Ilonka Cann
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WILKES-BARRE — With no vehicle and limited friends while living on a 70-acre farm in an isolated area of Huntington Township on May 26, 1970, Ilonka Cann went missing.
Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Robert Betnar on Monday provided a timeline of events to a Luzerne County Coroner’s Jury before and after Ilonka Cann was reported missing.
Ilonka Cann, 22, was legally declared deceased by Luzerne County Judge Richard M. Hughes III in October based on a petition filed by her sister, Anita Harless, through Attorney Nancy Violi.
With the judge’s ruling, state police changed their classification of Ilonka Cann’s investigation from a missing person to a death investigation, resulting in the rare coroner’s inquest consisting of six jurors to decide how she died, the cause and manner of death and if there was any foul play in her death.
Coroner Jill Matthews is presiding over the inquest.
Betnar became the lead investigator of Ilonka Cann’s disappearance in 2016 and provided the coroner’s jury a timeline of events.
May 24, 1968: Ilonka Harless married Charles Cann II, and they had a son born in 1969.
May 25, 1970: Ilonka Cann spoke with her mother who resided in Ohio. Betnar said Ilonka Cann was upset, crying and was looking forward to taking a vacation to visit her mother and father.
May 25, 1970: Charles Cann I, the father of Charles Cann II and Ilonka Cann’s father-in-law, arrived at mobile home in Benton from his permanent home in Hackettstown, N.J. Charles Cann I was a retired school teacher and sometimes worked as a substitute teacher at Benton School District.
May 26, 1970: Charles Cann II left their Cann Road residence 7-715 a.m. to go to work as shop teacher within the Berwick School District. Charles Cann II arrived home 3:30-3:45 p.m. and found his wife missing and their then 15-month-old son crying in a crib.
May 26, 1970: Charles Cann II calls his father Charles Cann I indicating his wife was missing. Charles Cann I arrived at the Cann Road residence at about 4:30 p.m.
May 26, 1970: Charles Cann I at 9:45 p.m. calls Ilonka Cann’s parents in Ohio saying their daughter is missing.
May 26, 1970: Ilonka Cann’s parents 10-10:15 p.m. contact then Berwick mayor Clarence Odell pleading for help in finding their daughter. Odell calls the state police barracks at Shickshinny.
May 27, 1970: Charles Cann II arrived about 3:45 p.m. at the Shickshinny barracks to report his wife missing. Reports $180 missing from the residence.
May 28, 1970: Charles Cann I submits a statement to state police that on May 26, 1970, he accompanied his son, Charles Cann II, to Hackettstown, N.J., to drop off the toddler with his wife. At the same time he reportedly was driving to New Jersey, Charles Cann I also claimed he submitted his resignation as a part-time substitute teacher directly to the Benton high school principal.
Betnar told the coroner’s jury that Charles Cann I, at the time he was questioned in 1970, reported having a distant relationship with Ilonka Cann.
Betnar said at the time of Ilonka Cann’s disappearance, a pond was being constructed on the property near the residence.
Four troopers and a team of 25 volunteers searched the 70 acre farm including the Scranton Police Dive Team that searched the pond on May 28, 1970.
Betnar further said the family only had one vehicle that was used by Charles Cann II to go to work as a shop teacher, leaving Ilonka Cann vehicle-less at the residence. He also said the closest bus stations at the time, one in Shickshinny and another in Berwick, were canvassed with Ilonka Cann’s picture.
No one reported seeing Ilonka Cann at either bus station, Betnar testified.
Charles Cann II was in court at the start of the inquest but had to leave the courtroom as he is under subpoena to testify and witnesses were sequestered.
Anita Harless testified Monday afternoon reading letters her sister, Ilonka Cann, wrote to their mother in 1970. The letters expressed an unhappy Ilonka Cann who wrote to her mother that her in-laws were controller her husband and family. In one letter, Ilonka Cann had told her mother her marriage would be happier if her husband’s parents would leave them alone.
Ilonka Cann’s parents were going to send their daughter money for bus tickets as she planned to leave Charles Cann II, and secretly send the money to a neighbor who was friendly with Ilonka Cann about the time she disappeared.
The coroner’s inquest is expected to last several days.
Several months after Ilonka Cann disappeared, her father, Clinton Harless and Paul Allen, were charged with assaulting Charles Cann I and Charles Cann II at the Huntington Township home in September 1970, according to the Times Leader archives.
Harless and Allen pled guilty but had their sentences suspended on condition they stay away from Charles Cann I and Charles Cann II.