On the cold New Year's Eve of 1969, a brutal act of violence silenced a voice of reform within the United Mine Workers of America and tragically ended the lives of three family members in their Clarksville, Pennsylvania, farmhouse. Charlotte Joan Yablonski, a 25-year-old white female, was found murdered alongside her parents, Joseph 'Jock' Yablonski and his wife, Margaret.
The discovery of their bodies on January 5, 1970, by one of Charlotte's brothers, Kenneth, unraveled a conspiracy of corruption and murder that reached the highest levels of the union.
In the months leading up to the tragedy, Jock Yablonski had mounted a fiery but unsuccessful campaign to unseat the incumbent UMWA president, W.A. 'Tony' Boyle, alleging widespread corruption and demanding better conditions for miners. After his defeat in a contentious election, Yablonski challenged the results and called for a federal investigation, a move that would ultimately seal his fate and that of his family. Enraged by the challenge to his authority, Boyle ordered Yablonski's death.
The murder plot was set in motion when Boyle embezzled $20,000 in union funds to hire assassins. Three hitmen—Paul Gilly, Claude Vealey, and Aubran Martin—were hired to carry out the killings. In the early hours of December 31, 1969, the trio broke into the Yablonski home. They first went to Charlotte's bedroom, where she was shot twice in the head as she slept. They then proceeded to her parents' room, where they shot and killed both Jock and Margaret Yablonski.
The investigation that followed the discovery of the bodies quickly exposed the murder-for-hire plot. The assassins were soon captured and confessed, implicating others in the conspiracy. Their confessions led investigators up the chain of command within the UMWA to Albert Pass, a union official who had received the money from Boyle, and ultimately to Boyle himself. In total, seven individuals were convicted of murder and conspiracy. The three triggermen, Gilly, Vealey, and Martin, were all convicted of first-degree murder. Tony Boyle was indicted in 1973, and after a trial, he was convicted in 1974 for ordering the three murders and was sentenced to three life terms in prison, where he later died.
