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Michael Breisch charged with 1989 murder of Rose Hnath in Pennsylvania
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (CBS) — After more than three decades, a man has been arrested in Ohio for his connection with the 1989 killing of a woman in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley thanks to advances in DNA.
Michael Breisch, 65, is now in custody in Lehigh County for the killing of 78-year-old Rose Hnath, after he was taken into custody in Coshocton County, Ohio.
Hnath, a widow who lived alone, was found dead on Jan. 21, 1989. Police say relatives arrived at her home in the Coplay section of North Whitehall Township on the west bank of the Lehigh River and found her on the floor and the home ransacked.
They went to her home after she did not appear at a church service she attended regularly.
An autopsy revealed Hnath had received multiple blunt force injuries and stab wounds. She had defensive wounds indicating she tried to fight off her attacker, Holihan said in a news release.
Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said at the time of the crime, Breisch was living in the Lehigh Valley at a community corrections facility in the Allentown area.
Breisch was 30 years old at the time.
Holihan announced Breisch’s arrest in a news conference Thursday in Allentown. He credited the work of investigators including Joseph Vasquez, who was on the case from the beginning, arriving at the crime scene within hours while with the Pennsylvania State Police.
Vasquez continued to work on the case with the Lehigh County Homicide Task Force.
“Although [the case] went cold, it was never forgotten and it was never put aside,” Holihan said. He credited investigators’ work in collecting and preserving the evidence – so that decades later, it could be used for a type of DNA analysis that didn’t exist in 1989.
“We have no idea what the technology is going to be 20 years from now or 30 years from now,” Holihan said. “So when the evidence is collected, it’s important to preserve it.”
The DNA was found on weapons including a knife and pellet gun found near the scene that investigators believe were used in the crime, Holihan said.
“They didn’t know that the pieces they collected would somehow be able to be tested for touch DNA. But they did their job and did it well. … It’s a testament to the work they did then,” he added.
Investigators have spoken with Hnath’s family and notified them there has been an arrest.
“They’re gratified and relieved that an arrest has been made,” Holihan said.
Breisch is also charged with burglarizing Hnath’s home and other first-degree felonies including robbery and aggravated assault. He is being held in the Lehigh County Jail without bail and has a preliminary hearing scheduled for May 21.
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The U.S. will remove all its forces and equipment from a small base in Niger this weekend and fewer than 500 remaining troops will leave a critical drone base in the West African country in August, ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline set in an agreement with the new ruling junta, the American commander there said Friday.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman said in an interview that a number of small teams of 10-20 U.S. troops, including special operations forces, have moved to other countries in West Africa. But the bulk of the forces will go, at least initially, to Europe.
Tech. Sgt. Christopher Dyer / AP
Niger’s ouster of American troops following a coup last year has broad ramifications for the U.S. because it is forcing troops to abandon the critical drone base that was used for counterterrorism missions in the Sahel.
Ekman and other U.S. military leaders have said other West African nations want to work with the U.S. and may be open to an expanded American presence. He did not detail the locations, but other U.S. officials have pointed to the Ivory Coast and Ghana as examples.
Ekman, who serves as the director for strategy at U.S. Africa Command, is leading the U.S. military withdrawal from the small base at the airport in Niger’s capital of Niamey and from the larger counterterrorism base in the city of Agadez. He said there will be a ceremony Sunday marking the completed pullout from the airport base, then those final 100 troops and the last C-17 transport aircraft will depart.
Speaking to reporters from The Associated Press and Reuters from the U.S. embassy in Niamey, Ekman said that while portable buildings and vehicles that are no longer useful will be left behind, a lot of larger equipment will be pulled out. For example, he said 18 4,000-pound (1,800-kilograms) generators worth more than $1 million each will be taken out of Agadez.
Unlike the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said the U.S. is not destroying equipment or facilities as it leaves.
“Our goal in the execution is, leave things in as good a state as possible,” he said. “If we went out and left it a wreck or we went out spitefully, or if we destroyed things as we went, we’d be foreclosing options” for future security relations.
AFP via Getty
Niger’s ruling junta ordered U.S. forces out of the country in the wake of last July’s ouster of the country’s democratically elected president by mutinous soldiers. French forces had also been asked to leave as the junta turned to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for security assistance.
Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup in October, triggering U.S. laws restricting the military support and aid.
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