Kill for Thrill

by Michael W. Sheetz

  MARLENE SUE NEWCOMER BECOMES THE SECOND VICTIM

  Tuesday, January 1, 1980

  Marlene had surprised herself. She had enjoyed her evening in Vandergrift. A small Rockwellian town northeast of Pittsburgh, it seemed as if someone had simply plopped it down at a hairpin turn of the Kiskiminetas River. Sitting on the Westmoreland side of the Westmoreland-Armstrong county line, Vandergrift had once been a busy little town that was home to the steelworkers of George McMurtry’s Apollo Iron and Steel Company, but over the years, the population had been dwindling quickly. Many of the mom and pop stores that once lined quaint Grant Avenue were now either closed or on life support.

  Even the once thriving Casino Theatre had begun to suffer. Perched at the corner of Grant and Lincoln Avenues in the middle of downtown, it is at the heart of Vandergrift’s historic district. The stately theatre, with its four Greek Revival columns, bas-relief Terpsichorean façade and Italian marble flooring, still looked out toward the J&L Steel Rolling Mill on the edge of the river, but these days, the bustle of the mill was gone and the throng of moviegoers had dwindled to a trickle. By late 1979, the theatre, like much of the valley, was slated for demolition.

  The twenty-six-year-old seamstress from Connellsville had been reluctant to make the hour drive from her home southeast of Pittsburgh into Vandergrift, but her friends had begged her, and she had finally decided that it would be nice to get out for an evening.

  After enjoying the evening with her friends and ushering in the New Year, she said her goodbyes and set out on the forty-five-mile journey back home. The new decade was barely an hour and a half old as Marlene pulled out of the driveway and pointed her car toward Connellsville.

  Winding her way down Hancock Avenue, she headed toward Oklahoma Borough. Marlene guided her new Dodge Ramcharger through the deserted streets on the outskirts of Vandergrift. The affable glow of the intermittent streetlights quickly faded in her rearview mirror, and long shadowy pines began to appear like sentinels beside the gray ribbon that snaked its way up and down the hilly countryside. It was dark, and as she maneuvered down Onion Hill toward the river, the gathering fog began to thicken.

  Adjusting her headlights, she slowed to a stop at Hancock Avenue and Route 66. Struggling to make out the stop sign at the corner, she hesitated. Finally, confident that it was safe, she turned right onto Route 66 and headed south out of town and toward her home.

  Up ahead on the right, trudging along the gravely shoulder just beyond the intersection where Route 356 unites with Route 66, there were two men. As they spun around, thumbs thrust skyward, she slowed to a crawl. Scruffy and cold, their appearance and the fog that swirled around them in the headlights gave them an eerie, ghostlike pallor. It was not in her nature to turn down a stranger in need, and it wasn’t something that she was going to start doing now.

  Marlene slowed the tan Ramcharger to a crawl and eased it off the asphalt onto the graveled shoulder. Rolling down the window, she shouted, “Come on in out of the fog.” One offer was all that was necessary, and the bone-chilled duo rushed to the waiting warmth of Marlene’s car.

  John opened the door and lifted the front seat for Michael as he climbed into the backseat. With Michael situated, John dropped the seat back into place and quickly climbed into the passenger’s side.

  “Where are you guys headed?”

  “Pittsburgh,” offered John.

  “Well, I’m headed to Connellsville. I’ll take you as far as I can,” she replied.

  With her passengers safely aboard, Marlene checked through the fog for traffic and then gently pulled back out onto Route 66, once again heading into the night.

  Streets with whimsical names like Beaver Run and Poke Run Church Road sprang up through the fog and then slipped back into the night as the three strangers picked their way along the legendary highway of ramblers, dreamers and writers like Jack Kerouac and Woody Guthrie. Snaking through North Washington out past Greensburg Road and Beaver Run Reservoir, the Ramcharger slowly nibbled away at the miles.

  Slipping his now thawed hand under his jacket, John toyed with the butt of the .22-caliber revolver. Marlene was concentrating on the foggy highway ahead of her. She was none the wiser. With one swift motion, John drew the gun and pointed it squarely at Marlene.

  “Stay calm and you won’t get hurt.”

  Dumbfounded, Marlene was too startled to react—she was too startled to do anything.

  “Find a safe place and pull off the road. And don’t do anything stupid.”

  Nervously, Marlene did what her kidnapper ordered and eased off the highway onto the tree-lined gravel shoulder.

  “Get in the back,” John barked.

  Marlene climbed into the backseat beside Michael, who instantly slipped into the front and took her place behind the wheel. Seizing the steering wheel, he gunned the engine and sped back onto Route 66, leaving a trail of sputtering gravel in his wake. Marlene heard the sharp chirp of the tires as the car lurched out onto 66. Into the fog they drove. Michael was in charge of driving. That left John to tend to the new prisoner. Marlene watched him intently as he pulled a long length of yellow wire from under his jacket and reached for her, grabbing her by the arms. Clumsily, he wrapped her wrists with the wire until he was satisfied that she was securely bound. The wire cut deeply into her wrists, but Marlene stifled a cry. She would not let herself cry.

  John fumbled around on the backseat until his hand bumped into a wool blanket. It had fallen beside the crevice of the seat as the Ramcharger fishtailed back out onto the highway. With a flourish, he unfurled the blanket and Marlene was plunged into darkness.

  As the musty wool blanket settled over her, Marlene thought of funeral shrouds. The darkness under the blanket smothered her. In near panic, she forced herself to focus on the slivers of passing light that intermittently snuck beneath the edge of the blanket. She knew that she had to track where they were headed.

  The car lurched to the left and then the right. Marlene guessed Route 286, Saltsburg Road—it had to be. They were headed east out toward Indiana and Beaver Run Reservoir. The path of the Ramcharger once again steadied, and Marlene shifted her efforts to picking out the mumbles of her captors. The two men spoke in low voices. She couldn’t make out anything through the thick wool. Fuzzy, garbled syllables and an occasional cackled laugh filtered through, but eventually Marlene gave up trying to hear what they were saying and tried to stay calm. In waves, her fears would creep up on her, nearly overtaking her. She forced them into submission, choosing instead to think of her son.

  His pearl-round face smiled at her from beneath a mop of soft, strawberry-blonde hair. Surrounded by piles of newly torn Christmas paper, the smiles and giggles of Christmas morning brought a faint smile to her face. Suddenly, memories of six Christmases past flooded headlong into her brain, crowding out fearful thoughts. With thoughts of future Christmases missed, Marlene Sue Newcomer faded into a world of warm, blue-eyed smiles and toothy grins.

  The thunderous roar that erupted as the .22-caliber bullet escaped down the barrel of the gun snapped Marlene back into reality. As the tiny bullet ripped into the fabric of the blanket, a tiny puff of acrid air glanced across her cheek. The bullet whistled past her and lodged harmlessly into the seat just inches from her arm. Her brain raced.

  Narrowly missed by the first shot, a second was sure to follow. There would be no second chances. She clutched her chest. Gasping and feigning a heart attack, she played it to the hilt, collapsing opossum-like on the backseat. She prayed that her attackers would fall for her ruse. It had to work.

  The tires squealed, and she slid forward against the back of the front seat as the Ramcharger began to swerve back and forth. Sliding left and right, Marlene skidded across the backseat like a hockey puck, and the wool blanket slipped off her and fell onto the floorboards. As quickly as it had begun, the wild gyrations of the car evened out, and they skidded to a stop. Michael whirled in his seat and the interior light came on. She lay motionless, eyes close
d, and continued to play dead.

  Suddenly she felt an ice-cold hand on her wrist, feeling and groping frantically for a pulse. Her heart was racing. Adrenaline spurted from every pore of her body, but Marlene willed herself to be calm. This would work. This had to work.

  Within seconds, the veil of her subterfuge was lifted.

  “She’s faking it.” Marlene opened her eyes to see John’s contorted face as he raised the six-inch .22. He slowly drew up the slack in the trigger as his finger curled tighter and tighter around it. Marlene was helpless. Her eyes followed the cylinder as it slowly rotated, pulling another bullet into alignment with the barrel. Slowly, it crept clockwise toward the top, inching into position.

  A second thunderous roar rattled the windows in the Ramcharger as hot orange flames reached out and touched her. Searing pain gripped her chest. This was not a miss.

  The bullet entered her chest on the left side just above her breast. She felt the warm path of the bullet as it dug into her body. The pain was unlike anything that she had ever experienced. It rushed through her entire body. Every nerve was awake. She had to flee. She could not. All she could do was force her body against the back of the seat and into the corner. Another flash.

  She didn’t hear the thunderous roar. She didn’t hear anything. The tug of the jagged .22-caliber bullet as it tore through the skin on the left side of her head bounced her off the seat. It had entered her skull just above the temple. The muscles in her body recoiled and drove her farther down into the corner of the seat. She was motionless; blood started to drain from the two holes in her body and she could feel it begin to pool beneath her on the seat. There was only silence. Silence and the feel of a scratchy wool funeral shroud once more brushing against her cheek.

  Consciousness came and went as they bounded along. As the pool of blood collecting on the floorboards continued to grow, innumerable, incomprehensible thoughts flooded into and out of her head. The reality of her impending death slowly became final. As her heart fluttered and the tiny sparks in her brain darted about, she seized her few remaining threads of strength and slowly but deliberately dipped a cold, pale finger into the pool of blood that had surrounded her. As her finger began to trace a message on the door panel, her frail body shivered and finally gave up. Marlene Sue Newcomer, beneath her wool shroud, hurtling through Indiana, Pennsylvania, had become John Lesko and Michael Travaglia’s second victim.

  Oblivious to Marlene’s final breaths, the murderous pair raced north on Route 286, once again broke, but now with at least a temporary means of transportation. Michael and John were greeting 1980 with renewed zest. Just ahead, the lights of Indiana, as they mixed with the pale morning sunrise, cast a bluish gray dome of light across the horizon. Michael spotted a convenience store several hundred yards ahead of them in the icy twilight.

  Wheeling into the parking lot with Marlene Sue Newcomer’s lifeless body draped across the backseat, Michael and John were ready to rock and roll. The two men hopped out of the car and walked into the nearly deserted market. Randy Helman looked up from the newspaper that he had spread across the counter. As John walked toward Helman, he lifted his coat. Sticking out of his waistband was the handgrip of the .22 revolver.

  “See this here! I can pull it out in two seconds. Just be calm and you won’t get hurt.”

  As a show of solidarity, Michael lifted his jacket, pulled out a revolver and pointed it at Helman.

  “Give us the money,” he said.

  Randy Helman opened the register and slid what few bills remained in the drawer into the palm of his hand. Casually, he pushed them toward Michael. Michael impatiently clutched at the bills and then crammed them into his pocket. Having emptied the drawer, Randy Helman pushed it closed and looked at John Lesko as if to say, “It’s your move.”

  While Michael was gathering the money, John pulled some yellow electrical wire from his pocket. He walked behind the counter where Helman stood and, working feverishly, wrapped the wire around Helman’s wrists. Turn after turn, he wound the wire tighter and tighter. When he had finished with Helman’s wrists, he moved to his ankles. He needed to be sure that they would get away. Michael joined him.

  Bent industriously over Helman, John and Michael were unaware of Charles Veshinfski, who, while they were busy ordering Helman to the floor, had pulled into the parking lot. It was part of his daily routine—every morning he stopped at the 7-Eleven to buy a paper. On this morning, Charles Veshinfski would not get his paper.

  1. The State Correctional Institute at Rockview, located in Centre County Pennsylvania. Rockview is the only correctional institution in Pennsylvania authorized to carry out the death penalty. Photograph courtesy the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

  2. Leonard Miller’s senior high school photo, taken circa 1976. Photograph courtesy Dr. William Kerr.

  3. Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Kiski 1 Regional Police Academy graduating class. Leonard Miller is standing at the center of the back row. Photograph courtesy James D. Clawson.

  4. Booking photos of John Lesko and Daniel Montgomery. Lesko is pictured on the left, and Montgomery is on the right. Photograph courtesy the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

  5. Trooper Thomas Tridico, Pennsylvania State Police, shortly after graduation from the State Police Academy, circa 1947. Photograph courtesy Thomas Tridico.

  6. Apollo Borough Police Station as it appears today. Located at 405 North Pennsylvania Avenue, the facility is no longer in use but remains essentially unchanged since January 3, 1980, the night on which Leonard Miller was shot.

  7. Joe’s Steakhouse, located on Route 22 in Delmont, Pennsylvania, circa 1970. Travaglia and Lesko abandoned Peter Levato’s Ford Grenada in the cornfield behind this restaurant on December 27, 1979. Photograph courtesy Monica Meehan.

  8. Sergeant Thomas Tridico lecturing at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, circa 1970.

  Photograph courtesy Thomas Tridico.

  9. Thatcher’s Motel, located on Route 22 in Delmont, Pennsylvania, as it appears today.

  10. Thatcher’s Motel, as it appears today.

  11. Lobby and office of Thatcher’s Motel as they appear today.

  12. The infamous Edison Hotel still stands at 135 Ninth Street in downtown Pittsburgh, and with the exception of the revamped club in the basement, it has changed very little since the murders in 1979.

  13. The historic Harris Theatre on Liberty Avenue as it appears today. It is located approximately two blocks from the Edison Hotel, and its appearance is nearly identical to the way it would have looked during the era of Lesko and Travaglia’s murder spree.

  14. The spiraling driveways of the Smithfield-Liberty Parking Garage, where Marlene Sue Newcomer’s body was found inside her abandoned Dodge Ramcharger, adjacent to the Gimbels Department Store. The Smithfield-Liberty Garage is located approximately three blocks from the Edison Hotel.

  15. The sluice gate of the Loyalhanna Dam in rural Westmorland County, Pennsylvania, where Peter Levato was beaten and shot to death.

  16. Looking south from the Loyalhanna Creek bridge at the wooded area where Peter Levato’s body was recovered.

  17. The breast of the Blue Spruce Lake Dam. During the winter, the surface of the lake is frozen solid, and the hole through which William Nicholls’s body was shoved would have been located approximately twenty-five feet from the concrete retaining wall.

  18. North Plaza at the corner of North Astronaut Way and First Street in Apollo as it looks today. On January 3, 1980, Leonard Miller’s cruiser was parked in front of the Stop-N-Go (Cogo’s today). Travaglia, Lesko and Rutherford sped through this intersection, prompting Leonard Miller to give chase.

  19. Cooper Trailer Sales is largely unchanged since Lesko, Travaglia and Rutherford abandoned William Nicholls’s Lancia in the parking lot shortly after shooting Leonard Miller on January 3, 1980.

  20. William Nicholls’s 1977 silver blue Fiat Lancia after the Pennsylvania State Police recovered it o
n January 3, 1980. Photograph courtesy the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

  21. The location in which Leonard Miller was gunned down on January 3, 1980. This photo was taken shortly after the murder in 1980, looking east down Route 66 toward Greensburg.

  22. The location in which Leonard Miller was killed as it appears today. Gianini’s Hotel still stands on the right, and Naser’s Meat Packing is located directly to the left outside the frame of the photo. This photo was taken looking east on Route 66 toward Greensburg.

  23. The location in which Leonard Miller was killed as it appears today, looking northwest toward Apollo, Pennsylvania. Nasar’s Meat Packing is visible to the right.

  24. A map depicting the location of Leonard Miller’s murder on January 3, 1980. Illustration courtesy the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

  25. John Lesko and Michael Travaglia being led from the Westmoreland County Courthouse in handcuffs during their trial in 1981. John Lesko is pictured first, and Michael Travaglia follows. Photograph courtesy the Valley News Dispatch, Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

  26. Leonard Miller’s honor guard escorts his body from Curran Funeral Home in Apollo, Pennsylvania, on January 7, 1980. Photograph courtesy James D. Clawson.

  27. Leonard Miller’s honor guard escorts his body to First Lutheran Church in Apollo, Pennsylvania, on January 7, 1980. Pictured from left to right, front: Chief Richard Murphy, Officer Charles Sharon and Officer Donald Mahan. Back: Officer Robin Davis (obscured), Officer Mark Fetterman and Officer James Clawson. Photograph courtesy James D. Clawson.