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$100,000 bail posted by each of two former members of Girarders street gang
By MARK SCOLFORO
LAURI LEBO and MIKE HOOVER Dispatch/Sunday News
The two latest suspects in the 1969 slaying of Lillie Belle Allen were released on bail today after a pair of hearings in York County Common Pleas Court.
Gregory Harry Neff, 53, of 606 Courtland St., York City, and Rick Lynn Knouse, 48, of 1012 S. Pine St., York City, were charged today with criminal homicide for the killing of Allen during the city's 1969 riots.
York County Common Pleas Court Judge John C. Uhler set bail after consecutive hearings in which he questioned the men about their families, work histories, residence in York County, and criminal pasts.
Neff was released after posting a $100,000 property bond. Knouse had a bail bondsman post a $100,000 bail, although Uhler had given him the option of posting just 10 percent in cash.
Allen, a preacher's daughter visiting from South Carolina, was shot July 21, 1969, by an armed mob at North Newberry Street and Gay Avenue.
Arrest affidavit filed today said the grand jury concluded Knouse was on Newberry Street, holding a .30-06 rifle. Knouse testified before the grand jury that he fired the weapon at the vehicle in which Allen was riding.
"Rick Knouse acted as a principal in the first degree
As for Neff, the grand-jury investigation determined he was in the area of the North Newberry Street railroad tracks with a 20-gauge shotgun given to him by Bobby Messersmith.
Messersmith, 52, of Montgomery County, and his brother, Artie Messersmith, 47, of Red Lion, were both charged with Allen's murder 13 days ago. The Messersmiths were members of the Newberry Street Boys, a rival white gang of the Girarders.
The grand jury has also recommended charges against seven other unidentified people, but they have not yet been publicly identified.
It is also investigating the homicide of Henry Schaad, a rookie York City patrolman, shot July 18, 1969, as he crossed the Codorus Creek in an armored vehicle. The grand jury's presentment, a legal document that details its findings, remains sealed while police and prosecutors decide whom to charge, and when. It is expected to become public when all arrests are made.
In the meantime, the grand jury's work is not over, and if it follows the pattern set so far, it will meet again in a few weeks in the basement of a downtown York City office building.
'Get them Neff': Three days after Schaad was shot, Allen's sister was heading to a grocery store but drove the family car into white gang territory, then realized she had taken a wrong turn.
As the car approached, according to an unnamed witness cited in the affidavit, someone shouted, "Get them Neff."
Another witness testified Neff fired a long gun at the vehicle, "three shots," according to the affidavit.
Neff was the leader of the Girarders, one of several white gangs in the area at the time of the shooting. Knouse was also a member of the Girarders, named for their headquarters on Girard Avenue in the city's east end.
Knouse, in an interview with The York Dispatch/Sunday News on July 10, 2000, said he and Neff and several more Girarders went to Newberry Street the night before Allen was killed.
The Girarders and the Newberry Street Boys had agreed to put aside their differences in the wake of the Schaad shooting, he said.
Knouse attended a rally at Farquhar Park where he said he saw Mayor Charles Robertson, a police officer at the time, shout "white power."
Robertson said recently he fears he may be arrested in the Allen case. He said in an interview last year that he was the first police officer to arrive at the scene of her killing, but did not render aid out of fear for his own safety. Court records filed with the four arrests so far say an unnamed police officer provided ammunition to the young men who shot at Allen and the Cadillac Fleetwood in which she was riding with four other relatives.
Robertson denies he's the unnamed officer.
Guns and ammunition: In the July 2000 interview, Knouse described the 229 N. Newberry St. home of Bobby Messersmith, his three brothers, and their parents, as the nerve center of the Newberry Street Boys' efforts to "protect" their neighborhood.
Knouse said Bobby Messersmith's father, John, who died in 1985, was assigning teenagers out on patrol. In the basement of the Messersmith home, Knouse said, he personally observed guns, ammunition, a police scanner and a tub full of beer.
Knouse said he got a rifle from John Messersmith. Police identified the weapon as a 30-06 rifle, which fits the description of the weapon in the paperwork filed when he was arraigned this morning.
Knouse said Bobby Messersmith told a multi-gang assembly in Farquhar Park one day before Allen was shot that "we got to kill the niggers as they come down here to protect our families."
It was about that time, Knouse said, that the arrival of police scared the crowd. He and others were preparing to run when they saw it was Robertson, and heard Robertson yell "white power."
"The cops were putting fuel on the fire. They were pumping us up. I remember Robertson. He was a beat cop. He yelled white power. The cops were saying don't let the blacks come in and invade our area," Knouse said.
"They (the cops) were telling us to protect our neighborhood and shoot anything black that comes down the street. If the car didn't have a white hankie, open fire," Knouse said.
The next day, around 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, 1969, Knouse described how he stood in front of the Messersmith house when the Allen car reached the railroad tracks at Newberry Street and Gay Avenue. He said he saw Bobby Messersmith and "someone else" walking down the street, shooting at the car.
The arrest affidavit states that Neff and others have said they saw Bobby Messersmith fire a shotgun at Allen as he was moving toward the vehicle.
Knouse said he also saw police handing out ammunition on Newberry Street -- a significant charge because the grand jury heard testimony linking those bullets to the Allen shooting, and possibly to Robertson.
"The cops were giving ammunition to the kids. I saw them hold it and walk away with it. It was that day -- the day Allen was shot," Knouse said.
"The cops were throwing shells to the people. I can't remember the names of the cops. I know Robertson was there," Knouse said.
Knouse said he remembers walking up to Allen's body, and getting sick when he saw how badly she had been wounded. Within hours of the shooting, she died at York Hospital.
Knouse said he left the Newberry Street neighborhood with Neff and returned to Girard Park where he "drank more than I ever did in my life."
"We were white as ghosts. We never saw anyone dead before. I didn't go back after she was shot," Knouse said.
After they were arraigned this morning before District Justice Barbara Nixon in York City, Neff and Knouse were still in police custody, said an employee of Nixon's office. As with all homicide cases, no bail was set by the district justice.
The arrest documentation cites 1969 state crimes code charges of murder of the first and second degree, in addition to criminal homicide.
A relative of Knouse who answered his door this morning declined to comment. As of last summer, he worked at the Harley-Davidson motorcycle plant in Springettsbury Township. His criminal record in York County in the 1970s includes arrests for drugs, burglary, forgery and drunkenness.
No one answered the door at Neff's home, and neighbors said they did not know him. Neff's criminal record from the 1960s and '70s includes firearms and liquor-law violations, assault, theft, and disorderly conduct.
