Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan and Capt. Seth J. Kelly, Pennsylvania State Police Troop M, have announced a man charged in a decades-old killing has been acquitted by a jury.

Rose Josephine Hnath, 78, was murdered more than 36 years ago in her North Whitehall Township home. After a weeklong trial that concluded Oct. 10, a jury found Michael Breisch, 67, of Wind Gap, not guilty of charges that include Criminal Homicide, Burglary, Robbery – Inflict Serious Bodily Injury and Aggravated Assault.

Hnath was a widow who lived alone in her home on Second Street along the banks of the Lehigh River.

On Jan. 21, 1989, after she failed to appear at a local church service she regularly attended, family members went to her home and found Hnath deceased. Her home had been ransacked.

Hnath died from multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma and her death was ruled a homicide by the Lehigh County Coroner.