OBIT: Amanda (Christner) HARDEN, 1932, formerly of Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

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AMANDA HARDEN

Multiple Murder in Connellsville

Elderly Widow and Her Widowed Daughter and Two Children Victims

Brutally Hacked to Death with a Hatchet

Murdered Women, Amanda Harden and Nellie Tressler, Former Residents of 
Meyersdale - Suitor of Latter Held as Suspect - Little Boy Still Lives But is 
Expected to Die - Motive of Crime Unknown

  Mrs. Amanda Harden, aged 62, and her daughter, Mrs. Nellie Tressler, were 
brutally murdered in their home in Connellsville, Wednesday morning, and Mrs. 
Tressler's daughter, Sadie, aged 11, and son, Billy, aged 9, were terribly 
wounded, the little girl having since died, and the little boy being in a 
precarious condition in the Connellsville Hospital.
  News of the tragedy, telephoned to Meyersdale, Wednesday afternoon, shocked 
relatives and friends of the victims who formerly lived here.
  A suitor of Mrs. Nellie Tressler, Philip Renda, aged 40, is being held in the 
Uniontown jail after being questioned in connection with the murders.  He was 
the last person to visit the little family in their cottage where their bodies 
were discovered by a neighbor lad.  Renda was said to have been courting Mrs. 
Tressler for more than two years and admitted having visited her Tuesday 
evening.  It is thought that a hatchet, that Mrs. Harden used in cutting 
kindling wood was used in this brutal murder.  The bodies of the victims were 
terribly hacked and mutilated.
  The tragedy was discovered by Orlando Molinare, aged 11, who lives near the 
Tressler home.  He went to the house about 10:30 o'clock Wednesday morning and 
found the battered, hacked, partially clad body of Mrs. Tressler lying on the 
lawn, and shouted for neighbors who summoned the proper authorities.
  Police broke into the house, all the doors and windows of which had been 
locked from the inside, and found the mutilated body of Mrs. Harden, doubled up 
like a jacknife, lying between two beds.  On one of the latter was Billy, 
wounded, unconscious and moaning. In a living room they found Sadie lying on the 
floor, also hacked with the hatchet but still living.  She was rushed to the 
Connellsville Hospital with Billy.  She died six hours later without regaining 
consciousness.
  Billy, who became partially conscious during the day, stated at one time that 
his mother committed the deed.  Hospital attaches said, however, the boy was not 
normal when he made the statement, and the coroner said the condition and 
position of Mrs. Tressler's body would have made it impossible for her to have 
killed herself after murdering her mother and children.
  Renda, who lives a short distance from the Tressler home, said the family were 
well when he left them.  Further questioning of Renda will be conducted, 
however.
  Mrs. Harden is a daughter of Jacob Christner of Berlin.  When she was a child 
she lived with her parents in Garrett.  Mrs. Peter Klink, of Berlin, Mrs. Martin 
Foy, of Meyersdale, and Mrs. Samuel Bockes, of Cumberland, are sisters of Mrs. 
Harden.  She also has one daughter, Mrs. J. Davis, of Connellsville, who 
survives.

Meyersdale Republican, October 13, 1932