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  He stood up, brushed the forest litter from the knees of his brown corduroy pants and shuffled his thick rubber boots through the ankle-deep layer of leafy debris. As he followed the gently curving ditch toward a large stand of evergreens, the rush of the creek behind him drowned out his thoughts.

  The chains of the two galvanized steel-jawed traps that hung over his left shoulder rhythmically jangled and clanked in his ear to the beat of his rising and falling feet. He adjusted them with a gloved hand and pushed through a wall of pine boughs like a passenger forcing his way onto the subway.

  By now, the sun had climbed into the late morning cerulean sky, and as he stepped onto the road, the muted world of the ravine receded into his memory. He looked up. Tears filled his squinting eyes as they struggled to adjust to the solar onslaught. Eddie lifted his hand to shield his eyes and stared down the road leading back toward his house, where he knew a warm lunch would surely greet him. As he crossed Loyalhanna Dam Road and headed for the banks of Loyalhanna Creek, he hoped that his Saturday morning had not been a total waste.

  Eddie scattered some loose twigs with the toes of his boots as he walked. Silent thoughts of lunch wrapped around him like a warm blanket as step after step rose and fell, bringing him closer and closer to his home. As he picked his way through the underbrush, his eyes were drawn to the base of a large tree sitting about twenty feet from the edge of the creek. He moved in for a closer look.

  Growing out of the side of the tree was what looked like an odd, twisted branch. It was misshapen and knurled. As Edward circled the tree, a sharp bit of sunlight caught his eye and everything flashed white. He rubbed his eye with wool-gloved fists and took two more steps. Standing in the long shadow of the large tree, Edward Wolak slowly reopened his eyes.

  He was staring into Peter Levato’s lifeless face. An invisible fist landed squarely in Eddie’s gut with a dull thud. It forced every thread of air out of his lungs, while microscopic tremors crept into his boots. They inched up his legs, knocking his knees together like bowling pins until his quivering hands dangling by his sides shivered in chaotic gyration. The two vacant eyes fixed on him through puffy, blood-smeared cheeks. He could not move; he could not even breathe.

  Trooper Charles Lutz was the investigator with Troop A who received the call from Ed Wolak on that late December afternoon. As luck or misfortune would have it, he was the duty investigator assigned for that weekend, and fate had put him in the right place at the right time. The desolate, post-Christmas barracks was silent. Empty except for a few critical employees, the barracks gave Chuck Lutz time to be alone with his thoughts.

  Most of the troopers assigned to patrol were already out blanketing their assigned areas, and the sporadic crime that occasionally stirred in the valley was obviously on Christmas hiatus, so Chuck relaxed at his desk. As he did, he thumbed through stale cases and drank stale coffee.

  At 12:30 p.m., the clattering ring of the phone snapped Chuck back into 1979. He lifted the receiver from its cradle and the voice of his boss, Sergeant Tom Tridico, began to rattle off names and locations. Scribbling in his own brand of shorthand onto his desk blotter, he grunted and “Yupped” his way through the next three minutes of the morning. A reassuring, “I’m on it,” ended the official call, and Charles Lutz lowered the black Bakelite receiver onto its resting place.

  He scooped up his jacket from the back of the chair and quickly poked two arms through the sleeves. Then he gathered his notebook from his desk, tucked it into his inside jacket pocket and slid open his desk drawer. Slipping the stainless steel Ruger .357 revolver into its holster, he slammed the drawer shut, adjusted his jacket over his holster and grabbed the keys to his police interceptor. He quickly slipped out of the squad room and headed down the stairs and out the back door of the barracks. Chuck Lutz did not know that waiting for him below the Loyalhanna Dam was a murder investigation that would last for thirty years.

  He headed out Route 66 from the barracks, mentally preparing for a routine death investigation. With the afternoon sun at his back, he quickly sped along the hilly highway, turned onto 380 and then slipped down into the winding valleys leading out to Loyalhanna Reservoir. Each mile drew him closer and closer to Peter Levato. He turned sharply onto Loyalhanna Dam Road and headed down toward the bridge.

  MEET MICHAEL TRAVAGLIA

  Michael Travaglia was a nice kid. By many accounts, this unassuming, nondescript youth was virtually indistinguishable from every other student at Kiski Area Senior High. Snuggled into the rolling pastures forty miles east of Pittsburgh, Kiski was a brand-new school when Michael began there in 1973.

  A thin youth, Michael was tall for his age and quite shy. The younger of two children, Michael was born on August 31, 1958, to Bernard and Judith Travaglia. Bernard, his father, was a strict disciplinarian with a low tolerance for poor behavior. His disciplinary tactics went beyond normal definitions of authoritarian rule—even, perhaps, bordering on abusive.

  Michael’s mother’s affection toward her youngest son bordered on cold and distant. She was an extremely religious woman and not one who was ready to show her two boys tremendous warmth and affection. Later in life, her failing health would take her before her time, leaving Bernard alone to face the drawn-out appeals waged by his son. In the end, both of Michael’s parents would distance themselves from their youngest son, neither visiting nor corresponding while their son sat on death row.

  For whatever faults Michael’s father may have had, he was not lazy. He was, in fact, a very hard worker. A plasterer in business with his brother, Bernard Travaglia worked hard to provide his wife and two children with a well-kept home among the greening hills of Washington Township outside Apollo.

  Bernard and his wife lovingly tended the Travaglia homestead as it perched atop a hill in tiny Paulton. Trying to make it a safe and inviting home for their two boys, they both worked hard and long hours. From the well-manicured lawn to the garage and shop in the back, it was a picturesque testament to rural life.

  While some sibling rivalry is typical in all families, the dissention that existed between Michael and his brother, Kenneth, was beyond what most would consider normal. Preceding him in school by a year, Michael always saw Kenneth as the favored son, and whether real or perceived, this partiality by Michael’s parents toward his older sibling created great pressures for him.

  As a student, many of Michael’s teachers spoke fondly of him. Some even testified as character witnesses on his behalf during his trial. Whether it was his swimming coach or Michael Lamendola, his symphonic band instructor, they described him as well behaved, straight-laced and incapable of committing such heinous atrocities as the news accounts had attributed to him.

  A neighbor to the Travaglia family once described him as a timid boy who, when visiting their home to play with their son, wouldn’t even come into the kitchen without permission.

  Other neighbors described a far different boy. This Michael Travaglia tortured small animals and displayed a disturbing mean streak.

  His school record at Kiski Area Senior High School was, like most of Michael’s early years, unremarkable. He graduated in 1976 and shortly thereafter began training as an airplane mechanic. Studying at the Allegheny County Airport near Mount Pleasant, just outside Pittsburgh, Michael had a knack for the mechanical. Doing well in school, his training moved along as planned until late 1979. It was then that Michael first met John Lesko.

  In hindsight, one might be tempted to speculate on the effect that the ultra-strict upbringing of Bernard and Judith Travaglia had on Michael. Whether his escape from the heavy-handedness of his father might have lent a strong push toward his eventual collapse into total chaos is unknown. Many have made such speculation, yet none has hit upon the definitive answer. Perhaps, as with a great deal of human behavior issues, no singular answer exists.

  Whether attributable to a newfound freedom or his newly formed friendship with John Lesko—with its concomitant orgiastic feast of drugs and alcohol—somethi
ng changed in Michael Travaglia after his graduation.

  Although more than fifty witnesses testified to Michael’s good character, many of Michael’s post-incarceration writings hint at a very different child—a child prone to drug and alcohol abuse at an early age.

  A self-professed Satanist at the time of his arrest, Michael claims that incarceration, as it does for many, has changed him. One such change has been a turn toward Christianity.

  As with any claim of prison conversion, strong skepticism is warranted. While his current religious beliefs are 180 degrees from what he claimed in 1979, whether this is genuine or artificial, society will never know. The blank stare of impending death often changes a person’s outlook.

  In addition to, or perhaps because of, his miraculous turn toward God, Michael has married a woman he met in prison. He originally met his wife, Fran Andrasy, through her church, and she first visited him on Christmas Day 1990. Two years later, in a “contact” prison ceremony, Fran Andrasy became Fran Travaglia. Even though the couple has been married fifteen years, their union is anything but conventional.

  As a death row inmate, Travaglia is not allowed contact visits. Therefore, visitation between Mr. and Mrs. Travaglia is limited to Bible study sessions conducted from opposite sides of bulletproof glass. Seated across from Michael, separated by two inches of Plexiglas, Fran reads passages from the Bible that she and her husband selected earlier. Sharing in this communion of spirit brings Fran Travaglia some peace of mind. The rest of the community is not quite so reassured.

  Attesting to his wholesale change in personality, Fran Travaglia is quick to speak in her husband’s defense. She urges all who will listen to consider the possibility that the Michael Travaglia from 1979 is not the same Michael Travaglia of 2008. In addition to these outward manifestations of change, Michael has undertaken some rather extensive writing.

  Michael’s Internet writings proclaim his newfound Christian faith and offer a contrite outlook. They also offer a tiny glimpse into what may have played a part in his demonic snap in 1979.

  In one such writing, Michael claims to have begun a pattern of drug and alcohol abuse during his high school years. He confesses that he began with beer, graduated to whiskey and vodka and moved on to all kinds of drugs, including marijuana and mescaline, and eventually developed an addiction to amphetamines. Surely, this drug- and alcohol-abusing Satanist is a far step from what character witnesses described as a good man, incapable of committing four murders.

  Regardless of the identity of the catalyst that precipitated his fall, Michael’s spiral downward was rapid, violent and beyond question. We will debate the whys and the hows of Michael’s demise for the rest of time. What is certain, though, is that in the wee hours of Monday, December 30, 1979, Michael Travaglia, in the company of his partner John Lesko, found himself on Route 22 in Delmont without a car, without money and looking for more thrills.

  Scattering rocks with their shuffling feet, Michael and John picked their way west along Route 22. The shoulder of the highway was stony and sloped quickly away from the edge of the highway. Walking was difficult, but having abandoned their only transportation the night before, the pair was forced to trudge along on foot.

  Michael and John were headed to a room that they had rented at Thatcher’s Motel. It was a stone’s throw from the stubbly cornfield behind Joe’s Steakhouse where they had dumped Peter Levato’s car. The short half-mile walk on William Penn Highway to the motel seemed endless in the subzero blistering winds. They complained silently to themselves as warm, happy motorists zipped out of and back into the darkness.

  Around the bend, the single-story mom and pop motel in the old motor lodge style sat beckoning them. It was small—tiny actually. It had barely a dozen rooms for rent. In fact, if not for the towering red and white roadside sign advertising “ROOMS,” the motel would barely be noticeable from the roadway. Hidden neatly behind several full-grown spruce trees, its rustic, A-frame roof and tidy, white wooden pillars were an unopened invitation to weary guests to shake the road dust off and “stay a spell.”

  Finally, having arrived at their destination, Michael slipped the key into the door lock and walked inside. They had returned to their room. They were hungry, broke and unsure of their next move, but for now, they were warm.

  Inside the cramped motel room, dozens of empty beer cans rattled around. Every step the men took risked disturbing a bit of trash or discarded can. Colorful flowered bedspreads had been balled up and carelessly flung across the room, where they landed in a heap near the corner. Half-filled beer bottles, cigarette stubs and fast-food wrappers sat piled up on the pale yellow lowboy that cowered beneath the hanging mirror on the west wall of the tiny room.

  Rifling through the rubbish, Michael scoured the place for food, beer, grass—anything. Everywhere he looked, he found nothing. His stomach was no longer satisfied with the few scraps of food since his last full meal—compliments of Peter Levato’s fifty-nine dollars—and his head chimed in. Swollen and throbbing, it screamed ceaseless orders with an unrelenting vigor. He needed to shut them up.

  With the rent overdue and no money left in their pockets, creative thinking was required if they expected to stay warm, fed and high for very long. Armed robbery had gotten them this far. Yesterday they had added murder to their credit, and Michael was determined that somehow they would put some food in their bellies. Fortunately, Michael didn’t limit his creativity to legal alternatives. Once again, he knew exactly what to do.

  With renewed resolve fueled by his growing hunger and fading intoxication, Michael gathered a few of life’s essentials and stuffed them into a bag. Within minutes, he and John stepped back out onto the bleached concrete porch of the quaint motel. Michael pulled the door closed behind them, and they set off into the frigid night to find their next exploit.

  While Michael and John set out into the cold, the man who would ultimately bring them to justice lay fast asleep in the warmth of his Greensburg home. Tom Tridico was dreaming of eventual retirement and a life away from men like Michael Travaglia and John Lesko.

  Homicide investigators bump up against the worst that society has to offer. Not only must they confront the horrors of a life snuffed out in violence and anger, but they must also meet head on the pain heaped upon those left behind.

  Training and experience can guard against the revulsion you feel when you walk into a crime scene littered with gray matter, human flesh, blood and half-putrefied remains. The deeper, more lasting emotional scars that often plague experienced homicide investigators are hazards that no amount of training can help you avoid.

  Meeting the challenge of comforting those for whom a loved-one’s demise is both untimely and exceedingly violent forces the homicide investigator to walk a precariously thin line between compassion and dispassion. On the one hand, compassion for the victim, his family and loved ones allows the investigator to do what his training tells him to do—speak for those who cannot speak. On the other hand, compassion, empathy and identification with the survivors can lead to over involvement and tremendous emotional burdens.

  If they wish to survive, homicide investigators learn early on that the things they do cannot become personal. Personal involvement, when it occurs, will bring with it the inevitable feelings of loss, emotional struggle and failure when the inevitable happens—and it always does.

  Even though statistics show that of all major crimes, homicides are usually the most solvable, there will be times when even the most dedicated efforts fail to deliver anyone in handcuffs. When this happens, overly impassioned investigators risk falling prey to their own self-doubts and feelings of failure—feelings that, if left unchecked, can lead to further psychological issues such as alcoholism, depression and even suicide.

  Veteran homicide investigators develop a tough, callous exterior—a shell—something to protect them from witnessing, day-in and day-out, things unimagined by the average person. The depth of man’s depravity and the violence of which he
is capable is branded into the homicide investigator’s psyche at nearly every crime scene. Whether it is husband against wife, child against parent or stranger against stranger, there is a never-ending parade of horrific and unspeakable acts that confront a homicide investigator over the course of his career.

  For the average citizen, these seamy incidents are the stuff of movies, tabloids and the six o’clock news. For the homicide investigator, they are a way of life—a way of life that cannot be ignored.

  Tom Tridico was such an investigator. Surviving thirty years in the trenches is a testament to the skill with which he had navigated these turbulent seas. Avoiding such common “cop” pitfalls as alcoholism, divorce and suicide, Tom had weathered the storm. He had persevered. That is, until now.

  History was yet to write the final chapters of Tom Tridico’s celebrated career. At 5:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 30, 1979, the game was afoot. Events had been set in motion from which the story of his life would emerge. As he dozed peacefully in the warmth of his two-story house in the sleepy county seat of Westmoreland County, Tom Tridico’s dreams could not prepare him for what he was about to encounter. In fewer than ten days, history would link the names of Michael Travaglia and John Lesko indelibly and irrevocably with Sergeant Tom Tridico.

  At 9:00 a.m., Rich Dickey and George Boyerinas each hovered over his desk, coffee in hand. They were killing time at the Kiski Valley Barracks, waiting for Tom Tridico and his regularly scheduled intelligence meeting. Sharing information among investigators was a big deal to Tridico—it helped spot patterns. It helped solve cases. Peter Levato’s frozen corpse was on the agenda for this morning. He was John Doe #1.