Reverend Harry Powell
Reverend Harry Powell appears in two films, 1955’s The Night of the Hunter, portrayed by Robert Mitchum, and in a 1991 made for television remake of the same name, where he was played by Richard Chamberlain. Both are based on the 1953 novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb. Powell is a con artist and serial killer, masquerading as a preacher, in pursuit of wealthy widows whom he marries for their money before killing them. Imprisoned for car theft he learns of a stash of stolen money from another prisoner about to be executed and on his release he sets out to find it by seducing the dead man’s widow.
The character was based on real life serial killer Harry Powers, who lured widows through lonely hearts advertisements and then killed them for their money. Powers used multiple aliases, including Harry Powers, he was born as Herman Drenth in the Netherlands, moving to the United States in 1910, and eventually settling in West Virginia.
After meeting his wife by responding to a lonely hearts ad, he placed ads of his own, despite being married. He received a great many responses, and constructed a room over the garage at his home which he then used as the scene for some of his murders. Powers lured and murdered Asta Eicher and her three children in the summer of 1931, after which he told concerned neighbors that they were on a trip to Europe. Later that summer he lured a widow named Dorothy Lemke in a similar manner, also killing her.
When police investigated the missing persons, they found love letters which, although signed with aliases, they were able to trace back to Powers, living at home with his wife in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. A search of the garage revealed evidence of murders occurring there and ultimately the police found the bodies of the five victims on Powers’ property.
Police also found a trunkful of letters from other women in response to Powers’ ads, and correspondence indicating the planning stages for several more murders to obtain the women’s money. Powers was hanged at Moundsville, West Virginia, in 1932.