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<p>Brown covered packages, neatly wrapped, bearing the notation &#8220;sample,&#8221; and the addresses written in pencil, each bearing two three cent stamps and weighing about two pounds each, caused a reign of terror in the Wyoming Valley on April 10, 1936, the Evening News reported the same day.</p><p>The mail-bombings became known as the Good Friday bombings as the date fell on the holy day.</p><p>Two packages exploded while four others were intercepted and soaked in buckets of water.</p><p>Thomas Maloney, 44, former president of United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania, and his son, Thomas Jr., 4, were killed and his daughter, Margaret, 16, was injured when a package was opened and exploded inside their Wilkes-Barre Township home on East Northampton Street.</p><p>A package was opened inside a home on East Saint Marys Road, Hanover Township, killing Michael Gallagher, 64, a school director for Hanover Township and caretaker at St. Marys Cemetery. His son-in-law, Clinton Lehman, 35, a Hanover Township school teacher, was also injured.</p><p>Packages that were intercepted were sent to Luzerne County Judge Benjamin R. Jones, county Sheriff Luther Kniffen and Glen Alden Coal Company Superintendent Harry Goulston.</p><p>&#8220;This afternoon, police and postal officials sounded a warning to all persons not to open any packages answering the description as given by the post office earlier in the day,&#8221; the Evening News reported as WBRE radio broadcasted the warnings.</p><p>The Times Leader reported April 10, 1936, that the packages were dropped in a mail box at North Main and Jackson streets, Wilkes-Barre, the previous night.</p><p>One person questioned during the investigation, Anthony Denovige, 33, a laborer for the Glen Alden Coal Company, took his own life by exploding dynamite he tapped to himself inside a coal mine in Buttonwood, Hanover Township, the Evening News reported April 16, 1936.</p><p>After months of &#8220;censorship&#8221; by postal inspectors and local detectives on releasing information, the Times Leader reported July 2, 1936, officials announced the home of Michael Fugmann, 51, was searched the same day.</p><p>Detectives and state police dug up the dirt basement and removed many boxes from Fugmann&#8217;s home at 31 Oaklawn Avenue in Hanover Township. Fugmann was at one time a close friend to Thomas Maloney and was employed by the Glen Alden Coal Company at the Buttonwood Colliery.</p><p>Fugmann, a German soldier during World War I who immigrated to the United States in 1924, was taken into custody on July 2, 1936, when he was released from Moses Taylor Hospital, Scranton, where he was recovering from a mine-related injury he suffered eight weeks earlier. He was officially charged July 8, 1936 and pleaded &#8220;not guilty&#8221; later that day before Luzerne County Judge John S. Fine, the Times Leader reported.</p><p>Fugmann&#8217;s trial at the Luzerne County Courthouse began Sept. 21, 1936, before specially assigned Monroe County Judge Samuel E. Shull. State police troopers patrolled the overflow crowd on the third floor.</p><p>A jury of 12 men listened to testimony from more than 130 witnesses over 17 days before returning a verdict of &#8220;guilty&#8221; on each of the 10 counts filed against Fugmann on Oct. 8, 1936, the Evening News reported the same day.</p><p>Fugmann was sentenced to death. His conviction and death sentence was upheld on appeal.</p><p>&#8220;As he walked unassisted to the aged oaken chair, Fugmann kept repeating in a broken tongue, &#8216;I must pay with my life for a crime I did not commit,&#8217;&#8221; the Times Leader reported July 18, 1938, when he was executed in the electric chair at Rockview Prison in Bellefonte. </p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Michael-Fugmann-TL-07181938-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Fugmann </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Michael-Fugmann-TL-07181938-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Fugmann </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Michael-Fugmann-home-TL-07021936-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">State police searched Michael Fugmann&#8217;s house at 31 Oaklawn Ave., Hanover Township, on July 3, 1936. (Times Leader photo) </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Michael-Fugmann-home-TL-07021936-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>State police searched Michael Fugmann&#8217;s house at 31 Oaklawn Ave., Hanover Township, on July 3, 1936. (Times Leader photo) </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Thomas-Maloney-home-EN-04101936-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">A picture published in the Evening News on April 10, 1936, shows the scene outside the home of Thomas Maloney at 694 E. Northampton St., Wilkes-Barre Township. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Thomas-Maloney-home-EN-04101936-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>A picture published in the Evening News on April 10, 1936, shows the scene outside the home of Thomas Maloney at 694 E. Northampton St., Wilkes-Barre Township. </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Ed Lewis</p><p>elewis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

Look Back: Good Friday mail bombings in 1936