The second day of the Ladell Hannon attempted murder retrial was marked by testimony delivered by Kelayres, Kline Township, residents who were within feet of the explosion that rocked the village on the morning of Dec. 21, 2021.
The prosecution is attempting to piece together numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence, by its own admission, to prove that Hannon, a former Hazleton police officer, stalked Kelayres resident Harrison Jordan and detonated an improvised explosive device outside his Center St. home that morning.
They’re also trying to prove that Hannon broke into Jordan’s home a few months prior to that explosion.
On Tuesday, jurors heard testimony from Jordan’s upstairs neighbor, Michael Stein, at the small apartment building on Center St.
Stein testified that he was in his computer room during the morning hours of Dec. 21, 2021, when the IED detonated. Glass from the windows in his apartment shattered. He said he suffered a laceration to a finger. And his vehicle parked outside in front of the apartment building suffered more than $6,000 in damage.
What Stein couldn’t testify to about that morning was seeing anyone place a bomb in front of his apartment building or running or driving from the scene.
Stein did, however, testify about the day Hannon allegedly showed up at Jordan’s apartment, under his own apartment. That is an incident to which Jordan and Hannon’s estranged wife, Danielle, testified about on Monday.
The defendant Hannon alleged showed up at Jordan’s apartment and was banging loudly on the front door repeatedly and yelling.
While the defense attempted, as they’ve been thus far, to paint that as more circumstantial evidence by saying no one actually saw Hannon banging on the door that night, Stein testified that he did see the defendant.
“I observed the defendant yelling,” Stein testified during direct questioning on Tuesday.
Stein said that although there was an eave that prevented the front doors from being visible from his upstairs window, he saw Hannon out on Center St. yelling.
During cross-examination by defense attorney Mark Hinrichs, Stein elaborated on the yelling.
“I could only hear one word clearly through the yelling and that was ‘boyfriend’,” he said.
Another neighbor to the Dec. 21, 2021, explosion was also called as a witness during Tuesday’s testimony.
Janet Houseknecht said she’s lived in Kelayres for 58 years and on the morning of the explosion, she was in a home that had a window that overlooks the parking lot of the abandoned church that was damaged in the incident.
Houseknecht said she was awake, laying in bed, and watching television when the IED detonated. She said when the bomb went off, she got up out of bed, ran to the bedroom window and saw smoke.
But one other thing she saw is definitely the reason she was called as a prosecution witness … a car leaving the church parking lot.
“I don’t know the make or model but it was white,” Houseknecht said of the vehicle exiting that church parking lot.
She also testified that normally only her car and one other uses that lot and that neither of those cars is white.
“I’ve never seen that car before,” she added during cross-examination.
Houseknecht also testified that she was unable to see how many people were in that white vehicle and that she couldn’t make out the license plate information.
Hannon’s “co-worker and friend testifies”
Tuesday’s testimonies mostly featured crime scene investigators and a digital forensic specialist.
But there was one emotional moment when one of Hannon’s co-workers on Hazleton Police Dept. was called to testify.
David Rodick, a detective with the Major Crimes division of Hazleton PD, was called and testified that he received two phone calls from Hannon on the day of the explosion in Kelayres.
Rodick lives in McAdoo and said he believes his dog heard or felt the explosion even though he didn’t.
Later that morning, Rodick testified that Hannon called him. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for Rodick as he called the defendant “a co-worker and a friend.”
The nature of that first call, Rodick testified, was Hannon asking how he was doing and how his family was doing because he had heard about the incident in Kelayres.
“He asked me what I had heard,” Rodick said.
Rodick said he speculated that it could have been a meth lab that blew up but wasn’t aware of any details on the explosion investigation.
At 3 p.m. that same day, Rodick said he received another call from Hannon. This time, the call was more about the investigation into the explosion.
Rodick testified that Hannon said he had heard that his name had been brought up by another officer in connection with the incident.
“He was concerned about his name coming up,” Rodick said.
Hannon allegedly told Rodick during that call that “there’s someone there (in Kelayres) that I’m not exactly fond of.”
Duing cross-examination, Rodick suddenly got emotional as he was recalling the relationship he’d built with Hannon during their time working together.
“I knew he was going through a very difficult time because of his divorce,” Rodick said.
COMMONWEALTH v. LADELL HANNON
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