Boy executed for 1931 murder will get new day in court
Hearing Monday for new trial in ‘shocking’ case
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » Common Pleas Court President Judge Kevin F. Kelly will hold a hearing today on a joint motion from defense attorney Robert Keller and District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, who are seeking a new trial for 16-year-old Alexander McClay Williams more than 90 years after his conviction and execution for murder.
Williams, an African American, was accused of killing Vida Robare, a 34-year-old matron at the Glen Mills School for Boys, on the afternoon of Oct. 3, 1930. The victim, who was white, was discovered by her ex-husband, Fred Robare, at about 5 p.m. in the second-floor bedroom of her on-site cottage.
The victim had been stabbed 47 times with an icepick, and suffered a fractured skull and broken ribs. The crime appeared to be one of passion.
None of the 600 students at the school was initially suspected of carrying out the attack. A bloody handprint was left at the scene, but apparently never compared with the adults and students at the school, as originally proposed. Other suspects, including Robare’s husband, were not investigated.
William H. Ridley, the first African-American lawyer in the county, was assigned the case, but Keller said he was hamstrung. Ridley was given just $10 and two months to mount a defense, said Keller. The trial lasted two days and the all-white jury deliberated for four hours before convicting on Jan. 6, 1931. Williams was executed June 8, 1931, about six weeks shy of his 17th birthday.
Ridley’s great-grandson, Sam Lemon, who holds a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania, spent 30 years researching the case and wrote a book about it titled “The Case That Shocked the Country.”
Working with Lemon, then-District Attorney Jack Whelan and Susie Carter, Williams’ sister and sole surviving relative, Keller was able secure an expungement for Williams in 2017 from Common Pleas Judge John Capuzzi.
That order vacated the criminal record while keeping the court file and Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts docket intact, Keller explained, so that there remains a historical record of the case. But Carter, now in her 90s, argued at the time that her brother should not merely have had his record expunged.
“He was not guilty,” she said. “They should have exonerated him.”
Whelan, now a Common Pleas judge himself, said in 2017 that he was willing to work with Keller to reach the goal of expunging whatever he legally could, but had no comment on Williams’ guilt or innocence.
Keller was not optimistic in 2017 that a retrial would ever be possible because all of the evidence had been destroyed. It was not until he and Lemon met with Stollsteimer last year that he felt anything more could be done to clear the boy’s name.
“Sadly, we cannot undo the past,” said Stollsteimer. “We cannot rewrite history to erase the egregious wrongs of our forbearers. However, when, as here, justice can be served by publicly acknowledging such a wrong, we must seize that opportunity.”
“I gave Jack the transcript and all the information that we had about the theory of the case, and while Jack was on summer vacation, he read through it all,” said Keller. “Then since that time I’ve been meeting with the D.A. and we finally met with President Judge Kelly, and after several meetings with him and suggestions, I prepared the (motion).”
That petition argues that Williams’ most basic due process rights were violated in a “shocking…miscarriage of justice” and the court should grant extraordinary relief to correct the errors at trial.
“At trial, no exculpatory witnesses were called; Alexander’s ‘confession’ was wrongfully admitted and his right to an appeal of his conviction and death sentence were not preserved,” the motion states.
Lemon previously said Williams confessed while undergoing his third interrogation by police, during which no parent or attorney was present. Ridley was not even assigned the case until 17 days after the boy had been charged, said Keller.
Lemon said two forensic psychologists had looked at the case and concluded the boy probably had some mental issues, but no history of violence. Williams was likely so confused and manipulated by his jailers that he did not know what he was saying, Lemon said.
Keller said the family was so incensed after the conviction that they hired another, white lawyer for Williams, who basically did nothing. No appeal was filed and no stay of execution was ever sought, he said, despite the boy’s statutory right to both.
“My view is, just trying to look back and understand why this Black lawyer was (appointed) to represent the boy, I think it was a set-up,” he said. “They were just basically trying to put this Black lawyer in a very bad position. They knew this kid was going to be convicted, and it worked — I mean, the all-white jury convicted the boy, the Black community turned on the lawyer, and within six months of the trial, this boy was put to death. So it was really tragic.”
The motion argues that racial bias played a significant role in Williams’ conviction and that courts have a special duty to correct such errors where they can. The Supreme Court has also deemed capital punishment “cruel and unusual” when applied to juveniles, the petition says.
Keller and Stollsteimer additionally point to potentially exculpatory evidence either discovered after trial or never raised as a defense. Keller credited Lemon with doing the legwork and extensive research in unravelling the case, including the unlikely timeline put forth by the prosecution for the murder itself.
Lemon has determined that it simply was not possible for Williams to have committed the murder because he was on a work detail picking up shovels at the time. A receipt for this work was not fully fleshed out at trial, according to the motion.
Lemon previously said that about a dozen boys
were unaccounted for at various points between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. that day. Among them was Williams, who was supposed to have killed Robare during a 20-minute period.
In that time, Lemon said Williams would have had
to take about 15 actions, including going to the crime scene; attempting to break into a storage locker; going into Robare’s room and attacking her; dropping his hat in a massive pool of blood; taking her keys and throwing them in a pond; hiding the icepick in a hole in the wall; washing the blood from his hands and hat; and then returning to the area
of the school where he was working without a drop of blood on him.
“The only way he could have done this crime is if he could stop time,” said Lemon, adding that this was not a place where the “inmates,” as they were referred to, could roam freely.
The motion notes that the commonwealth had retained two fingerprint experts to examine a bloody
hand print, but that never came up at trial. The county’s own chief detective at the time was also quoted in a previously undiscovered article saying that the crime was committed by “a full grown and strong man,” and that the athletic Robare “could have fought off a boy.”
Lemon has additionally dug up a divorce decree filed by Vida Robare
against her husband in Michigan in November 1921 on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.” It was Fred Robare who “discovered” his wife’s body and even his last known living relative now believes he was the murderer, according to the petition.
“Over 90 years have passed since this young man’s conviction,” said Stollsteimer. “Despite the passage of time, we believe it is in the interest of justice and in upholding the integrity of our courts that we do what is in our power to do to remedy this wrong.”
“So many families have been impacted by that case in the ‘30s and it’s a resolution that’s been long in the works and needed,” said Keller. “I’m just thankful that I can play a small part in it.”