In late January 1924, six weeks after the murder, Francis Gemberling was named special county detective to pick up the case where others had left off. At that point, the state police had left town weeks ago, and Gemberling resumed the hunting down of clues and stray rumors. Three months after he came onto the case, in May 1924, Gemberling announced that his probe had taken a new direction. Another month went by, and area newspapers claimed that an arrest was imminent. It took two more months before the case budged. On July 31, police arrested Ralph Shadel. The Shamokin Dispatch dangled one last tantalizing detail before ending its report on Shadel’s arrest: “Since the crime it is said that Shadel has been living with Willow’s wife on a farm between Kratzerville and New Berlin.” Attentive readers would have known exactly what that meant.
Although he was held “for observation” and not officially arrested, time in the county jail was enough to make Ralph confess. A little deception from the police helped. Gemberling allegedly told Ralph, “If you don’t confess by Monday, we will have a man here from Harrisburg with a machine that will search your soul. It will read the twinkle in your eye and the secrets of your heart. If you lie then as you’re lying now, you will be exposed.” That night, Ralph told Reuben Weirick, an inmate being held for desertion and non-support, that he had killed Harvey at Annie’s prodding. Weirick told his jailers, hoping, no doubt, that he’d collect the $1,000 reward that the county commissioners were offering to anyone providing information about the murder.
Once the love triangle angle emerged, the local affair of Harvey Willow’s murder proved to be anything but local. This small-town murder created a sort of excitement and entertainment, not only for local folks, but for people across the country. August 1924 saw the start of a long saga about love, abuse, and fatal choices. The press slowly dug into the complicated, intertwined lives of Harvey, Annie, and Ralph. The initial coverage depicted Annie as an amoral villain. The Harrisburg Telegraph opened its story with this line: “Because she preferred the society of a 17-year-old giant farm boy to that of her hard-working 35-year-old husband…” The paper reported that “feeling against the woman is high” in Snyder County. The question of Ralph’s morality and intelligence was on the minds of many, at least as the papers told it. The sheriff arrested Annie, who denied everything and apparently collapsed in her jail cell.
The local press gorged on every detail. State trooper Arthur Fox and county constable Gemberling, it was learned, had shadowed the pair over the summer, hiding in the woods near their farmhouse and following them when they traveled to neighbors or to country festivals. They noticed that Shadel no longer spent Saturday nights in Selinsgrove, as he had in previous years. When he and Annie drove to town, they said, Ralph parked the car on a side street and stayed in the vehicle while she shopped or visited friends. He seemed to be meditating on serious matters, and his grave demeanor raised suspicions. Without any evidence, Fox and Gemberling took a chance that bringing Ralph in would nudge him toward confessing. Ralph’s confession stated that Annie Willow, after receiving drunken death threats from her husband, coerced Shadel to murder Harvey in hopes that they could be together. Ralph said that she originally wanted him to shoot Harvey through the glass of the farmhouse door, but the hunting trip seemed like a better opportunity.
Annie confessed three days after Ralph, reportedly sobbing, “I was getting tired of him, and Ralph was so nice to me.” Ralph said she had been adamant, “whatever you do, don’t cripple him.”
According to the Evening News of Harrisburg, “hundreds of the curious” walked through the murder site during the first weekend after the confessions, August 9-10. They were apparently looking for a better sense of the crime and took sticks and rocks as souvenirs. In the following week, the press started reporting that Annie and Ralph might change their pleas when the case against them went to court during the October 1924 session. Another narrative shifted that week, as details about Harvey’s treatment of Annie began appearing in stories nationwide. Readers of the Santa Ana Register, in Santa Ana, California, for instance, would have read on Tuesday, August 12, that Harvey had cornered Annie with a shotgun the night before his death. She said he had accused her of “lavishing her love on his young farm hand.” From a cot in her jail cell, Annie claimed that Harvey had committed adultery first, had beaten her and kicked her (once in the presence of his sister, Effie), and was generally the opposite of his public persona as a mild, diligent farmer.
The Shamokin Dispatch noted, “There is little doubt that a hard legal battle will be fought. Everybody in Snyder County wants the trial held at Middleburg, where close touch can be kept on it.” Judge Miles Potter cleared the docket for October, pushing all other cases to December to allow total focus on the Willow trial. Newspapers reported that the only two inmates of the jail were given the full run of their respective floors (Annie on the first floor, Ralph on the second). The Selinsgrove Times predicted that Middleburg would be “thronged with thousands of the curious” during the trial and worried that the town might not be able to handle the crowds. The courthouse could hold only 400 people, so the expected overflow would likely hang around the courthouse to revel in the drama. With one hotel and two restaurants, Middleburg was not equipped to house and feed the masses, although women from the Lutheran and Evangelical churches in town vowed to serve food (and make a little money for their congregations).
The actual trials could begin only if the grand jury found reason to indict Annie and Ralph in the first place. Under Pennsylvania’s quarter session system, grand juries were convened only when the regular court sessions proceeded, four times a year. In this system, indictments would be followed immediately by the trials. This happened quickly on the first morning of the session. Then jury selection commenced. Because of the press coverage, not one juror examined by the attorneys had not heard of the case beforehand. Many of the selected jurors admitted that although they had already formed an opinion about the case, they were willing to reevaluate it. That was about as good as anyone could expect, given the pervasive buzz around the case. The Selinsgrove Times took a positive view: “The Snyder County characteristic of deliberate mindedness is an important part of every one of them.”
Most of the members of the jury were farmers, their ages ranging from mid-thirties to seventies. This was significant for several reasons. Farmers would have imagined the pressures that had weighed on Harvey Willow, the worries that any farmer faced in an era of declining agricultural prices. Such an understanding could have made jurors excuse the abuse allegations that Annie raised in court. It seems that many in the area viewed Harvey as a fellow “hard-working farmer,” and so they tended to side against Annie and Ralph. All of the jurors were also men, likely making them more sympathetic to Harvey’s position. At the very least, they would have been familiar with old stories about the power that ruthless women held over impressionable men. This mattered, because the trial came down to a question of degrees. No one denied that Ralph and Annie had conspired to kill Harvey; the main issue was whether the murder could be rationalized. Finally, the jurors’ ages could have made them side with the older Harvey over the younger Ralph.
The jurors were:
| JUROR | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| H. W. Romig | 75-year-old farmer from Penn Township |
| James Dreese | 63-year-old farmer from Spring Township |
| David Mattern | 65-year-old general store merchant from Adams Township |
| George Will | 37-year-old farmer from West Beaver Township |
| William F. Gemberling | 57-year-old farmer from Washington Township |
| J. R. Crossgrove | 55-year-old farmer from Centre Township |
| Emmet May | 59-year-old farmer from Spring Township |
| George B. Straub | 39-year-old carriage painter from Washington Township |
| J. F. Wendt | 67-year-old farmer from East Franklin Township |
| Charles Fisher | 39-year-old farm laborer from Spring Township |
| George Spaid | 52-year-old "gentleman" from Middleburg |
| Irvin Bowersox | 31-year-old farmer from Spring Township |