← All cases

Harry Powers

Also known as: Harm Drenth, Cornelius O. Pierson, Quiet Dell murders

Active

1931–1931

Region

Quiet Dell, West Virginia, USA

States

IL, MA, WV

Kind

Serial

Status

Executed

Victims

5

Harry Powers, a Dutch-born man living in Clarksburg, West Virginia, used "lonely hearts" correspondence clubs to court women for their money. In 1931 he killed Asta Eicher of Park Ridge, Illinois, her three children, and Dorothy Lemke of Northborough, Massachusetts; their bodies were found that August at a garage he owned in Quiet Dell. So many people wanted to watch that his trial was held at the Moore Opera House in Clarksburg. He was convicted of Lemke's murder and hanged at the West Virginia Penitentiary in March 1932. The case inspired Davis Grubb's novel The Night of the Hunter.

Ask the Atlas about this case →

Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Asta Buick Eicher · 1931

  A mother of three from Park Ridge, Illinois.

• Greta Eicher · 1931
• Harry Eicher · 1931
• Annabel Eicher · 1931
• Dorothy Pressler Lemke · 1931

  A woman from Northborough, Massachusetts.

Timeline of locations

1. 1931
   Powers's home, Broad Oaks, Clarksburg (Killer's residence, approximate area)

   Powers lived and ran a small grocery in Clarksburg's Broad Oaks neighborhood. A search of his garage there led to his arrest in August 1931.

2. 1931
   Park Ridge, Illinois (Other, approximate area)

   Asta Eicher and her children lived here before Powers took them to West Virginia.

3. 1931
   Northborough, Massachusetts (Other, approximate area)

   Dorothy Lemke's home town.

4. August 1931
   Powers's garage, Quiet Dell (Crime scene, approximate area)

   The five victims' bodies were found in a ditch beside a garage Powers owned on a farm in Quiet Dell, south of Clarksburg, with rooms built underneath where they had been held.

5. December 1931
   Moore Opera House, Clarksburg (Court / trial, approximate area)

   Powers was tried on the stage of the opera house, used as a courtroom to hold the crowds, and convicted of Dorothy Lemke's murder.

6. March 18, 1932
   West Virginia Penitentiary, Moundsville (Prison)

   Powers was hanged here on the night of March 18, 1932.

Watch, listen, read

Sources

• Harry Powers (Wikipedia)
• Harry F. Powers (e-WV, The West Virginia Encyclopedia)
• March 18, 1932: Mass murderer Harry Powers executed at Moundsville (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
• Powers hanged (Clarksburg Telegram, Mar 19, 1932, via West Virginia Archives and History)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.