Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  The FBI agents made their plans. From what they understood of Stanley Hoss, transporting him by automobile was too risky. Then, too, Hoss had promised to pinpoint the locations of the Peugeots’ bodies directly after speaking with his parents and mistress, so time was of the essence. Upon orders from Ian MacLennan in Pittsburgh, Special Agent Dunn was to maintain legal and physical custody of the captive and to exhibit extraordinary caution, for the FBI had learned that some citizens from the heartland states, and doubtless from Pennsylvania and Maryland, wished to see Stanley Hoss dead. Threats of this inimical nature were funneled to the FBI, which kept them quiet to avoid escalating such public sentiment. Still, the death threats were plentiful.

  A warrant of transfer was issued Wednesday afternoon for Hoss to vacate Iowa under federal custody. Transportation for so special a prisoner posed a problem, and it wasn’t until 9:00 P.M. that evening that a private charter five-seater Piper Aztec was arranged through Niederhauser Airways in Waterloo. In addition to the pilot, Denny Otto, the prisoner would have the close company of two Waterloo policemen and two U.S. deputy marshals.

  At 4:00 A.M. on Thursday, the Black Hawk County Jail was eerily quiet. Corrections officers and FBI agents awakened Hoss to prepare him for the flight. Aside from Hoss, the segregation unit held only one other forlorn prisoner, and he slept through the whispered words and the gentle clinking of chains. There were enough beefy officers present in case of resistance, but Hoss complied with instructions and barely spoke.

  Captain Start again called District Attorney Duggan, who remained adamant that the state bench warrant be served. “Marty and I were in between,” said Start. “We knew the Zanella case was wrapped up, so why continue this tug of war between the state and the feds, which was, really, Duggan and Thornburgh. Again, Duggan had some hard feelings and he just didn’t want Thornburgh to have any success. But we were under orders. You’re making a living and got to do what you’re told.

  “We were up at some ungodly hour and got to the airport a half-hour before the plane was to take off. It would be our last ghost of a chance to stop it with our warrant.”

  The experience at the airport would never leave Corcoran or Start, who recalled

  We saw them bring Hoss out of the car and walk him toward the plane. He was trussed up and shackled, could barely shuffle along and was surrounded by a cluster of uniforms, and thirty more officers formed two rows to keep Hoss flanked at all times on his way to the plane. This was amazing security.

  We hurried over to where Hoss was to serve our warrant but the police stopped us. We were dumbfounded. How could the police stop the police from lawfully serving a warrant? They said, “We got orders to halt you here,” then took us into a type of loose custody in the hangar. This was highly irregular and I’ve never heard anything like it before or since.

  The Waterloo cops in the hangar, several of whom Start and Corcoran had previously met and even had a beer with, were highly apologetic. They were almost as astonished by what was going on as the Pennsylvania lawmen. Start mused, “Ian MacLennan [of the Pittsburgh FBI office] was thick in this. I knew Ian and liked him enough—he was a friend of mine … but ‘friend’ is maybe too … I mean, how close can you get to one of those people?”

  Foiled and frustrated, Start and Corcoran watched the Piper Aztec take off at 6:05 A.M. Only then was Start allowed to make a call to his boss to tell him what happened.

  After a final briefing from his detectives in Iowa, a displeased Robert Duggan waited at a county airport near West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh. He was the district attorney of Allegheny County and would not be bullied by the feds. He, personally, would see to it that he controlled the Hoss case. In a pocket of his expensive brown tweed sports coat was a habeas corpus writ granting him legal custody of Hoss. Standing beside Duggan was Allegheny County’s police chief, Walter “Monk” Ketchel. Neither of these high officials was accustomed to hanging around airports to pick up suspects, but this was different.

  Duggan, the handsome, blond-headed, legal powerhouse, had his admirerers and his detractors. His office prosecuted offenders vigorously, “like hounds after a fox,” as Duggan liked to say. But too, Duggan could be brusque, speaking without thinking. He could rub people the wrong way. It was Duggan who had smeared the county jail operations and had declared guilty the guards who’d been charged with the beating of inmate “Georgia” Buoy—and this before any investigation had been completed or a single hearing aired. A bachelor, Duggan was not infrequently spotted in the wee hours, strolling in fine haberdashery along Pittsburgh’s Liberty Avenue, a rough and seamy part of town where anything could be had for a price.

  Chief Ketchel bumped Duggan’s arm and pointed to the west sky, where a dark speck gradually emerged as the small two-engine prop they’d been waiting for. Duggan checked his Rolex: 10:33 A.M. He and Ketchel moved toward the runway. So did some FBI agents and other police officers, along with a corps of photographers and reporters who’d been waiting at the terminal building.

  Pilot Denny Otto eased the plane down. It traveled only a hundred yards before coming to a stop, but it remained at the end of the runway instead of taxiing to the main ramp. Almost before Duggan had mused to Ketchel, “Why’s he staying way out there?” three carloads of U.S. marshals were seen racing to the plane. Duggan and Ketchel bounded for their own car. Ketchel had floored it for several hundred yards, but as they neared the Piper Aztec, Duggan, writ in hand, could just glimpse the surrounded prisoner being put into one of the cars. “Pull up beside it!” he yelled at Ketchel. As Ketchel screeched to a halt, both prepared to get out, but just then the cavalcade began to move out.

  Ketchel followed suit, waving and blowing his horn. With an effort, he drew even with the left side of the trailing car, which had its windows open. With Ketchel matching the speed of the marshals’ trailing car and staying close to it, Duggan managed to toss the writ into the backseat so that it landed on a marshal’s lap. In the next instant, the writ was hurled back out. Duggan grabbed for it reflexively, but the envelope caught a gust of wind, then flip-flopped to the roadway. As Ketchel stopped his car to retrieve the writ, Duggan watched the federal caravan head off at high speed. To Duggan, the events at the West Mifflin Airport constituted a personal and professional indignity. He wouldn’t forget.

  The entire Hoss operation was cloaked in secrecy. Indeed, long after the plane had landed, Hoss and his escort could not be found. Seeking information at the U.S. Marshals Service, reporters were blandly told, “We have no knowledge of a Stanley Hoss. Perhaps you could call the FBI.” When the FBI was called, reporters were directed to try the U.S. Marshals Service.

  Meanwhile, back in Waterloo, the stymied Captain Start and Detective Corcoran agreed to an interview with reporters, only to have to inform those gathered that they’d received a long-distance call from superiors ordering them to make no comment. “Curly” Hultman, U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, was not so hampered by orders from above, but, as he spoke from the mezzanine of his office building in Waterloo into a bank of microphones, he knew he would have to be deceptive to spare the Peugeot family and to uphold the feds’ agreement with Hoss. He knew that Linda and her daughter would not be coming home, but he couldn’t say so. The day’s headline, “Pennsylvania Badman Admits Kidnapping, Silent on Fate of Two Victims,” was the amount of truth allowed for now.

  Hultman opened with praise for the law agencies involved in the fugitive’s capture, but he soon found himself fielding questions about the Peugeots. “At this very moment,” Hultman said, “there is more than one major search party at work. We are using every scintilla of information we have to find Mrs. Peugeot and her daughter.”

  A Waterloo Daily Courier reporter asked about the heavy security around Hoss in the city’s jail and at the airport. “Those security precautions are not only necessary because of Hoss’s record,” answered Hultman, “but also because someone may try to harm him. We don’t want another Jack Ruby case.”

/>   Several news reporters from Ohio stood together, representing their papers in Cleveland, Columbus, and Akron. They knew their state had been an early part of Hoss’s escape route and were aware of Hoss’s brazen gift of roses to his girlfriend, sent from Wellington. Selected by Hultman to ask a question, one of them queried, “Sir, Pete Jones of the Plain Dealer…. Can you tell us more about Hoss? Is he cooperating?”

  Hultman said yes, Hoss was cooperating, but declined to give specifics. As to Hoss himself, the U.S. district attorney likened Hoss to the convicted murderers portrayed in Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, then uttered the quote of the news conference: “Capote’s characters are like Cinderella compared to Hoss.”

  Staff writers Ben Beal and Carl Tomayko of Tarentum, Pennsylvania’s Valley News Dispatch had been hot on the story in Pittsburgh, Cumberland, and Waterloo. Ben turned to Carl and whispered, “Why did Hultman say that? I mean, yeah, Hoss shot Zanella and kidnapped Maxwell, and now the Peugeots, but referencing Hickcock and Smith, and the Clutter family? Why’s he talking like Hoss is a multiple murderer?” Carl answered his friend, “Because he is. For some reason Hultman just can’t make it official.”

  The Dispatch laid out for readers the possible penalties for Hoss’s crimes. Under Pennsylvania law, a person convicted of first-degree murder may face the death penalty. Under federal law, a person convicted of harming a kidnap victim likewise may face the death penalty. Based on what the public knew and guessed regarding Hoss’s crimes against Zanella, Maxwell, and the Peugeots, it seemed likely that Hoss would not be getting out of this alive—a satisfying thought for many.

  District Attorney Duggan, still fuming, made it back from the West Mifflin Airport to his downtown Pittsburgh office in time to hear a radio statement by Blair Griffith, an assistant U.S. district attorney, who said, to Duggan’s surprise, that federal authorities probably would yield to Pennsylvania on the Zanella murder charge. “It is logical to do so,” said Griffith. “Stanley Hoss has terrorized this part of the country and that is why the state, through DA Duggan’s office, has been so firm and aggressive in their actions.”

  Duggan sighed in relief. Did this mean the feds would relinquish Hoss to the state? Had he won the custody battle? Yet within the hour, Duggan was brought up short when federal attorney Hultman, speaking from Iowa, stated, “Warrants dealing with crimes involving Mrs. Peugeot and her daughter will take precedence over others …”

  “Just what the hell is going on?” Duggan exploded to an office aide. “Hultman doesn’t have that kind of weight. Who gave him the go-ahead on that? Hoover? Mitchell?”

  Attorney Barney Phillips, who’d been retained by Hoss’s parents first to defend their son against the rape charges brought by Kathy Defino and then to appeal his conviction, was now put on notice by Duggan’s office to stand ready Thursday afternoon, with no determination of hour. Smoking Marsh-Wheeling cigars, Phillips hung around the Pittsburgh courthouse, where reporters caught up with him. “If my client had contacted me after he escaped,” Phillips explained, “I would have told him to get right back and give himself up.” Phillips wondered aloud if the police had checked to see if Linda Peugeot had known Hoss previously—a remark considered curious and inappropriate by many. Phillips well knew that one of Hoss’s tactics was to suggest his victims’ complicity in his crimes. He’d done so with Kathy Defino, claiming she’d gone with him willingly and only cried rape when he had refused her advances. Likewise, when Detective Matzen had asked for Hoss’s ID in the Maywood’s parking lot, Hoss had given a false name, adding, “That woman in the café knows me.” Most recently, Hoss, with faux sincerity, had claimed that he’d had a rendezvous with Karen Maxwell at the cemetery and that she had willingly helped him get away from Pittsburgh. Give pause. Create doubt. Buy time.

  When reporters informed Phillips that investigation had shown no acquaintance between Hoss and the Peugeots (something Phillips almost certainly knew already), the attorney replied, “Of course, of course, and my worry now, like yours, is about the woman and child.”

  At 4:40 P.M., with a small army of city and county police, detectives, and marshals guarding the Pittsburgh courthouse yard and corridors, Hoss was brought to the courtroom of Judge Robert Van der Voort, presiding judge of criminal court. The yard area had been cleared, and officers kept everyone away from windows overlooking the yard to prevent any attempt to injure the prisoner. An hour before, Hoss had been taken from the feds’ hiding place, which turned out to have been the State Regional Correctional Facility at Greensburg. Someone had spilled the beans as to his whereabouts, for when the convoy arrived downtown, half the city seemed to be waiting to see whatever could be seen. Onlookers lined the streets, and a crowd gathered on the Forbes Avenue side of the courthouse, while others watched from offices in the City-County Building and from other nearby locations.

  Judge Van der Voort, with Judge Samuel Strauss sitting beside him, opened the hearing, which had nothing to do with Hoss’s recent great crimes but solely with his July conviction for the rape of Kathy Defino. Before Hoss’s escape, while he was locked away in the workhouse pending sentencing for Defino’s rape, Barney Phillips had submitted an appeal. Now, therefore, the law had a hook in Hoss: Van der Voort would sentence him, and any sentence of two years or more qualified as a state sentence, mandating custody in a state prison. This was essential for security reasons alone. Once Hoss was salted away, the various prosecuting bodies of government could put their cases together, knowing their nemesis was harming no more and would be made available when his time came to answer for his enormities.

  Inside Van der Voort’s third-floor court, Hoss, dressed in the same trousers and white dress shirt he had worn when captured in Waterloo, stood erect but appeared tired. Van der Voort began by reminding those present that it was Judge George Eppinger who had presided over the rape trial in July. Then, noting that Eppinger could not be present for today’s sentencing, he added that since Eppinger had concluded that Kathy Defino’s rape had been committed with a gun, it should be considered a very serious offense.

  Phillips had the impossible task of defending his client by offering up scant favorable reports of Hoss or pointing out this or that mitigation. Phillips looked around the room and noticed it was filled. He also saw a deputy at each window and a dozen more officers sprinkled throughout the room, not to mention the four beefy types ringing his client “and the plain clothes guy by the door holding a barely hidden tommy gun, for Chrissakes!”

  Barney Phillips, a well-worn court fighter, would not or could not fight this hour of this day. He simply stated the obvious: “There may have been grounds for a new trial but as later developments turned out there appeared there wasn’t. I was to present my arguments with my client eight days ago on October first before Judge Eppinger, but my client was not here to attend.”

  “For the record,” interjected Van der Voort,” why was that?”

  “Well, because it is my understanding that Mr. Hoss escaped from the workhouse, had taken flight.”

  “True enough,” commented Van der Voort, “he did that. Please continue.”

  “In view of my client’s failure to appear and regarding subsequent events, I withdraw my motion for a new trial.”

  “To be clear,” Van der Voort queried, “your contention is your client forfeited his right to a new trial when he failed to appear at the scheduled argument October one?”

  “That is so, your Honor.”

  With no further ado, Van der Voort addressed the prisoner.

  “Do you have anything to say before sentence is pronounced?”

  Stanley Hoss, slightly arrogant, replied, “No.”

  “All right then, for your July 8 conviction for rape, this court sentences you to a term of imprisonment of no less than ten years but no more than twenty years.”

  It was over. The hearing had lasted only twenty minutes. As the five o’clock hour sounded in the courthouse tower, Hoss was placed in a black station wagon that carrie
d him the few miles to Pittsburgh’s venerable Western Penitentiary.

  15

  Officials were appetent that after Hoss got his wish to speak to his mistress and parents, he would give up the locations of the Peugeots’ bodies. After all, that was the deal. However, disquiet plagued all the officials involved, from detective to district attorney to J. Edgar Hoover. Hoss might be in custody, but he still had leverage. The distance from Cumberland to Waterloo alone was 1,400 miles. Could the Peugeots ever be found without the killer’s help? Would Stanley Hoss keep his promise? Was he in any sense an honorable man?

  In the event, Hoss’s parents did not visit him at the penitentiary. He understood that after the heart attack his mother suffered, she was not strong enough for the trip. The greater mission anyway, authorities believed, was to arrange for a visit from Hoss’s mistress, Jodine Fawkes. If Hoss loved anyone, that one seemed to be Jodine. During one interrogation, speaking of his decision to return to Pennsylvania, Hoss had said, “I didn’t care how many cops I had to kill to do it but I was going to see Jo.”

  Thus Dunn, with another federal agent and a woman from Children and Youth Services, arrived at the home of Jodine Fawkes to tell her that the FBI once again needed her help.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Jodine. “You’ve been treating Stanley like dirt, like you believe everything bad you hear. People keep calling me, reporters too, questioning me, saying bad things. My mother gets some of these calls, and she’s scared, and you want me to help you, and get in the papers some more? No!”