Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  Kosmal and McCune noticed a pair of deer walking through a field. “Something got their radar up,” Kosmal said,

  because the deer broke into a run for the woods. It was at the same time we first saw this car coming down the lane. It was going way too fast, bumping up and down. Then, all you’d ever see on these dirt tracks were the local tractors or pickups. And the vehicle itself seemed out of place for a farm field. It looked fairly new, a yellow Impala with a white top. Pretty sporty. We saw later it was a convertible.

  We kept watching the car, which drove to the end of the lane and wound up half on the dirt road and half in the weeds. A man got out in a hurry, carrying a dark colored gym bag, and left the passenger door open. I know the land around here pretty well, so what the guy did next surprised me. He ran straight into rough terrain then down a two-hundred-foot steep slope. It was dangerous to do that. The guy disappeared but I joked to Garland that we’ll go down there later and see where he threw the money, as if he’d just robbed a bank.

  Kosmal and McCune returned to removing the grounds on some tower wires. Hours later, reflecting, Kosmal said, “I mean, we seen this guy jump out of that car and head full blast into those woods, so something was funny, but it’s not something you climb down off a tower about and immediately call the police.”

  At the end of the farm lane, unable to go further, Stanley Hoss leapt from the car. He didn’t know where he was, but he didn’t have time to get his bearings or think things through. Carrying a gym bag, Hoss raced into nearby woods, and then, with no hesitation, impelled by fear and desperation, plunged downhill—a very steep hill, with some parts virtual dropoffs. He scraped, slid, and banged ahead, roughed up by brush and branch and smacking into tree trunks. Hoss made it, exhausted and battered but whole, to one of the ridges of River Hill, where he began to run a grueling couple of miles over rough terrain. From most places on this ridge the river below could be seen, but the course was up and down, up and down, Hoss jumping over logs and rocks and swerving around trees. Finally, Hoss saw a house, then several more. He was at the outskirts of Barking, an old mining town.

  Three youths, Lawrence Kurtik, Clarence Dickens, and Clarence’s brother, Charlie, were tossing a football beside the rail tracks near the mine when a man walked up to them. Young Kurtik said the man, covered with sweat and dirt, asked directions and wanted to know if any trains ran through Barking.

  Hoss moved on toward the mine’s entrance. Miners at the end of their shift, in twos and threes, were leaving the mine, carrying black lunch boxes, heading toward their cars. Hoss waited a minute until he saw someone come out alone.

  Fred Blank, a master mechanic at the mine recalled, “A young man, disheveled but friendly, asked if he could hitch a ride to New Kensington. I lived that way, so I said okay.” It was 5:30, about forty-five minutes after the shooting.

  Meanwhile, the police had received their best information yet: a speeding yellow Chevy had been sighted up on 909. Cops in cruisers or their own cars converged upon the area, every eye strained for the getaway car. New Kensington was notified and its police had set up a roadblock where 909 intersected Route 56. It was manned by many armed men: no cop killer in any yellow car would have a chance of getting by them. By this time, as well, every artery in and out of the area and all bridges were crawling with cops. Traffic was hopeless.

  Close to the time Stanley Hoss requested a ride from miner Fred Blank, Reed Kosmal and Garland McCune, finally done with their day’s work, climbed down the Duquesne light tower. No one had come back for the yellow car, which had been left parked any-old-which-way. Since its position, still half on the dirt road, would block their access for the next day’s work, Kosmal radioed his boss and was told to go take a look.

  Kosmal and McCune walked around the forsaken Chevy. The driver’s side door was open, the red dummy lights for oil and ignition were glowing … and the ignition was popped. Kosmal hiked back to his truck and radioed his boss, “Look, this car down here I think is stolen.”

  The boss called the company dispatcher about the car and the dispatcher called the Plum Township police. When given the description of a likely stolen car, the dispatcher exclaimed, “So that’s where he is!”

  Base: We have verified the information with Plum Boro. This is the car we are looking for. It’s at Dom Defatta’s Gardens on Route 909. That land, too, runs into Kreb’s farm … but he’s back in there.

  This message got through to many, but not all. Some departments on different radio frequencies got their information second-, third-, or fourthhand. At this critical moment of the hunt, not all knew that only the car had been located; some believed Hoss had been captured with the car, and some thought Hoss was in the car, still driving like mad to get away.

  After making the radio report from their work truck, Kosmal and McCune drove the few minutes back to Route 909. “When we got there,” Kosmal said, “I never saw so many policemen in my life and they just kept arriving. And it was here we learned of the shooting. I can remember Blackie DeLellis was there and I can tell you if the shooter was spotted he’d have never gotten out of those woods alive because Blackie had murder in his eyes, you could just see it.”

  The linesmen told police what they had seen, and in what direction the suspicious man had run. Fifty police cars had assembled, with twice or more that number of police all busy putting on vests or leather jackets and rooting around in their car trunks pulling out extra weapons and slinging rifles over their shoulders. Sirens wailed everywhere, yet as Kosmal put it, explaining why they hadn’t made a call at first sight of the car, “me and McCune, we never heard a thing.” Perhaps the noise had been buffered by the surrounding trees and hills.

  Blackie DeLellis tried to use his radio but wound up doing a lot of shouting, trying to separate the hordes of cops into manageable search teams. The chief calculated Hoss had a half-hour jump on them, but he was on foot. Peering down to where he’d been told Hoss had run, DeLellis thought the killer couldn’t get too damn far. Maybe he’d try to swim the river, or maybe hide out under an outcrop or in deep foliage to wait till dark before slipping away. But he was armed, desperate, and not inclined to give up. The search would be a dangerous enterprise.

  Base: Be careful! Be careful! The chief said be very careful.

  Police: We got four carbines [favored pronounciation is “carbeens”] in our car, so anyone need any, stay there till we meet you.

  101 to Base: Call the county to see if there’s any pictures available on this guy.

  Base to Chief: Oakmont radio is on the wrong wavelength so cannot contact the helicopter.

  Police Car: We just have our sidearms. If we could get a rifle we’d appreciate it.

  Response: Stay there. I told Sgt. Schrott. He’s comin’ with two rifles.

  Before the search had shifted focus, Hoss had already slipped into the passenger seat of miner Fred Blank’s car. To make conversation, Blank asked, “So, you a stranger ’round here?” Hoss said he’d come in from Chicago and planned to visit some people, adding that he had a sister who lived in Tarentum.

  The road from Barking to Route 909 is narrow but paved, as it is this road which goes to the locks on the Allegheny. It took a few minutes for Blank to wind his way up to 909, during which he and his rider “engaged in sociable conversation, travel, hitchhiking, and the like.” When the pair came to 909, Blank was surprised at the slow line of traffic going toward Oakmont. Given Hoss’s half-hour lead and the lag time between Kosmal and McCune seeing the yellow car pull into the field and reporting it to authorities, the police, not yet alerted to the car’s whereabouts, had set up the 909 roadblock down from the outlet for the little mining town of Barking, never thinking the culprit could be down there.

  When Blank looked to the right he noticed police setting up a roadblock about three hundred feet away, and he wondered out loud, ‘Hmmm, whaddya think’s goin’ on?” His companion just shrugged his shoulders. Blank eased out onto the road and managed a left turn away fro
m the roadblock and toward New Kensington. Minutes later, the pair approached an area called Parnassus, situated as a gateway to New Kensington. It was by the A & P grocery store that Blank saw six police cars parked close together, three on one side of the road, three on the other, with a dozen cops milling about, readying wooden supports and posts to bar the road. Three or four of the policemen carried shotguns, which meant, Blank surmised, something serious was in the works. Again Blank spoke up. “Wonder who they’re lookin’ for?”

  Hoss kept his eyes straight ahead but said, “Don’t know.” Blank noticed his rider “reach into his gym bag and fumble with its contents, partially exposing a road map.”

  Blank proceeded slowly toward the police and their activity. Several cops gave Blank’s car the once-over and others peered inside as the car passed by. They saw Blank’s red hard hat, his lunch bucket, and the driver’s unshaven, dirty-faced companion and categorized them as “coal-minin’ workin’ folk.” They were waved on.

  At Ninth Street in New Ken, Hoss thanked Mr. Blank and got out of the car. He turned a corner, walked up a street, but within ten minutes was driving back down the street in a ’56 Pontiac.

  Fred Blank got home just minutes before the news on TV. He turned on KDKA to see the familiar face of venerable anchorman Bill Burns, who appeared more serious than usual when opening with the lead story. Burns, in a tan sports coat, beige shirt, and snappy necktie, gravely stated,

  We have just learned of a tragic event occurring late this afternoon in Oakmont. Joseph Zanella of the Verona Police Department was making a routine traffic stop when the occupant of the car fired shots, one of the bullets striking Patrolman Zanella. He was rushed to Pittsburgh Hospital where it has been reported just minutes ago that Joseph Zanella has been pronounced dead. The suspect in the shooting is Stanley Barton Hoss of Tarentum. KDKA viewers will remember it was Stanley Hoss who, along with fellow inmate Thomas Lubresky, succeeded in a rooftop escape from the County Workhouse on September 11, Hoss further making news by eluding a one hundred–man search party after being sighted on September 14 in Fawn Township. At this hour, hundreds of police from all area departments are seeking the apprehension of the alleged shooter.

  Bill Burns, a conservative law-and-order man, allowed a trace of wryness into his tone with the qualifier “alleged.”

  Then a picture of Hoss came into every living room. A mug shot from two years earlier, it showed a sullen face framed by greased-back hair with sideburns, à la Elvis Presley. His eyes were not cruel or defiant, as later pictures would show, but almost resigned, as if being booked and photographed was a natural occurrence in his life.

  Watching the TV report with interest, particularly because of the crime’s proximity to his work and home, Fred Blank sat bolt upright when he saw the culprit’s face on the screen. My God, Blank thought, that’s the guy I picked up! The face had matured a little, the hair was shorter, but the similarity was too strong to dismiss. It was the ears, though, that nailed it down for Blank, the way they seemed larger than average and stuck out.

  Bill Burns concluded his report. “Stanley Hoss is considered armed and dangerous. If you see this man, do not approach but call your local police department.” Fred Blank did just that.

  Until the hunt shifted with the receipt of Fred Blank’s information, a command post of sorts was set up near the fruit stand along 909. Blackie DeLellis, along with numerous other chiefs and even politicians, figured Hoss “had to be down on that hillside somewhere.” The trouble was, even though Hoss was on foot, he still had a considerable lead, and the target area could be as large as five square miles, much of it heavily wooded.

  Radio: We just heard shots by that smokestack in the woods. Is someone chasin’ someone up there?

  Base to DeLellis: Inspector DeRoy called and said the copter is down for the night. They can’t locate the man to operate it.

  DeLellis to Base: Herm, see if that WTAE copter is available.

  Chief: Get some men on the river. Get citizen boats or anything you can find and look into the riverbank and up the hills.

  To Control: We’re down here at Hulton Bridge with East Deer people. Await further instructions.

  Chief: Brody, how about getting your men 100 yards apart so we can cover a large area.

  To Control: Would you please put the Gold and Blue units in the van and send them to the scene? We understand the officer is deceased now. He’s dead.

  As time slipped by with Hoss unsighted, Blackie DeLellis and other commanders began to worry that Hoss had managed to get farther away than they had thought possible. The intensity had to be maintained all along River Hill, but now those in charge felt manpower had to be sent further afield.

  Chief: The WTAE man is here with his helicopter.

  Anon.: We’re at the bridge at the turnpike. We’re starting to work our way into the woods. Be sure you know who and what you’re shooting at.

  To Chief: The WTAE copter … we’re trying to set this up with the state police.

  Car 50: We need all the walkie-talkies we can get and we don’t have any more cars here.

  Chief: Everyone can use their personal cars if they got ’em. Put down information in a coordinated time effort so we have everything to put together.

  After watching the news report, miner Fred Blank called the New Kensington Police Department and within minutes was interviewed at length, the cops wrenching every detail they could from the cooperative but shaken man. From what they now knew, Hoss was still on foot somewhere in the Parnassus or New Kensington area. If he grabbed a car, though …

  Chief to Control: Get a verification we have all the men that we brought out here so we can get ready to pull back.

  It was getting dark, which would circumscribe operations, not to mention the heightened risk of thousands of guns held by the increasingly tired and nervous hands of police, volunteers, and homeowners. TV and radio newscasts cautioned residents to lock all doors, including those of garages, sheds, and cars.

  In the hours since the shooting, traffic had become snarled because of the many roadblocks. Travelers may have understood the delays, but frustrations were bubbling up everywhere, a situation exacerbated by an earlier decision to allow the area’s Friday night football games to proceed, which poured thousands more cars into the mix.

  At 9:00 P.M., some hard information came from mechanic John Fontaine, whose shop was in Harwick, a town several miles from New Kensington but on the north side of the Allegheny River.

  Fontaine had been standing near a frozen custard stand when he was approached by a man he described as “definitely Stanley Hoss.” Like miner Fred Blank, Fontaine recognized Hoss from the photograph shown on TV and by reports of the clothes Hoss was wearing. Fontaine said Hoss asked if he was a mechanic (Fontaine was wearing his work overalls), then offered him fifty dollars to repair what Hoss described as a bad transmission in his car. Fontaine turned this down and rushed to the police department as soon as Hoss drove off. When officers took Fontaine to the Oakmont Station to give his statement, he described the car Hoss was driving—stolen earlier in Parnassus—as a mid-fifties Pontiac, with a green body and white top.

  Fontaine’s fresh lead was given priority broadcast. Radio and television stations interrupted regular programming to give the public the new details. The new lead revitalized the police, whose commanders refocused the search by directing scores of men to Harwick. Surely Hoss would now find it impossible to show himself in the old Pontiac without getting nabbed. At the same time, the commanders were perplexed by the new sighting: just how the hell had Hoss got across the river? And was the Pontiac’s transmission shot or would it hold out another hundred miles? Harwick was invaded and surrounded by policemen convinced they had Hoss bottled up at last. However, the Harwick sighting was to be the last bit of encouraging news for some time.

  All through the long, dark night the hunt continued: past sunset, past midnight and, for many, into the wee hours, local, city, county, and state police,
firemen, local officials of many types, and civilian volunteers played their parts in a coordinated effort to find the killer of Joe Zanella. Burn barrels were brought to many locations, filled with wood, then set afire to give searchers relief from the cold. Volunteers provided coffee, donuts, and, later, hot food for the searchers at the stationhouses, fire departments, and even in a few meadows or in spots along the Allegheny. This sustenance, brief and marginal as it was, did no end of good for the chilled, frazzled, and tired. Little by little, though, men were ordered to go home and get some rest.

  Describing the great hunt of September 19, reporter Gloria Bradburn wrote of the tremendous activity—the bloodhounds and German shepherds, the helicopters, the hordes of uniformed men with heavy weaponry, the checkpoints and roadblocks. “It seemed impossible that Stanley Hoss could escape such a dragnet. But he did.”

  So ended the twin boroughs’ infamous, mournful, and sorely trying day of September 19, 1969.

  It all began again in full force at dawn. New Kensington was chosen as the command post for operations. Pittsburgh brass and area chiefs came to plan and coordinate. Maps were spread out over tabletops, search leaders delegated, and target areas assigned. The old Pontiac with the bad transmission was finally discovered in Lower Burrell, just into Westmoreland County. Only the width of the Allegheny separated this location from the river towns where Hoss’s wife, Diane, and his mistress, Jodine Fawkes, lived, but if Hoss had tried to see either he would have been warded off by the police cars stationed for the duration outside their homes.

  Since the last auto known to have been in Hoss’s possession was found locally, the police believed he was still in the area, but no one had any idea what the killer’s next move would be, other than the certainty that Hoss would continue to steal cars and commit other crimes for his purposes.