Leamer, Samuel: 1956

Ninty-two year old Samuel Leamer was murdered by his grandson, Glenn A. Leamer in 1955, for $17.00.  Leamer, a 31-year-old unemployed truck driver, pleaded guilty and was convicted of first degree murder.  He confessed that he had choked his grandfather to death, struck him with a lead pipe, took the seventeen dollars, and dumped the body in an abandoned quarry near Williamsburg.  He was sentenced to death in the electric chair by Judge john M. Klepser after a three day trial.
Leamer appealed to the state supreme court. His claim was that the court had abused its powers by sentencing Leamer to death even though the district attorney did not specifically ask for it.  His attorney, Richard Carothers, stated the court had also failed to consider Leamer’s economic instability, poor health, limited education, and poor family background.  On September 25, 1956, Chief Justice Horace Stern denied the appeal, saying the crime was brutally planned, horrible, murder in the first degree and should be treated as such.  He noted Leamer’s particular pains to cover his tracks.
Leamer requested a new trial in 1957, claiming his civil rights had been violated. This request held up his execution, scheduled for February 11, 1957.  Judge Klepser overruled his own previous decision and granted the new trial.  District Attorney Warefl this time asked for the either death penalty or life imprisonment to be applied.  Leamer pleaded innocent.
Glenn A. Leamer died in Huntingdon on May 25, 2001.