Investigations Reopened
Then in 1999, The York Dispatch and the York Daily Record published articles looking back at the riots on their thirtieth anniversary. The articles raised questions in the community and renewed interest in the murder cases. York County deputy prosecutor, Tom Kelley, had his staff begin unearthing the case files and reinterviewing witnesses, and York County District Attorney Stan Rebert launched a grand jury investigation. They began the investigation with the gang believed to have been involved in Allen's murder, the Newberry Street Boys.
Prosecutors learned that three of the gang members had committed suicide over the years, but that another, who was suffering from terminal cancer, wanted to talk. Before he died he told investigators what he knew about the night Allen was killed. More developments came the following year after detectives visited the rural home of Donald Altland, another ex-member of the gang. Altland admitted nothing to the detectives, but confessed his role in the crime to his wife later that night. The next day Altland drove his truck to the Susquehanna River and shot himself in the head. He left behind a taped confession for the prosecutors and a message scrawled on a napkin, "Forgive Me, God."
On April 27, 2001, charges were filed for the first time in Lillie Belle Allen's murder. Two brothers, Robert Messersmith and Arthur Messersmith, both members of the Newberry Street Boys, an all-white gang, were charged with criminal homicide after witnesses told a grand jury they'd heard Robert Messersmith bragging about the killing. On May 10, 2001, two more former members of a white street gang in York were accused. Rick Lynn Knouse and Gregory Harry Neff, identified as former members of the Girarders gang, were accused after witnesses testified they'd been seen firing at the car carrying Lillie Belle Allen.
Eight days later, the day after winning the Democratic primary in his bid for re-election, York City mayor Charles Robertson was arrested and charged in Allen's murder. The affidavit filed with his arrest stated that Rick Knouse told a grand jury that the mayor, who was a York police officer at the time of the riots, had given him the rifle ammunition that Mr. Knouse used to fire at Ms. Allen and had told him to "kill as many niggers as you can." Before a judge issued a gag order in the case, the mayor confirmed that he did shout "white power" as encouragement to an angry crowd while he was on duty during the riots, but denied supplying the ammunition. Amidst public outcry and calls for his resignation, Robertson dropped his bid for re-election one week later.
Read more about this topic: 1969 York Race Riot