The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 4

The Pittsburgh Press Sunday, January 10, 1988 Hate and greed drove Fred Mayhue to brutally murder his estranged wife A4 call 647-5824 theTest. Put Your 1 -rnittcVilirfih put Your Pittsburgh UnWersltvof school of Medicine 4t By Jim Cuddy Jr. The Pittsburgh Press Hate. It fueled Fred Mayhue from the balmy Aug. 6, 1981, evening when his wife, Harlene, disclosed she had filed for divorce to the cold Dec.

15, 1986, night when he murdered her following an ambush outside her Beaver County home. To Assistant District Attorney Joseph Ruddy, who last week success-'fully concluded the prosecution of Mayhue, a neatly folded dollar bill that investigators found on top of Mrs. Mayhue's bloodied and battered body in a car trunk epitomized the venom even Mayhue admitted existed. "It was Fred's final send-off to Harlene," the prosecutor said in an interview. "It was like he said, 'Here's your And, as Ruddy suggested to the Allegheny County Common Pleas jury that on Thursday sentenced Mayhue, 53, to death for the murder, money was at the heart of the matter.

Once a successful businessman with expensive hobbies such as flying, hang gliding and scuba diving, Mayhue watched his fortunes tumble as he battled his wife for properties and businesses with an estimated value of as much as $1 million, trial testimony revealed. Mayhue owes the U.S. Internal Revenue Service more than $400,000 in unpaid income taxes from 1975 to 1981. He and his wife owned E.L. Mayhue Sons and Amayco Environmental Services, companies that clean residential, commercial and industrial pipes.

and septic tanks. In pleading for his life Thursday, Mayhue told the jury he "must have had a breakdown" after a Beaver County judge imprisoned him for six months for taking money out of a family business in violation of a court order. Upon his release in January 1985, Mayhue said, he began to think of killing his estranged wife. "When I got out of jail, it was probably one of the top things on my mind," he said softly. "I was angry." To achieve his goal, Mayhue or his surrogates politician James Har- Mayhue's intent to kill his wife apparently was one of the worst kept secrets in Beaver County.

"Perhaps no one in the history of crime in Western Pennsylvania has been stalked by so many people," Ruddy said during closing arguments. Testimony revealed that Shackelford disclosed the plot in September 1986 to his attorney, Robert Banks of Ambridge, who remained silent because he did not want to violate the lawyer-client relationship. One month later, another man, Hudson Gibson, told the Beaver County district attorney's office of a plan by Hardin and Steve Gavura, 42, to kill Gavura's estranged wife. She was never harmed. Gibson also told authorities at the time that he watched Hardin and Gavura bury "a big cow" on April 5, 1985, on Gavura's landfill in New Sewictley, Beaver County.

The "big cow" subsequently turned out to be the body of Span, which was recovered in February after Hardin's arrest. The testimony of Gavura, a neighbor of the slain woman's, was crucial to the convictions of Mayhue and Hardin. Gavura said he arrived home the night of Dec. 15, 1986, and found Hardin parked in his driveway. Hardin said that Mayhue was about 1,000 feet away, killing his wife, Gavura testified.

Gavura cited his fear of Hardin's political connections as the reason he did come forward until six weeks after Mrs. Mayhue's slaying. "Even if those people had acted responsibly, Fred Mayhue probably would have eventually killed her anyway," Ruddy said of the early warnings of Mayhue's intentions. Mrs. Mayhue's fatal wounds were not the work of a professional killer, Ruddy noted.

Mayhue never admitted killing his estranged wife. An autopsy revealed Mrs. Mayhue was struck at least five times in the head with a baseball bat and her throat was crushed by a metal window well, which broke. Finally, she was shot twice in the head at close range. "Only someone who hated her could do that," Ruddy said.

Prosecution witnesses had testified at that trial that they could not go to Beaver County authorities about the murder because of Hardin's political connections. An elected Rochester commissioner who supervised the police department, Hardin had made political connections at the Beaver County Courthouse through his jobs as a constable and a former deputy sheriff. Wayne Shackelford, 31, a petty criminal and heroin user who was offered money and cocaine in 1985 to kill Mrs. Mayhue, testified that May-hue repeatedly assured him there was "nothing to worry about" should he be caught. And, in the case of another would-be assassin, that's exactly what happened.

Edward Lau, 21, a former busboy at the Sheraton Hotel at Station Square who was recruited by McCarthy to commit the murder, was caught in April 1985 with a gun and ski mask in a car outside Mrs. Mayhue's home. Lau, who pleaded guilty to attempted burglary, received five years of probation. Yet Common Pleas Judge Donald Walko, who imposed the sentence, described Lau's story at the time as "nonsense" and said he suspected that Lau was "out there for no good." Lau admitted after Mrs. Mayhue was killed that the judge was correct.

In a conversation from the Allegheny County Jail that was recorded by investigators while he awaited trial, Hardin attempted to dissuade then-Beaver County District Attorney Edward Tocci from turning the Span investigation over to the state attorney general's office. Hardin also wanted immunity from prosecution in the Span case. But Tocci, one of a handful of lawyers to represent Mayhue during the divorce, turned the probe over to state authorities anyway, despite Hardin's pleas. Tocci did help Mayhue get out of jail in January 1985 by arranging for Mayhue to sign a judgment note promising to repay $44,000 to the business in return for his release, according to Mayhue's testimony. Tocci retired Jan.

1, after holding his part-time office for a decade. -Bite f18SFfew Fred Mayhue "I was angry" din, 34, formerly of Rochester, Beaver County, and Gerard McCarthy, 34, formerly of Mount Washington contracted with three men to kill Mrs. Mayhue, the prosecution contended. One of the three Earle T. Span, 33, of Ambridge was fatally shot in the back of the head shortly after he was last seen by his mother on April 4, 1985.

His body was discovered in February in a Beaver County landfill. A state grand jury is investigating whether Mayhue, Hardin and McCarthy are responsible for the slaying, which purportedly occurred when Span refused to return money he received to kill Mrs. Mayhue. After those attempts failed, May-hue and Hardin ambushed Mrs. May-hue, 50, outside her home in Daugherty, Beaver County, the prosecution contended.

She was beaten and shot to death, and her body was found early Dec. 16, 1986, stuffed in the trunk of her boyfriend's car in Findlay. In addition to Mayhue's conviction, Hardin was convicted of first-degree murder and McCarthy was found guilty of criminal solicitation to commit homicide in connection with Mrs. Mayhue's slaying. During Hardin's trial in November, the prosecution suggested that the biggest mistake he and Mayhue made was to dump Mrs.

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6-10 medium or wide. Sorry, no mail or phone orders. Budget Store Family Shoes, Downtown only Colors and sizes may vary by style. Killer, who hid in Blair County, dies before sentencing Home's Budget Store hey said. "We said he should spend the rest of his life in confinement, and he did." "As I said after the trial, it was deliberate, purposeful murder," Washtenaw Prosecutor William Del- Lloyd Powell.

"That aged him considerably. I don't think it was the trauma of the trial, but the anxiety of waiting for sentencing could have (affected) his health." Cashman came to Michigan in 1946 after escaping from a Pennsylvania prison farm where he was serving time for burglary, statutory rape and forgery. Following the Farver slaying, Cashman hid in a barn for 10 days in Michigan. Authorities said he scrawled a confession inside the barn that read: "I shot the woman I loved Eleanor Farver. I was being made a fool.

I'd rather see her dead than for another to have her." Cashman then drifted back to western Pennsylvania and apparently hid in a secluded mountain cabin near Logan Township, Blair County, until his arrest last year. "Cashman has a reputation of. being a loner and a survivalist," Police Chief John Reeder of Logan Township said at the time of the arrest. Cashman was arrested after people living near the cabin told police he resembled a wanted man portrayed in the NBC program "Unsolved Mysteries." ANN ARBOR, Mich. (UPI) A Pennsylvania man, convicted of killing a 17-year-old after the case was publicized on a TV program, has died before he could be sentenced.

Wilford Cashman, 75, frail and nearly deaf when he was brought to Michigan for trial last year, suffered a fatal heart attack Thursday night at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. Cash-man was moved to the hospital from jail Wednesday. He was to be sentenced Jan. 22 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court for second-degree murder in the 1970 shotgun slaying of his one-time girlfriend, Eleanor Farver, at her Northfield Township home.

"He had been tormented for 17 years over the homicide of a woman he loved," said Cashman's attorney, 105 elephant tusks found in leader's van DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) Police arrested a member of Parliament after finding 105 elephant tusks valued at $25,000 in his government vehicle. The Daily News yesterday said Abdurabi Ali Yusuf, a parliamentarian for Songea, was arrested Friday. The Pittsburgh Press (USPS 434-3001 A Scrippt Howard Nawipaper General offices at 34 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh. Pa. 15222.

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