Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  At 11:45 P.M., he opened his eyes. Lori Mae was beside him, sleeping. He got up to put her on the rollaway but first, vigilant and ever-wary, Hoss pulled the front curtain aside for a look outside. He saw a black car in the parking lot. It was nondescript, but to Hoss it smelled cop. Sure enough, moments later Hoss saw a state trooper walk into the motel office. He didn’t know if the trooper was checking license plates, reviewing guest registrations, or just making rounds, but it didn’t matter. Within minutes, Hoss had thrown Lori Mae in the backseat and eased the GTO out of the parking lot onto Route 8 south. He kept going.

  After awhile, by a series of back roads, Hoss traveled west into Ohio, turning onto Route 224, a road that traces a straight line across the breadth of northern Ohio—and one on which, in the near future, sheriffs and FBI would converge, mark, trace, and investigate.

  South of Akron on 224, Hoss saw a motel. He slowed, thinking to turn in, but drove on a minute or or so before turning right onto an unnamed dirt road. After another ten minutes, he had passed only one cottage. Soon the car was swallowed up by wild brush and the night. He stopped, checked on Lori Mae, who was quiet in the back, then got out and stepped to the rear of the car. In the darkness he had to hunt and peck with the key before the trunk finally popped open.

  Fifteen minutes later, Hoss returned to the GTO. If ever Hoss got a hold of another spare tire, it would now fit nicely in the trunk.

  In the earliest hours of Tuesday, September 23, Hoss returned to the motel he’d seen on Route 224. He checked in with Lori Mae. Moments later, he was sleeping like a baby.

  At the same time that Hoss was falling asleep in Ohio, back in Cumberland, Maryland, Deputy Sheriff Richard Buckel slowed his cruiser along Route 40. A lone vehicle in Kings parking lot caught his eye. He pulled in to check it out. The doors were unlocked, the ignition popped. The information Buckel got back on the Super Sport with Ohio plates shocked him.

  The criminal investigator of Allegany County answered his bedside phone before the second ring. Not bothering with apologies for the early hour, Trooper Milton Hart said, “Bill, we got something here. Deputies found an abandoned car in LaVale. Got word it was stolen yesterday morning in Wheeling by a cop killer from Pittsburgh. That happened Friday. We got a bulletin on that. Suspect is Hoss, Stanley. Anyway, we got the car. Can you come in to the front of Kings?”

  “Give me ten minutes.” Bill Baker rolled out of bed, got on some clothes. His pretty wife, Erma Jean, used to odd-hour phone calls, was sleepy but awake. “Honey,” her husband said, “that was Milt. Not sure what we have yet but I’ll call after you get up.” Baker kissed his index finger then placed it against Erma Jean’s forehead. He slipped on a coat, then, with his Smith and Wesson and twenty-seven years’ experience, headed out the door.

  William F. Baker was a lawman Maryland’s Allegany County was glad to have. He’d joined the state police in 1942 but was soon called to duty with naval intelligence for the duration of the World War II. In 1946, Baker was reassigned to the state police where, excepting a stint with the Secret Service protecting President Harry S. Truman, he served until assuming the important position of county investigator, a liaison between police authorities and the state’s attorney. Astute, curious, meticulous, Baker was key to the county’s success in cases from apprehension through trial. A lifelong resident of Allegany County, Baker knew 80 percent of the people he dealt with, or at least knew of them. “When we have a murder around here,” Baker said, “it’s usually a family situation. Most of the time the killer is waiting for me when I arrive.”

  This time, though, when Baker arrived at Kings parking lot, the suspected cop killer hadn’t been so obliging as to wait around. Approaching the cluster of cops, Baker spoke first with Sheriff Paul Heberlein.

  “Paul, what we got?”

  “I don’t think much but the car. You aware about this?”

  “Yeah, Milt filled me in, and I knew by the bulletins Pennsylvania is looking for this guy. This for sure the car?”

  “Well, we’ll take it in for processing, maybe we can get prints, but yeah, hot-wired, same Ohio plate, even the owner’s registration in the glove box. This is it.”

  “Okay, as soon as Kings opens, we’ll talk to the manager and anyone who worked yesterday, see if anyone saw anything. Pittsburgh notified?”

  “Milt’s on that. He just left for the barracks. He wants you to go over when you’re done here.”

  The sheriff looked at the white car, then to Baker. “Can you imagine, Bill, a cop killer driving right through here?’

  “I’d just like to know what he’s driving now. From yesterday on, do we have any reports of stolen cars?”

  “Nothing from noon yesterday.”

  Five minutes later, at the LaVale barracks, Baker sat down with Trooper Hart.

  “Milt, do we know anything else?”

  “Not much. We’re watchin’ for stolen car reports. We might get something in a couple hours when people leave for work. Pittsburgh and Wheeling offices are sending agents here. They should arrive soon.”

  “Any missing person reports?”

  “Not really, but there was one call earlier, last evening. A mother called in, said her daughter and granddaughter had gone shopping and hadn’t returned when expected. We logged it and told her to be patient. The mother, an Edna Thompson, called again at 8:30 P.M. There were no accident reports, nothing, so … She called us again at midnight, worried, distraught really.” Fingering the Hoss bulletin on his desk, Milt caught Baker’s eye.

  “You don’t think … ?”

  “Don’t know what to think. It’s a long shot, but I don’t like the coincidence. If we learn nothing more by daybreak, we’ll call the mother.”

  Milt swung his feet up on his desk, leaned back, and lit up a Lucky. “Bill, the cop in Pittsburgh … when’s the funeral?”

  “Today.”

  . . .

  “There is nothing finer than a good policeman. Such a one was Joseph Paul Zanella. Today, this splendid young man is dead. Now, more than ever, we realize the terrible risks our policemen take every day to protect us.” So wrote the Advance Leader the day after Joe was shot down. Citizens of the twin boroughs took up collections for Joe’s widow and children. The common spirit was, ‘Where can I send my contribution?’

  There was a tremendous show of sympathy for the fallen officer and his family. On Sunday, the first day of viewing, hundreds of friends and townsfolk came to Burket Funeral Home in Oakmont to pay their respects. Joe’s four sisters, Barbara, Patricia, Shirley, and Debra, suffering themselves, were worried about their parents. “Dad held up okay in the public eye,” Barbara said, “but in private he openly grieved. Mom wept over and over, ‘My Sonny, what am I going to do?’ Mary Ella’s family stayed with her at all times. Lord, with the babies to take care of …”

  By Sunday evening, there was no room inside the funeral home. The line of mourners wound its way outside for blocks. The Eagles service organization arrived but had to form up across the street for words and prayer. On Monday, the second day of viewing, fifteen hundred mourners passed by the casket. That evening, five hundred uniformed law enforcement officers gathered outside the funeral home to attend the Fraternal Order of Police services.

  On Tuesday, the day of the funeral, Verona stood still. The procession left the funeral home to proceed along Allegheny River Boulevard, which was lined with American flags. Groups of residents stood along the funeral route, men saluting and women dabbing their eyes as the hearse passed by. At the borough building, Lieutenant Ken Sechoka led a sixteen-man honor guard, their rifles cracking in salute to their friend and colleague.

  At St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, Father Carl Gentile led the mass. Following the gospel, he spoke of Officer Zanella and asked why this tragedy had happened. “For many here, the sorrow of this occasion will last for today, but for Officer Zanella’s family, it will always be.” At the close of mass, the pallbearers delivered the casket to the waiting hearse. St. J
oseph Cemetery was a short distance away.

  Joy Zelek, who was seven years old on the day of the Zanella’s funeral, recalled the occasion through a child’s eyes.

  We were at Cribbs Field, a ball field and playground. I was in my brownie uniform with the other girls in my troop. We watched as a long, long line of cars went by, heading up the hill. In one of the cars was our school nurse, Rita Kelly: lovely woman, vibrant red hair, so she stood out. We yrecognized her and started running through the playground toward her car, yelling, “Mrs. Kelly! Mrs. Kelly!” We were feeling exuberant, but the scout leaders corralled us and told us to hush, then explained what we were seeing and how it called for respectful silence. We grouped together to hold hands and bow our heads, because we wanted to be respectful.

  12

  Throughout the day of Joe Zanella’s funeral in Pittsburgh, all the information gathered in Cumberland was ominous. Edna Thompson, contacted by 6:00 A.M., had declared that her daughter could well have gone shopping at Kings and that, no, there wasn’t a chance in the world Linda had taken Lori Mae and run off somewhere. Edna gave the police gathered in her living room physical descriptions of her daughter and granddaughter, listed the clothes they had been wearing, and handed over photographs of the two. Edna questioned why the authorities had not done something upon her first worried call to them. However reasonable the reply, it was inadequate to Edna, who retorted, “Yes, but you don’t know my Linda. If she was to be late five minutes, she’d call twice.”

  Putting aside this pique, Edna and her husband did everything possible to assist the police and gave them all the personal information they could think of. At the end of the interview Edna said, “One more thing, if it’s any help for anybody to recognize them … whenever Lori Mae sees a bubble gum machine, she always gets very excited and cries, ‘bubbles.’ She loves them.”

  Investigator Bill Baker could not wait for Kings to open. He rousted the store manager from sleep to get the names of employees who’d been on duty Monday. All were contacted and told to report to Kings on the double.

  A hammer blow: Linda Peugeot and Lori Mae assuredly had shopped at Kings. Further, employee Vivian Fisher had seen the white Chevy Super Sport in the lot when leaving work at 10:20 P.M. Monday. The police presence and news of the many interviews about a possible kidnapping spread like wildfire through the close-knit community of LaVale and throughout the Cumberland valley. Still, had Linda truly been captured by Hoss?

  The bad news kept coming in. E. E. Chidester, attendant at a gas station near Frostburg, reported that on Monday, shortly after 1:00 P.M., a white male who met Hoss’s general description had driven into his station in a GTO with a white female with long blonde hair and bought seventeen gallons of gas. He didn’t remember a child. Was it really Hoss?

  By late morning, Shirley Clites, still uneasy about the encounter she’d witnessed in Kings parking lot the afternoon before, received a phone call from her sister-in-law, Shelby Gable. The moment Shelby relayed the rumor of a kidnapping, the gnawing in Shirley’s stomach spread, constricting her heart, closing her throat. Her head pounded. “I knew something was wrong. I just knew,” she cried to Shelby.

  Shirley contacted the police again, who questioned her and showed her photos. Yes, that was the pretty woman she’d seen. Yes, that was the darling child … and yes, Shirley said, pointing to a mug shot, “It was that man who got into their car.”

  It was, for the cops, apodictic. Linda and Lori Mae were gone, taken in broad daylight by Stanley Hoss.

  The FBI now jumped in with both feet. Agents from Baltimore, Wheeling, and Pittsburgh rushed to Cumberland. Bill Baker coordinated the efforts of the local agencies with federal resources. The Pittsburgh police provided Cumberland authorities with everything they knew of Hoss. A list was compiled of the situation’s pros and cons—reasons for hope or despair, really. The “despair” column snaked down the page, while the “hope” column had only two entries:

  1. Linda’s menstrual period begins on October 4. It is hoped Hoss will abandon her at that time.

  2. Hoss’s history shows that he has never mistreated his six children.

  . . .

  It began in the Cumberland valley just as it had in Pittsburgh five days earlier, with police sifting through call-ins concerning Hoss, Linda, Lori Mae, the GTO, or any combination thereof. Police cars zipped everywhere. Assignments were given, assessments drawn, options weighed. Despite all the activity, though, even such a champion policeman as Bill Baker, not one for pessimism, thought to himself, this guy’s long gone.

  . . .

  By 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday, while the funeral procession formed in the twin boroughs and law enforcement got organized in Cumberland, Stanley Hoss had left his motel room in Ohio. At a small shopping plaza, he purchased grey bell-bottoms, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a pair of loafers that he picked by size, not bothering to try them on. He changed into the clothes and shoes at a Gulf station adjacent to the plaza. In another hour, he was in Wellington, Ohio, where he stopped at a restaurant run by two women. Hoss ordered scrambled eggs for Lori Mae, but when she refused to eat them he ordered a meal for her, the same as he was having, and told her to eat whatever she wanted. After leaving the restaurant, he put Lori Mae in the car, then went into a nearby bar and drank some beer. After awhile a man came into the bar and told him his child was crying out in the car. Hoss left the bar, took Lori Mae from the car, and brought her to another bar, where he continued to drink beer. Upon leaving this second bar, Hoss noticed a florist shop across the street.

  Alice Dunford, an employee at Kelly Florist, greeted the man who entered the shop. Clean shaven with short hair, he looked presentable in nice slacks and a clean white shirt. “Good afternoon. Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’d like to send some flowers to Pennsylvania. Can you do that?”

  “Of course. What would you like? We have beautiful mums this time of year.”

  “I was thinking roses.”

  “Ah, never a wrong choice,” said Alice. “How many? And have you thought of color?”

  “A dozen, I guess … and I want to send yellow ones.”

  “Certainly, I’ll just need a little information …”

  Ray McCullough, owner of McCullough Florist in Brackenridge, Pa., received a call from the florist shop in Wellington, placing an order for one dozen yellow roses to a Jodine Fawkes. Could delivery be within the hour? McCullough advised Alice Dunford that he did not have yellow roses but could make an immediate delivery of red roses. After a pause, Dunford came back on the line. “Yes, red then, that will be fine. Now wait, one more thing …” When the clerk spoke again, she relayed what the gentleman wanted as a message on the card.

  At 4:30 P.M., one of McCullough’s delivery boys parked the florist van in front of Jodine’s house. Getting the flowers from the back, the boy saw a police car parked across the street but gave it little thought. He carried the flowers up the steps, then knocked on the door. A fair-complexioned young blonde opened up.

  “Miss Fawkes?” said the boy.

  “Yes.”

  “I have flowers for you.”

  Jodine opened the door wider, asking that the bouquet be placed on the kitchen table. After the boy left, Jodine, puzzled, removed the green tissue paper to see twelve half-bloomed red roses adorned with baby’s breath. She looked all through the flowers and stems but found no card. She called the florist shop. Ray McCullough apologized; the card had inadvertently been left out of the bouquet, but he had it. It read: “Sending all my love, Stan.”

  A shiver charged through Jodine. She loved Hoss, had two sons by him, but these past days had been a nightmare. So many articles in the papers, his name in oversized headlines—the kind usually reserved for disasters— hourly radio reports, the lead story on TV at noon, six, and eleven, all saying her man had done the most dastardly things—and, of course, the cops sitting outside her door round the clock. Yes, a nightmare.

  Jodine had met Hoss four years e
arler, in the summer of 1965 when she was “fifteen going on sixteen,” at the Tarena Dancehall in Tarentum. She’d come with a girlfriend and Hoss was in a convertible with another guy. “They yelled something, and we yelled back. We got in and went to a restaurant and socialized. Anyway, that’s how it started,” she would tell friends.

  When they first met, Hoss introduced himself as Bill Wallace. “He was with me all the time,” Jodine said, “so I didn’t think he was married. He had a ’56 Crown Victoria, real sharp. The steering wheel had a fuzzy covering and oversized dice hung from the rearview mirror. We got intimate after maybe six months. We’d pull off the road a lot to have sex and hope the cops didn’t come. He put a blast pack on his car so when it was going down the road he’d throw it in low and hear those pipes rumble. We liked that.”

  Jodine put the roses in a plastic vase. A minute later the policeman outside knocked on the door.

  “Who’re the flowers from, Jodine?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “Look, I’m not wasting one more second …”

  Jodine saw the cop meant business and knew she couldn’t hide the information.

  “Stanley sent them.”

  The cop raced back to his car to radio in this gem. Within the hour, Wellington, Ohio, had become the new hub for the hunt, but the search drew a blank. Still, the thinking went, if Hoss had left Wellington in mid-afternoon, then (by a 6:30 P.M. calculation) he had to be inside a radius of 180 miles, but more likely 150 miles.

  Alice Dunford of Kelly Florist described the man in question as “polite, an ordinary customer who seemed in no hurry at all.” She said he was in his mid-twenties and was by himself. She did not see a young blonde woman or a child.

  Back at the command center in New Kensington, when Chief Blackie DeLellis heard of the flowers episode he threw his hat across the room in disgust. “You know,” he spat, “Joe wasn’t in the ground an hour when his killer—the no-good shit!—is sending roses to some girl. Pray to God, that man is going to pay.”