ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Lehigh County jury has acquitted a Wind Gap man of all charges in the decades-old killing of a 78-year-old widow found dead in her North Whitehall Township home in 1989.
After a weeklong trial, jurors on Friday found Michael Breisch, 67, not guilty of homicide, burglary, robbery and aggravated assault in the death of Rose Josephine Hnath.
District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan and Capt. Seth J. Kelly, commanding officer of Pennsylvania State Police Troop M, announced the verdict Friday evening.
Hnath, a widow who lived alone at 2690 S 2nd St. along the banks of the Lehigh River, was found dead Jan. 21, 1989, after failing to appear at a church service she regularly attended. Family members who went to check on her discovered her body inside her ransacked home.
She died from multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma, and her death was ruled a homicide by the Lehigh County coroner.
Breisch, a former Allentown man, was arrested in 2024 after investigators said DNA found on a BB gun recovered near the scene matched his genetic profile. Prosecutors alleged that DNA evidence linked him to Hnath’s killing, but the defense argued that the connection was not conclusive and that there was no clear motive tying him to the crime.
Jurors deliberated for several hours before returning a not-guilty verdict on all counts.
The case was investigated by the Pennsylvania State Police Troop M Criminal Investigation Unit, with assistance from the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Laboratory, the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and officials from Coshocton County, Ohio. Charges were filed by Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Jared Christman and Trooper Zachary McCornac, along with Lehigh County District Attorney detectives Robert Egan and Joseph Vazquez.
The case was prosecuted by First Assistant District Attorney Eric K. Dowdle.
No further comment was immediately available from the district attorney’s office or Breisch’s defense team.
