Bowers-Andreoli-TL-08241937.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Horace Bowers, left, and Victor Andreoli </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Bowers-Andreoli-TL-08241937.jpg</photo1><caption1>Horace Bowers, left, and Victor Andreoli </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_John-J.-Broske.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Broske </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_John-J.-Broske.jpg</photo2><caption2>Broske </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Both convicts escaped from state prison </subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Ed Lewis</p><p>elewis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

Look Back: First female as juror on 1937 homicide trial