The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 26

The Pittsburgh Press Sunday, December 13, 1987 Victims Jrom page Bl BIO i af jnother but you don't know what jhey're thinking. You can't read their ininds. They don't voice anything," ihe said. Mrs. Batto said she thinks of her daughter and son-in-law daily.

"It's never, never out of your mind something you cannot forget" She said victims' families some whom she has been in touch with have been "left hanging. Our sons and daughters were not treated right in the courts. Somebody should be accounting for their murders and they're not" For John Gregor, father of Rene Gregor, a 16-year-old Robinson girl who disappeared on a date 10 years ago, there remains the uncertainty of what happened. He said it's "like running into a stone walL You don't really know what to think." Rene, an llth-grader at Montour High School, has not been seen since erine, 29, at their Marshall home. Weinman was beaten to death in the home and his wife was raped and killed in the couple's yard, investigators said.

Surratt allegedly confessed to one area killing the slaying of John Shelkons, 56, of Baden, Beaver County, who was shotgunned to death in his home Jan. 7, 1978. Shelkons wife, Kathern was beaten but survived. A homicide charge against Surratt in the Shelkons murder was not pursued by the Beaver County district attorney because of the long prison terms he already is serving. Pennsylvania did not have the death penalty until September 1978, and it does not apply to murders committed before then.

Surratt also is a suspect in the shotgun killings of Guy Mills, 64; his wife, Laura, 65, and Joel M. Drueger, 36, in Breezewood, Dec. 31, 1977. to build a'barrier against that, because you just can't keep rehashing that over and over again." James Feeny, of Coraopolis, the father of John, said, "It is 10 years later and it never stops hurting." Feeny said he often recalls his son and thinks, "he would have loved to do this or he would have had a ball doing that October and Christmas are particularly hard." Feeny said he and his wife, Rita, are constantly reminded of their. son's death, which happened the day before their anniversary.

"We can't observe our anniversary without thinking about John." Gregor and Feeny said they have never contacted Surratt "I think it's a total waste of time, given the information I have on him," Gregor said. State trooper Frank Keenan of the Beaver barracks said Surratt wrote to authorities several years ago saying he had "newly acquired psychic powers" and might be able to help find the missing bodies. "He wouldn't say what he had and we couldn't bring him up here (without knowing). Florida probably wouldn't let him go anyway' Keenan said. "Naturally you still think about it Maybe I'll take a trip down there to talk to him," Keenan said.

"Every once in a while you'd drop him a line but you don't know how to approach him." Police said Surratt is a prime suspect in the killing of Frank Zieg-ler, a truck driver whose body was found Sept 27, 1977, in his milk tanker truck on Warrendale-Bayne Road, Marshall. He also is a suspect in the slayings three days later of Joseph Weinman, 30, a paraplegic, and his wife, Kath- her date, John Feeny, 17, of Coraopo-lis, was found shotgunned to death in a remote area of Findlay Oct 22, 1977. After the disappearance, Rene's mother, Darlene, kept the teenager's room in the couple's Clever Road home exactly as it was when she left for her date Oct 21, Gregor said. The Gregors are now divorced. "For someone to just disappear from the face of the earth, it's just beyond me, especially just a teenage kid," Gregor said.

"I mean you can look at a case of a Jimmy Hof and look at the overtones 'and undertones. "For a couple of teenage kids, I can't figure it out What the motivation, what the reasoning behind something like that would be is just beyond me. It's something pretty difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis, so I guess you kind of just have Edward A. Surratt 4 life terms plus 275 years Inquiry adds to horror for family of woman who vanished in '77 Boardman police obtained an arrest warrant charging Surratt with murder in Mrs. Filicky's slaying but the case was never tried.

Boardman Detective Capt Glenn Bowers said the risk and expense in bringing Surratt back for trial in the Filicky case were not warranted because he was already serving a long term and Ohio did not have the death penalty then. Bowers said it is the belief of his department that Surratt was a prime suspect in the Hamilton case, and in the Nov. 20, 1977 shotgun-slayings of John Davis, 63, and his wife, Mary, 61, in their Beaver Township home. Bowers, who worked with Beaver Township police in the Hamilton investigation, talked with Surratt in Florida and "tried to get him to say where Linda was. I tried to say that by telling us where she was he wasn't compounding anything." Bowers said he was unsuccessful.

Frost said he will plug information from the Hamilton and Davis murder cases into the FBI's computerized Violent Criminal Apprehension Program with Surratt as a suspect VCAP, a method of tracking serial killers, uses the FBI's computer at Quantico, to provide a profile of the slayer and similarities with other cases across the country. Frost said filling out the 16-page booklets in each case "might not do much good." But he said the computer will provide details about unidentified victims of similar crimes that might be helpful in the Hamilton case. "It's a long shot but at least it's doing something." to know if they located her to grab her. But as time went on and things developed, it turned out she was not a suspect she, in fact was another victim. She's dead and may never be found." Investigators said Edward A.

Surratt 45, formerly of Aliquippa, Beaver County, was a prime suspect in Ziegler's killing in addition to at least 17 other slayings. Surratt who is in prison in Belle Glade, was convicted of breaking into a home in South Valano Beach, July 1, 1978, and tying up the father of the family and repeatedly raping his wife and daughter. He was captured after the man escaped and got police, who subdued Surratt in a violent struggle. Police have noted similarities between the Hamilton and Florida cases. Surratt allegedly rode to the house of the rape victims on a stolen bicycle that was left in the front yard, Coon said.

In North Lima, investigators said a bicycle was taken from a few doors away from the Hamiltons' home and found in the front yard. "We know he (Surratt) crossed the border," Coon said, referring to the investigation into the slaying of Katherine Filicky, 70, a widow who was beaten to death in her burglarized Boardman, Ohio, home March 27, 1978. Surratt was arrested in Boardman on a traffic violation March 27 when he made an illegal turn in front of a police cruiser. He was questioned three weeks later when he returned for a traffic hearing and released after he told police he was in the area to look for used trucks. sheriffs office believed a partial fingerprint belonging to Mrs.

Hamilton was found in Ziegler's truck. Baer said no such print was found. Tabachino of the sheriff's office said, "The partial fingerprint was supposedly found in (Ziegler's) truck, but then the FBI said it wasn't hers." Tabachino remains convinced Mrs. Hamilton was not a crime victim. "We kind of believe that we were almost positive she wasn't kidnapped," said Tabachino.

"She ran out of the house and was sobbing and got in a car. We felt it was someone who knew her real well. It's possible now that she's not alive. Whoever shot him (Hamilton) may have shot her." Sgt. Michael Stowell, an Allegheny County homicide detective who worked on the shotgun killings in this area 10 years ago, said the attacks on couples in Western Pennsylvania indicated the intruder forced the woman to go with him after killing the man.

"Ohio authorities didn't know under what circumstances (Mrs. Hamilton) left," Stowell said. Mrs. Hamilton's car was found a short distance away near a truck stop at Exit 16 on the Ohio Turnpike, where shoe prints and a woman's barefoot print were found in the mud. Mrs.

Hamilton had worked at a nearby restaurant. Stowell said the fugitive warrant for Mrs. Hamilton was on the squad room bulletin board for years before it turned yellow, crumbled and finally was thrown away. "They wanted all police in the U.S. acknowledged that investigators a decade ago concentrated on the Hamiltons! marital relations and "overlooked some obvious clues." Til have to admit that this case is in a shambles.

Ten years ago our department was not up to investigation of a major case like this," said Frost who was not a member of the force at the time. Frost said a man who was fishing at Pine Lake near North Lima reported that a five-shot revolver was stolen from his car on Sept. 19, 1977. The gun was loaded with a type of ammunition known as wadcutters, the same type that killed Hamilton that night a few miles away. Police established a link between the Hamilton case and the killing of truck driver Frank Ziegler, 28, of Kittanning, Armstrong County, whose body was found Sept 27 in his milk tanker truck on Warrendale-Bayne Road in Marshall Allegheny County.

Tri-Boro Police Chief Richard Baer, whose jurisidiction covers Marshall, said ballistics tests showed that the killings of Ziegler and Hamilton were committed with the same weapon that used home-loaded wadcutter ammunition. Baer, however, said authorities in Pennsylvania never connected Mrs. Hamilton to Ziegler's killing or believed she was responsible for her husband's death. "I always thought she was abducted. She was a victim," said Baer, adding that the Hamilton case was similar to other killings of couples.

But the Mahoning County, Ohio, chino of the Mahoning County sheriffs office was "out of order" in getting the warrant. Hall and a relative with police training conducted their own investigation and traveled to Pennsylvania to talk to the families of other victims. "It seemed like they were pretty lax in Beaver Township here and let things get overlooked in their investigation," said Hall. "They tore through the house, tearing up a lot of the evidence." Mrs. Hamilton's status remains unclear even though there are no charges pending and she has been declared legally dead.

Ohio has even refused to grant her the status of a being a victim. A claim for reparations in Mrs. Hamilton's death has been denied in the Ohio Court of Claims, Crime Victims Division, because there was no "preponderance of evidence" that she was the victim of "criminally injurious conduct." The Hamilton children, Melynda, now 16, and Christopher, 13, who live with an aunt and uncle, received compensation for the loss of their father's financial support as part of a $50,000 crime victim's award that covered his funeral expenses and other costs. Allegheny County Sheriff Eugene Coon, who headed a homicide task force that investigated the Western Pennsylvania slayings, believes that if Ohio authorities got the whole picture, they would pay the compensation in Mrs. Hamilton's death even without the discovery of a body.

Sgt Carl N. Frost of the Beaver Township, Ohio, police department By Robert Baird The Pittsburgh Press For the family of Linda Hamilton, the horror of her mysterious disap-j pearance was compounded by the investigation that followed. The fate of Mrs. Hamilton of North Lima, Ohio, has been clouded since she disappeared the same night her husband, David, 28, was found shot to death on Sept 19, 1977. She was later named in a federal fugitive warrant in her husband's slaying.

But several police investigators on both sides of the Ohio-Pennsylvania line believe Mrs. Hamilton, a waitress, was a victim of the same assailant who shot her husband three times in the head with a revolver in their Beaver Township home in Mahoning County. Many police believe Mrs. Hamil- ton was abducted, one of the first cases of the type that would follow in the fall and winter of 1977-78 in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio in which the man was killed and the woman was taken away and killed or never found. No charges are now pending against Mrs.

Hamilton in Mahoning County or anywhere else. On Dec. 21, 1982, the Mahoning County Probate Court declared her legally dead after she was gone for five years. The federal warrant against her was dismissed by the U.S. attorney's office in Cleveland in January 1986.

Chester Hall, of North Lima, father of Mrs. Hamilton, said, "This warrant was completely crazy, in my mind." He said Capt. Tony Taba- TWO GRAND WAYS TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS AT THE WESTTN WILLIAM PENN One silent night. One not-so-silent night. TERRACE ROOM NEW YEAR'S EVE An extravagance of spirit to have and behold.

Gather your closest family and friends for a Terrace Room toast to the New Year. With dinner lo dazdeany palate Any pleasure. Select from spe dairies such as half rack of Colorado lamb with fruit chutney and poached Alaskan king salmon. Two seatings: 6 to 6:30 p.m. and 830 to 9 p.m.

The Nick Lomakin Quartet Your chance to dance to the tuneful sounds of one of Pittsburgh's classiest combos. 830 p.m. to 1230 a.m. Complete dinners, $3100 to $38.50. GRAND BALLROOM NEW YEAR'S An evening sure to shine Join us for New Year's Eve in the exquisite Grand Ballroom.

'Cause we're planning a glimmering, glittering, mistletoe-tappin' time. Starting with cocktails with a cash bar from 8 to 9 p.m. Then dinner to sigh for featuring the tenderest prime rib and plenty of other palatable pleasures. Swing in the New Year with Pittsburgh's own Sargent Sis-' ters. Performing a show-stop- ping medley of music, comedy and dance.

9 p.m. 'til 1 am Complete dinner and entertainment, $45.00 TERRACE ROOM CHRISTMAS It's a Christmas trimmed with tradition. A Dickensian vision of magic, music, merriment Beginning Christmas mom with a festive breakfast, 630-noon. Dinner is served from noon 'til 10 p.m. Featuring turkey with all the trimmings.

Or an array of other entrees prepared to perfection. And do indulge in our dessert table confections. Christmas comes only once a year, you know. Season's sounding joys with piano accompaniment from 1 to 8 p.m. Dinners, $17.50 to $24.50.

Forty percent off for children. Complimentary parking at Mellon Square. The feeling is romance this holiday season. Find delightful gifts with old world inspiration at Ross Park Mall. Find gifts for the home in over 160 fine stores.

Look for Ross Park Mall's Gift Guide '87 in mall stores and at the Customer Service Booth. It's the ultimate shopping list. Shop Ross Park Mall for a renaissance of holiday style! Ross Park Mall Gift Certificates The perfect gift when you're undecided. Available at the Customer Service Booth, lower level. Visit with Santa! Photos available and a free gift awaits each child who visits.

Monday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Sunday, 1 1 :00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Commemorative Holiday Shopping Bags On sale at the Customer Service Booth, lower level. mm KTVT'I I Hamuli iif Put the finishing touches on any holiday occasion by spending the night in one of the recently renovated, luxurious guest moms.

At Pittsburgh's only grand hold. For more information, pkase phone 553-5083 TheWestin William Penn Pittsburgh's only grand hotel 5.WW ilium Ptnnttiy On Mellon Sqimv THE PEOPLE AND PLACES OF Vt ESTIN. Westin Hotels Resorts ROSS PARK MALI McKnight Road, North Hills HOLIDAY HOURS: THROUGH DECEMBER 20: MONDAY-SATURDAY, 9:30 a.m.-10:00 p.m.; SUNDAY, 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. DECEMBER 21-23: MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY, 9:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m. CHRISTMAS EVE, DECEMBER 24, 9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

Owned tnd Managed by Malvin Simon A Aaaociataa, Inc. .1987 65.