Boyle's Turn at Last

As the trial of former United Mine Workers President W.A. (Tony) Boyle began last week in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, Pa., evidence in the form of a .38-cal. revolver and a carbine rested ominously on a table. No less dramatic was the opening statement by Prosecuting Attorney Richard A. Sprague: "We will show how a family named Yablonski was murdered. The defendant here is the man who used the money from the United Mine Workers, from the sweat and blood of the miners of America, to pay for these murders. We will go step by step up the ladder until we get to the top, to this defendant, sitting in this courtroom."

Sprague's finger pointed to Boyle.

For the past four years, the prosecutor has doggedly pursued the killers of

U.M.W. Insurgent Joseph A. ("Jock") Yablonski and his wife and daughter, winning the convictions of three triggermen and four coconspirators. The State accuses Boyle of instigating the murder in order to stop Yablonski's efforts to take over the union.

During Sprague's opening salvo Boyle slouched in his chair in stony silence; all the bluster and bravado that characterized his nine-year reign at the U.M.W. had vanished. At 71, he is gaunt and pallid, suffering from anemia, heart disease and the effects of an attempted suicide seven months ago. He was flown in from a Missouri prison, where he is serving a three-year sentence for illegally contributing union funds to the 1968 presidential campaign.

Sprague assembled some 100 witnesses, including two convicted triggermen: a house painter named Paul Gilly, 42, and a Cleveland drifter, Claude Vealey, 30. Their fee for the murder was $15,000. Gilly told the jury that he was hired for the job by his father-in-law. Silous Huddleston, who in turn, testified Gilly, was hired by union officials. Gilly was told that an official involved was Boyle. The murder plan was simple: "Kill 'em and leave no witnesses."

All Asleep. On Dec. 30, 1969, testified Vealey, the killers sat restlessly in their car near the Yablonski home in Clarksville, Pa., and waited for the lights to go out. The gunmen slugged whisky and beer, then tossed the empties--covered with fingerprints--into the snow. After midnight, said Vealey, he and the two others broke into the house and crept into the bedrooms. "They were all asleep," he testified. "Martin had the .38 revolver, and I had the rifle. I heard Joseph Yablonski making a gurgling sound after Martin shot him. I shot two or three times more to make sure he was dead."

Boyle's attorney, Charles F. Moses, contends that the murder conspiracy stopped at the local union level. Yablonski, Moses told the jury, threatened to expose misuse of union funds in U.M.W. district 19 in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. To quiet him, district leaders ordered the execution. Moses promised to produce an audit that will show approximately $907,000 unaccounted for by local U.M.W. officials between 1967 and 1969. "Sprague's paths," says Moses, "lead not to Tony Boyle but to others convicted in this case."

The high point of the trial is expected to be the testimony of Tony Boyle, who will take the stand in his own defense. He will have to defend himself mightily against the prosecution's prize witness: William J. Turnblazer, 52, former president of the U.M.W. district where the plotting of the murder took place. Turnblazer has signed an affidavit Unking Boyle directly to the case. Promised Sprague: "You are going to hear it right here on this stand from Mr. Turnblazer himself, who will tell you that it was Boyle who gave the order to kill Jock Yablonski."

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