“It sounded like a firecracker,” said John.
Bill Nicholls writhed in pain as blood poured from the soft flesh of his right bicep and quickly began to soak the sleeve of his jacket. “Get in the back.” Michael ordered as he shoved Bill toward the backseat, where John had already settled in. Michael slid behind the wheel, and Ricky jumped into the passenger ’s seat. Moments later the three men and their captive were speeding down Penn Avenue, headed out of town and into the darkness.
As the car hurtled along, darting in and out of the snowy hillsides along Route 119 headed toward Indiana, John Lesko began to torment the injured man in the backseat. Already handcuffed and bleeding heavily, Bill tried hard to defend himself from John’s meaty fists as they crashed into his body. He could not stop the beating.
Eventually, Bill surrendered to his attacker’s onslaught and collapsed, exhausted, against the backseat. Undaunted by Bill’s submission, John continued laughing and taunting the bleeding man. Harder and harder he drove his fists into his victim as Bill drifted in and out of consciousness. Again and again John hit him, each blow harder than the last. Bill couldn’t escape the pain.
With every fist fall, the shrieks of pain that exploded from his wounded arm drove Bill Nicholls closer and closer to unconsciousness. Drifting back and forth between lucidity and stupor, Bill could feel his bloody and broken body slowly dropping into unconsciousness.
Illuminated by only the eerie green fluorescence of the dashboard lights, the three men and their victim rocketed along the winding country highways for what seemed like an eternity. After an hour and a half of inflicting brutality on the semiconscious Bill Nichols, the bright lights of the Steel City were far behind them. Michael veered off Route 119 onto Route 110. A mile past Grove Chapel Road, there was a tiny, unmarked road that wound off into the darkness.
The silver blue Lancia turned off Route 110 onto Blue Spruce Road and skidded to a halt. Michael Travaglia glanced in his rearview mirror and then sat for a moment. Confident that no one was following them, he gunned the engine. The car jerked forward like a shot back out onto the road.
As the car picked up speed, tiny swirling snowflakes began to dance along the highway in little pirouettes and then threw themselves underneath the speeding car. Coaxing the car along the gently winding road, Michael regripped the wheel and then glanced out into the dark woods. The surreal landscape hurtling past them in the inky black night was familiar to him. The monotonous thrum of the drilling machinery and the acrid aroma of natural gas had worked into his brain, poking and prodding it, catapulting him back in time fifteen years until he was once more sitting in the backseat of the family car as they drove out toward the family cabin on Blue Spruce Lake.
Dragging himself back into the present, Michael shifted in his seat and refocused on what he had to do. William was silent. The bitter odor of burning gunpowder, singed flesh and warm blood still filled the cabin of the car, and Michael pushed harder on the gas pedal.
He knew this road by heart and mindlessly pushed on to his destination. In the distance, the faint amber glow of the Lakeside Center Pavilion caught his eye. Nervously, he scanned the parking lot for any signs of life. In warmer times, it was not uncommon for young lovers to steal away to the shores of this secluded lake hoping to find eternal love among the whispering pines—tonight there was no one. Relieved, he raced headlong around the next curve.
A throaty baritone moan escaped from the slender, pale lips of the semi-comatose prisoner in the back. John spun around in his seat and slammed a meaty fist square into the bridge of Bill’s nose. Bill’s body quivered and then gently slumped over against the door.
The sliver of moon that hung in the sky cast an eerie, wandering shadow onto the lake as the headlights of the Lancia rounded the last curve in the road. Shapeless demons danced and pursued one another in the night, playing their fiendish game of cat and mouse across the lake’s icy surface. Mesmerized and pumped with adrenaline, Michael watched the headlights devour the gravely gray pavement leading up to the lakeside.
He nearly missed the turnoff. Michael jerked the wheel hard to the right and sent the car skidding onto the gravely surface of Groft Road. As he hit the gas, rocks and stones scattered into the underbrush. The abrupt turn sent the tail end of the car into a wide arc, and Michael struggled hard to control the vehicle. Fishtailing this way and that on the loose gravel, the car began to spin out of control. Quickly correcting the spin, Michael finally pulled the car under control and headed down the middle of the dusty, narrow road.
Two hundred yards ahead, barely visible in the moonlight, the familiar shapes of the pavilions surrounding the main parking lot of the lake began to take shape. The solitude of Blue Spruce Lake was perfect for what they had to do. Darting past the large, open parking lot, Michael slowed the car to a crawl and began to creep as close to the lake’s shore as he could get. Satisfied that he could go no farther, he switched off the ignition.
A cold seclusion enveloped the car. The only sounds inside the car were the slow, measured breaths of the three conscious men intermittently punctuated by a frail moan of the semiconscious backseat passenger. Outside the car, the night sounds of winter filtered through the piney woods. The sharp, crisp cracks made by the shifting ice on the lake sporadically disrupted the still silence of the woods. They sat motionless. Then, without a word, the three men bailed from the car.
The rush of arctic air that filled the cockpit of the Lancia as Ricky threw the passenger’s door open breathed a spark of life into Bill Nicholls, and he began to struggle against the bindings on his hands. He screamed for help.
Michael, John and Ricky grabbed Bill by the shoulders and dragged him out of the car. As the men struggled with the thrashing man, long, slender shadows danced around them on the gravel. Pushing and shoving, they finally freed Bill’s body from the car. He dropped onto the frozen ground and continued his struggle. John pounced on the bloody and frantic captive. A flurry of fists began to rain down on William Nicholls. Blow after blow pushed him further and further into nothingness. When Bill’s struggles finally subsided, John hovered over his limp victim, drawing long, frozen breaths into his winded lungs. Standing in silence, the three men stared down into the now inanimate face of William Nicholls.
Without a word, Michael turned and headed off toward the frozen lake, and John and Ricky began working on Bill Nicholls in silence. Jerking Nicholls’s belt from around his waist, John wrapped it around his ankles and then tied it tightly. Ricky scurried around the rocky bank gathering up as many stones and loose rocks as he could carry. With arms heaped full of rocks, he trotted back to the car.
The two men then forced the odd-shaped pieces of limestone into the jacket and pants pockets of the dying man. Stuffing his pockets and jacket until lopsided lumps and bulges protruded from every angle, they furiously tried to add weight to his body. In the distance, from out on the ice, sharp rhythmic sounds began to echo off the tree line as Michael hacked and chopped through the six-inch sheet of ice, his frozen fingers wrapped around a large piece of jagged limestone.
John and Ricky rolled Bill onto his back. They unzipped his jacket and continued shoving large rocks into it until it could hold no more. When it was filled, John struggled and tugged until finally the straining and distorted zipper of Bill’s jacket finally crept up, sealing thirty pounds of ballast inside.
The slushy sounds of Michael’s chopping faded into the trees, and the click-clack of his shoes on the ice grew louder. Michael skated off the ice and rushed to his waiting partners. He knelt down to inspect the body. The icy winds whipping across Blue Spruce Lake bit at his fingers, and he rubbed his hands together briskly. Not much better. What he had expected to take five minutes felt like it had taken an hour. His hands were frozen. He cursed Bill Nicholls under his breath for being difficult.
He motioned for John and Ricky. Together, the two men seized Bill’s shoulders and began pushing. Michael started pulling at the body as hard as he could.
With John and Ricky holding onto Bill’s clothing, all three dark figures pulled, struggled and tugged, until the body began to inch toward the smooth sheet of ice covering the lake. Slowly it slid inch by inch out onto the ice. Once out on the ice, the body began to slide more easily. Foot by foot, they slid him farther out, closer and closer to the waiting hole. When the men reached the three-foot gaping hole in the ice, they all stood up. Michael breathed a sigh of relief.
The three men stood motionless near the west end of the lake. They were about twenty-five yards from the breast of the dam. Bill Nicholls’s unconscious body lay at their feet about three feet from a watery grave.
John smiled an evil-looking smile, perfected over years of abuse, and drew in a long breath. He exhaled a long, frosty breath and began to push the body toward the waiting hole in the ice with his foot. Michael’s heart raced. Two more shoves and Bill Nicholls’s body teetered on the brink of the hole.
John placed the heel of his boot on William Nicholls’s shoulder and then looked at Michael. Michael smiled. John gave the unconscious body one last push. The icy water of Blue Spruce Lake returned William Nicholls into the world of the conscious and triggered violent shrieks and screams. Sounds of his frantic struggle echoed off the gray concrete dam as he plunged feet first into the gaping darkness.
Then there was nothing—no splash—nothing more than icy silence as the weighted body disappeared into the black water. Suddenly, the surface of the water churned and boiled. William Nicholls’s head broke the surface and his body began thrashing about violently. Hands, tied with heavy yellow wire, began clawing and grasping at the jagged edges of the icy hole, desperately trying to find a handle. As William Nicholls’s head bobbed on the surface of the water, the three men looked at one another in astonishment. Michael had not anticipated that Bill would struggle. In a flurry of angry obscenities and epithets, John began thrusting his foot downward onto the top of the thrashing man’s head. He kicked again and again, each time bringing his foot down harder and harder. Water and blood-tinged ice flew through the air. Michael and Ricky joined in. Repeatedly, the men drove their heels into the bleeding and crushed skull of William Nicholls, until his water-filled lungs could no longer offer any resistance. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The water grew calm and still. Silence blanketed the tree-rimmed lake again, and all that remained of the gruesome murderous rampage were the measured, heavy breaths of the exhausted murderers. The three men stood silently beside the hole, and then one by one, without a word, they turned toward the silver blue Lancia and calmly walked off the ice.
THE FOURTH VICTIM IS CLAIMED
Thursday, January 3, 1980, 3:00 a.m.
The Fiat’s engine clattered as it sparked to life, breaking the stranglehold of the desolate silence that had engulfed them. The oppressive darkness surrounding the sports car retreated into the trees as the furious headlamps burst out into the night. Michael slowly rubbed his hands, trying to get the feeling back in his fingers. He gripped the wheel tightly and stared intently at the tiny red specks of William Nicholls’s flesh on his knuckles. In the dim dome light of the car’s interior, he smiled a crooked, curved, evil little smile.
The third murder was done. In the space of fewer than four hours, these three deranged men had abducted, tortured and killed, in a most gruesome and cruel manner, a stranger—the third stranger in a murderous rampage that had begun only five days earlier.
As the tires rattled across the iron grating of the bridge, Michael reached down and ran his thumb across the checked surface of the wooden handgrip on the .38-caliber revolver that the three men had just stolen from Bernard Travaglia’s truck. His new firepower reassured him, and he began to imagine how the gun was going to feel when he squeezed the trigger. The black-andwhite police cruiser parked in the plaza lot next to the Stop-N-Go brought Michael back to reality.
Ricky spotted the cop car first. “How are we going to rob the place with that cop hanging out there?” he asked.
“Relax. Let’s have some fun with this guy. We’ll get him to chase us, and when we get him out of town, we’ll come back and rob the place,” Michael answered.
The plan seemed logical enough. Michael gave the car some gas and headed toward the intersection of Astronaut Way and First Street. Ignoring the red signal, Michael floored the accelerator and careened through the intersection, then flew past the idling Apollo police cruiser. Climbing the hill, the trio waited for the flashing lights—there were none.
As it dawned on them that no police pursuit was imminent, Michael wheeled the car around and headed back down the hill into town once again. This time Michael’s speed topped eighty miles per hour. As he accelerated into the intersection, he began blowing the horn. The car lurched through the intersection, and to the delight of the three men, red and blue flashes signaled the promise of a chase.
As Michael flew across the bridge, the headlights of Leonard Miller’s patrol car appeared in his rearview mirror. John Lesko leaned toward Ricky. “Lay down in the back,” he said. “This is going to turn into a shooting gallery.”
Ahead on the right, the dilapidated Gianinni’s Hotel slumbered behind weathered, white-chalk wooden siding. Satisfied that they were beyond the Armstrong County line and thus beyond the limits of the Apollo Police Department’s jurisdiction, Michael abruptly skidded the Lancia to a stop. Barely pulling off the highway before stopping, Michael looked in the rearview mirror and saw the police cruiser’s headlights closing fast.
As the headlights angled in behind him, Michael pulled the silver snub-nosed revolver from his waistband and rested it against the door, just below the edge of the window.
Leonard Miller’s body cast long, dancing shadows inside of the stolen Lancia as the patrol car’s door swung open and he stepped out. Michael watched the shadows in the mirror as Leonard lifted his nightstick from the seat beside him and slid the solid oak shaft into the metal ring hanging from the left side of his duty belt. The solid clack of wood against the metal ring echoed off the siding of Nasar’s Meat Packing House down along the river and bounced off Michael’s ear. Leonard adjusted his gun belt, steadied his round felt campaign hat and strode toward the idling silver blue sports car.
Michael listened intently to the quickly approaching footsteps. Each scrape of leather against pavement brought Leonard Miller one step closer to uncovering their reign of terror. With William Nicholls’s wallet and belongings in the glove box and the .22-caliber pistol they had used to kill Peter Levato and Marlene Sue Newcomer tucked into John Lesko’s waist, it would only be a matter of time before their killing spree was undone. The steady slip-clap of Leonard Miller’s strides grew louder. Michael slid his thumb onto the knurled edge of the .38’s hammer. Easing it back, he felt the click of the action as the cylinder rotated into position, chambering a single .38-caliber bullet. Miller’s ample frame walked around the driver’s side of the car and stepped into the doorway, casting a large, looming shadow over the occupants.
Michael’s fingers twitched as he slowly raised the gun. He slowly squeezed the trigger until the roar of 158 grains of lead rocketing from the two-inch gun barrel jolted him backward. As the first bullet entered Leonard Miller’s body, Michael heard John in the passenger seat screaming, “Shoot him again, shoot him again!” Michael choked on the smoke as it filled the cabin. Leonard Miller dropped to one knee on the pavement outside Michael’s door, and Michael squeezed the trigger again, sending a second slug screaming into Leonard as he recoiled from the car door.
Smoke and unburned powder hung in the air outside the car window where Leonard Miller fell backward. Grasping at the police revolver that dangled in the holster by his side, his training took over, and he drew his weapon. Stumbling backward onto the pavement, Leonard began to fire. Squeezing again and again, he sent bullet after bullet in the direction of Michael, John and Ricky. The first struck the side window and sent a shower of glass raining down on them. Michael felt the sting of blood in his eye. Stunned that Leonar
d had returned fire, he panicked. Michael slammed the car into drive and crushed the gas pedal.
Thick black stripes of rubber appeared under the tires of the Lancia as it accelerated south on Route 66. Leonard continued firing, sending the last of his six bullets into the rear passenger’s side quarter panel of the car as it disappeared down the road. As the taillights rapidly vanished into the darkness, Leonard reholstered his gun and collapsed onto the cold, gray pavement.
The first round had struck Leonard in the abdomen; the second had found its mark in his shoulder. From both pencil-sized holes, growing crimson blobs began to engulf his shirt. As the blood rapidly drained from his body, Leonard began crawling back toward his idling cruiser. Covering the twenty-five feet took every ounce of strength that remained in his 250-pound body. When he reached the open door, he searched for the microphone that he had left lying on the seat.
Once he found it, Leonard wrapped his thick, blood-covered hand around the microphone and depressed the button. “RC-70 to Control. 10-13.” Leonard gasped for breath. “They shot me. They shot me twice…come out to the West Apollo slaughterhouse—” Leonard’s voice trailed off as his body dropped onto the pavement beside his black and white, microphone still clasped in his hand.
Donald Mahan had been working the evening shift in Apollo Borough on January 2. When Leonard arrived for his shift that night, Donny handed over the keys to the car, briefed him on the events of the evening and said goodbye. From there, Donny made the five-minute drive across the Kiskiminetas River to Vandergrift, where he would spend the next eight hours as a Vandergrift police officer. Neither man knew that their goodbyes would be their last.
When Donny Mahan heard Leonard Miller’s call for help, he and his partner, fellow Vandergrift veteran Lou Purificato, knew immediately that Miller’s situation was dire. His speech, garbled and distant, sounded as if he were underwater. When his initial transmission was inaudible, the dispatcher asked him to repeat it, but Leonard’s voice faded away. Mahan and Purificato wasted no time running to Miller’s side. Flying down McKinley Avenue onto Sheridan Road, which ran alongside the river toward Route 66, the two Vandergrift officers took the back route to Apollo and reached Leonard within two minutes of his fateful call for help.
Kill for Thrill Page 9