Kill for Thrill Page 6

  When Tridico arrived at the barracks, he gathered his investigators around and began talking, listening and thinking. He told of a hunter named Ed Wolak and how the crime scene was straightforward. John Doe’s killer had bound him with common white cotton rope, but he had somehow managed to free himself. The condition of the body hinted that he had been in the water but had managed to swim to shore and climb out onto the bank. His pockets were empty, and there were signs that his killer had beaten him.

  The autopsy revealed that the suspect shot him three times with a .22-caliber weapon at close range. The first shot entered his chest and pierced his heart, and then the killer fired the next two shots at close range into the back of his skull. The crime scene technicians scoured the surrounding woods but found no identification, money or personal effects near the body. As odd as it sounded, Tridico noted that the suspect had removed Peter Levato’s dentures. These were the insipid little details of Peter Levato’s death, and he relayed them in all their clinical sterility.

  After fielding a few questions about John Doe, Tridico steered the meeting toward the rest of the day’s business. A rash of robberies was troubling the Indiana barracks, the local police had handled a few local burglaries and overall, with the exception of John Doe, it was shaping up to be a very calm Christmas season.

  As Tom Tridico wrapped up his meeting, he scanned the teletype printouts from the past several days. His eyes drifted down the page. A litany of “Be on the look-outs,” all-points bulletins and missing endangered persons announcements were scattered among the names of wanted felons and escaped prisoners sent out across the state. One entry caught his eye. The Penn Township Police had recovered an abandoned 1975 Ford Grenada in a field along Route 22 near Joe’s Steakhouse.

  Tridico pulled the printout off the stack. The registration of the vehicle listed forty-nine-year-old Peter Levato of 3120 Mount Hope Road in Pittsburgh as the owner. Sensing that these seemingly unrelated pieces of information might be tied together, Tridico sent Trooper Curtis Hahn and Detective George Boyerinas to canvass Peter Levato’s Mount Hope neighborhood. He sent a photograph of Chuck Lutz’s John Doe with them just in case.

  THE CASE OF THE STOLEN KIELBASA

  It wasn’t long after Hahn and Boyerinas began showing the photograph around that neighbors positively identified the man as Peter Levato. Peter Levato was now the first official victim of Michael Travaglia and John Lesko. He now had the dubious distinction of being the tip of a four-murder iceberg that would emerge from the frozen waters surrounding the Alle-Kiski Valley.

  Unfortunately, as with most criminal investigations, the information on the murder of Peter Levato came in fits and spurts. To the lament of Tom Tridico, the search of both Peter Levato’s 1975 Grenada and the cornfield behind Joe’s Steakhouse revealed very little new information about his killers. Because of either extreme care or pure accident, John Lesko and Michael Travaglia had left behind few tangible clues.

  The true irony of the search of the Joe’s Steakhouse cornfield lies in the fact that, as Sergeant Tom Tridico and Rich Dickey combed the frozen earth of the field in search of a link to Peter Levato’s killer, Michael Travaglia and John Lesko lay passed out in the warmth of their rented beds at Thatcher’s Motel. Slumbering in their drug-clouded, dreamless sleep, Peter Levato’s killers were less than one mile from the police dragnet. The first meeting between police and the murderous duo was not to be on that brisk December day. For that, Tridico would have to wait four more days.

  As the first real day of progress in the Peter Levato murder investigation ended, members of Pennsylvania State Police’s Kiski Valley Barracks were on the cusp of a discovery for which they were not prepared. Tom Tridico in particular left his office at the end of his tour comfortably knowing that he and his men were working a random, or at least uncomplicated, murder. The facts that had emerged suggested to these trained investigators that Peter Levato had been killed as part of a robbery.

  In homicide parlance, detectives call it presentation—the body position, scene condition and circumstances of the scene. In Peter Levato’s case, everything pointed to a robbery and murder; a scenario that, between them, they had seen dozens of times. Nonetheless, Peter Levato’s frozen corpse, now disemboweled, embalmed and en route to his final earthen rest, had brought forth key clues that would eventually resonate throughout the barracks like a thunderclap.

  It is fitting that the final day of the decade that was the ’70s would bring forth the important clues that would eventually signal the final days of Michael Travaglia and John Lesko’s rampage. Although New Year’s Eve 1979 began no different from the 363 days that had preceded it, it would end quite differently, for Michael and John and for the men who were doggedly pursuing them.

  Early on this last Monday in December, Sergeant Tridico assembled his men again—among them Trooper Rich Dickey and George Boyerinas—and conducted his standard briefing and status review.

  In a homicide investigation, valuable clues to the identity of the killer often come from what detectives refer to as the victimology—the tiny minutiae that make up who we are. Victimology includes such mundane details as where we shop, with whom we associate and what sort of lifestyle we lead. The answer to questions such as “Do we engage in drug use?” or “Are we a church deacon?” will point to two very different lifestyles. These lifestyle clues can lead to many theories about what led to our death.

  Gathering information about who Peter Levato was topped Tom Tridico’s list of things to accomplish before the New Year dawned. In pursuit of this vital information, Tridico assigned Dickey and Boyerinas the rather boring job of conducting a background check. While Hahn and Boyerinas’s original neighborhood canvass had revealed what little neighbors actually knew about the man at 3120 Mount Hope Road, they needed many more details if they hoped to crack this case—details such as his employment record.

  Peter used to work for Universal Security as a guard. According to the chief of the Bigelow Apartments Security force, he had worked for them up until the early part of December. After Universal fired Peter, the Cauley Detective Agency on Penn Avenue hired him, sometime around December 14, but had not scheduled him to report for his first shift until Friday, December 28, at 8:00 p.m. He never showed up for work. No one from Cauley had heard from Peter Levato since.

  Peter had few close acquaintances, and those whom investigators did find began to paint a picture of a man who led a life of relative solitude. He was briefly married to Mary Levato. They had no children, and they had been separated for some time on the day he disappeared. She hadn’t heard from him either.

  Peter Levato had a criminal record. In 1950, Pittsburgh police had arrested Peter for the offense of public indecency. Then, in 1973, a judge placed him on two years of probation after another arrest. This time, Pittsburgh police had arrested Peter for indecent sexual assault. In isolation, these arrests were not particularly telling; however, when coupled with the snippets of his personal life detectives had collected from friends and family, they began to allow detectives to see a clearer picture of Peter Levato.

  Police now believed that Peter Levato might have been gay. If that were the case, then something in his lifestyle might have triggered his abduction. Tridico and his men began to explore the possibility that his killer may have abducted and robbed him because of his sexual orientation.

  Monday, December 31, 1979

  In the world of criminal investigations, there are glamorous cases and there are dreary cases—the sexy, glamorous cases that make the top half of the evening news and the dreary cases that rarely even make the inside pages of the daily paper. The truth is that 80 percent of police work consists of mundane, dreary cases. The other 20 percent, however, can lead a detective to rapid advancements.

  The bread-and-butter, dreary, everyday cases often result in mind-numbing monotony. They perpetuate a “what’s the sense of it all” outlook. Chuck Lutz resigned himself to the fact that the call he was about to answer was d
efinitely among the lot of the dreary and far from the spotlight often hovering around the sexy. Chuck Lutz caught the case of the stolen kielbasa.

  The call arrived at about 10:30 a.m., and it was again Chuck Lutz’s misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dispatchers sent him out to Sonny’s Lounge on Route 22 to handle a delayed burglary. Shortly after his arrival, he met with the owner. The hyperactive owner handed Chuck a list of the booty that unknown thieves had stolen from his bar. Rattling off details that Chuck really didn’t need to know, this Sherlock Holmes in training speculated that the burglary occurred sometime between 4:00 a.m. yesterday (Sunday) morning and just before 10:00 a.m. this morning—when he called the police.

  With all the professionalism and courtesy that makes the Pennsylvania State Police one of the premiere law enforcement organizations in the nation, Chuck Lutz judiciously recorded the haul in his notebook:

  $150 in change from the cigarette machine

  1 bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey

  1 bottle of Canadian Club whiskey

  1 bottle of gin

  A six-pack of Stroh’s beer

  A little more than a case of Miller beer

  A five-pound package of Land O’Lakes cheese

  A one-and-a-half-pound container of Luger kielbasa

  Having painstakingly noted, in exact detail, the extensive list of missing items whose grand total was all of a couple hundred dollars, Chuck continued his investigation by walking around the building.

  The back window was ajar. It was probably the point of entry. Chuck threw some fingerprint powder around the area and then snapped a few photographs. After fifteen or twenty minutes without much solid evidence, Chuck decided to wrap it up. He walked out of the drafty little bar onto the bleached concrete sidewalk and headed to the next-door business to begin his canvass.

  The shade of the towering pine trees covered the concrete walkway making the already frozen air practically arctic. He covered the distance in long, even strides. One final step and he was staring the rustic white door in the face. Wrapping his gloved hand around the knob, he gave it a twist and flung the door open. The warmth wrapped around him the moment he ducked his six-foot frame into the tiny lobby of Thatcher’s Motel.

  From behind the counter, a diminutive, balding man stared up into the trooper’s face with a look that meant that he knew this must be an official visit.

  “I’m investigating a burglary next door at Sonny’s Lounge. It happened sometime between Sunday morning and 10:30 this morning…Did you see or hearing anything?”

  “Really? No, I didn’t notice anything.” He paused. “What’d they take? Anything much?”

  Chuck Lutz slipped off his calfskin gloves and laid them on the counter. As he lifted the spiral notebook from his inside breast pocket, he said, “Nothing of much value, probably just some kids.” As the top flap of the notebook flopped open, he continued, “Some food. Kielbasa…cheese…lots of liquor…and ’bout 150 bucks in change from the cigarette machine.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he closed the notebook and slid it behind the flap of his jacket. As he scooped up his gloves and turned toward the door in an attempt to get back to some real police work, the manager spoke up. “You know, I didn’t hear nothing.” He paused. “But there were these two guys in room twelve.”

  Lutz shifted his weight back toward the counter.

  “I evicted ’em yesterday. I think they had a bunch of coins on a towel in the room when I went in, as I recall. I kicked ’em out for not paying for the room. It was a mess, too.”

  Perhaps this case would be a clearance after all, Lutz thought. “Do you know their names?”

  The manager hoisted a dog-eared register from the counter and flipped it open to a paper-clipped page. As he ran his finger down the sparse list of names, he paused. “Michael Travaglia. I don’t know the other guy but I think his name might be Daniel something.” He paused again. “Keith. Daniel Keith, I think maybe that’s his name. That was part of the reason I kicked ’em out. Only supposed to be one person in the room you know… That and the money he owed me.”

  Retrieving his notebook, Lutz began copying the register information.

  “This guy’s been in here before, too, with another guy. He uses the name Michael Simmons sometimes,” the manager added.

  When Chuck Lutz was done writing, he looked up from his notebook and asked, “May I see the room?”

  “Sure.” The innkeeper grabbed a green, diamond-shaped key off the pegboard and then waddled around the counter toward the door. “I kicked them out yesterday about four in the afternoon. I haven’t had the chance to clean the place yet.” He paused, scanning the empty motel parking lot. “Not that I guess it matters,” he quipped.

  Cautiously peering through the tiny window flanked by perfect tiny white shutters, Lutz reassured himself that the room was, in fact, vacant. Moments later, the manager was bounding into the room and shaking his head. “See. A mess. What a bunch of pigs.”

  Lutz scanned the room. A half dozen empty Stroh’s beer cans were scattered around the room with empty Land O’Lakes cheese wrappers and other assorted trash. Lying in the bottom of the trash can, Lutz noticed a large, gelatinous brick of half eaten Land O’Lakes cheese. Satisfied that the perpetrators of the Sonny’s caper were the former occupants of room twelve, Chuck Lutz nodded his thanks to the manager and turned to head out the door.

  Doggedly following him, the manager spoke, “You know, they left some belongings with me. Told me they’d be back last night by eleven with the rent money to pick ’em up. They never came.” He shook his head in disappointment.

  Once again inside the warmth of the tiny motel lobby, Chuck Lutz hovered over two large garbage bags perched atop the registration counter. Pawing through them, he withdrew a few items of interest. Mixed among some assorted clothing and personal belongings were a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, a bottle of VO gin, some Luger kielbasa and a stack of papers. Rummaging through the papers, he stopped at the stack of mail. Lutz began recording the details—Michael Travaglia, RD 4, Apollo.

  One particular item caught his attention. It was a letter addressed to Michael Travaglia from the Leechburg Bank notifying him that they were repossessing his 1979 GMC pickup truck. He gathered up several of the pieces of mail and tucked them into a bag, and then, satisfied that he had as much information as he needed, Trooper Chuck Lutz thanked the impish little man behind the counter and walked to his car.

  Once more behind the wheel of his car, with its heater spewing warm air, Lutz radioed headquarters that he had completed the case and would be returning shortly.

  He pulled the car into drive and followed the gentle curve of the motel driveway out onto Route 22. Traffic was light, so he quickly eased into the flow headed east on 22 toward Route 66. About a half mile down the road, he passed Joe’s Steakhouse and the cornfield.

  The slow descent of the crystal globe in Times Square had begun. Its descent signaled a close to the eighth decade of the twentieth century. A decade that began with the invasion of Cambodia and the death of four at Kent State would end with a near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Events of global proportion that shaped our world for years to come can claim their home in the decade that was the 1970s.

  For all the hope that a new year brings, especially a new year heralding a new decade, the eve of the dawn of 1980 did not foretell great fortunes or wondrous achievements. In fact, with unemployment at a staggering 5.8 percent and the U.S. steel industry, automobile makers and other members of the industrial complex on the verge of collapse, the promises of 1980 were few and modest.

  During the ebbing decade, we had lost the likes of John Wayne, Arthur Fiedler and Nelson Rockefeller to name only a few. Though we could not know it at the time, the new decade would bring the loss of John Lennon, Jean Paul Sartre, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, explosions of the AIDS epidemic and the space shuttle Challenger and count
less other historic events. For Marlene Sue Newcomer, these impending historic events were but a blip on the horizon on this dawning new year.

  For Marlene, the start of 1980 was supposed to mark a new beginning. Several months earlier, her husband had passed away, leaving her alone to care for her son, Jimmy. Alone and with a fatherless six-year-old, Marlene had turned to her friends and family in Leisenring for support.

  The eleventh of twelve children, Marlene had recently moved in with her mother, Stella, who was helping to raise young Jimmy. She was just beginning to get back in touch with who she was. Her strong religious conviction had helped guide her through the recent troubled times, and she was once again enjoying singing in the church choir.

  What better opportunity to celebrate a new beginning than by ringing in the new year with friends. Celebration brought Marlene into Vandergrift on New Year’s Eve 1979. Celebration would cause her path to cross that of Michael Travaglia and John Lesko.

  Michael and John spent the nascent hours of 1980 in revelry. While Marlene was sharing festive thoughts with her friends in Vandergrift, Michael and John had joined the Travaglia family for a New Year’s Eve celebration at their rural Washington Township home not far from Route 66. Oblivious to the carnage that the younger Travaglia and his partner had left behind, the Travaglia family joined together to welcome in 1980 with hopes for a prosperous new year—hopes that would ultimately fall short.

  Satisfied by their brief respite, Lesko and Travaglia set out from the family homestead on foot. The hitchhike back to Pittsburgh was slow going. A thick fog had begun to roll in and the walk was sure to be an unpleasant one. By this time, the temperatures had once again begun to drop into the twenties. Heading toward Route 66, they tucked their hands in the pockets of their jackets and trudged forward.