Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 146

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday, September 28, 2003 I www.post-gazette.com VV-6 'I 1 A Oh VT3 VWV'T ill A sketch of a man seen speeding away from the scene where Deborah Jeannette Capiola's body was found. ivrums DciiNanruat-uaicu1 detector, state police Trooper Robert Kinch checks the scene in this 1977 file photo of where Deborah Jeannette Capiola's body was found Usinq a metal strangled in Robinson ihinsnn X' if Police and former Washington County Coroner Farrell Jackson theorized the crimes were committed by one man. Capiola was the next to be murdered, followed two months later by Brenda Lee Ritter of North Strabane, who was found strangled in scrub woods within several miles of her home. The 18-year-old secretary left her boyfriend's home about 10:10 p.m. May 18, 1977.

Her boyfriend, Larry Bonazza, and his mother watched Ritter drive away, making sure her car doors were locked. The rash of murders had Rit-ter's family on edge; like many others, they insisted their four daughters lock car doors and be wary of strangers. The next morning, her abandoned car was found in neighboring South Strabane. A massive search was organized, but before it could get under way, searchers in a state police helicopter spotted Ritter's remains on a hillside about three-quarters of a mile from her car, Ritter was raped, then garroted with her panties, which were twisted tightly around her neck with a stick. The Ritter investigation seemed to be a turning point for authorities.

Why would a young woman, who knew there was a killer on the loose, open her car door or stop for a stranger? Jackson forwarded a theory that the killer may have been posing as a policeman to gain victims' trust. So, when county Sheriff Hanna "Pie" Johns shot himself only days after the Ritter murder, tongues began to wag and haven't stopped since. Johns' family said he'd been despondent since he lost his bid for the Democratic nomination for sheriff two days before Ritter's death. Johns' suicide made townsfolk suspicious, though there was no evidence against him. Twenty-six years later, there still are residents who insist Johns was the murderer, based chiefly on urban legends and false rumors.

Police investigated Johns and quickly cleared him. "If there's ever a person who was investigated, he was," said Jackson, coroner for 34 years. The continued assaults on Johns' reputation are "a disgrace," Jackson said. NEXT WEEK: Kennedy's arrest has brought new attention to other similar murders throughout the region, including a November 1976 murder of a 30-year-old woman in Penn Hills, Allegheny County, and the June 1977 murder of a 26-year-old student nun near Wheeling, WVa. A former FBI profiler discusses the tendencies of serial killers in cases similar to the murders in Washington County.

Janice Crompton run be; reached at jcmmptondti or 724-223-0156. It 'f COVER FROM PAGE W-l years, jn 2000 they were able to rule out the primary suspect in one of the other murders. The DNA they sought belonged to David Robert Kennedy, a Cecil man who has generated a great deal of interest among local law enforcement officials. Kennedy, 48, was arrested in December 2000 for the 1977 murder1 of 17-year-old Deborah Jeannette Capiola of Findlay, Allegheny County. Although he'd been a suspect for years, police were unable to make an arrest until the technology was available to test a sperm sample from the crime scene, which police say matched Kennedy's DNA.

The sampleused was insufficient for testing until 2000, when advances in DNA tests finally provided police with a genetic profile. 1 Capiola vanished the morning of March 17, 1977, on her way to catch the school bus. Her brother usually walked with her to the bus stop, but not that day. She left her home on Point Park Road at 7:45 a.m. When the bus arrived eight minutes later, there was no sign of her.

ijler. body was discovered 10 days later on a hillside near an abandoned strip mine, about 3 miles from her home, in Robinson, Allegheny County. She had been sexually assaulted, then strangled with the leg of her blue jeans'. Kennedy became a suspect when his maroon vehicle with a vinyl top was seen speeding near Capiola's home and the crime scene the morning of the murder. He arrived late for work, telling co-workers he had a flat tire.

He allegedly later told police he was late because he had visited a local car'deatership. Tvyq days before Capiola's remains were found, police searched the spillway of nearby Blue Lake, where some youngsters had found Capiola's belongings. State game wardens' said they had spotted Kennedy's vehicle at the lake twice that day. Several days after the homicide, a coworker said he saw Kennedy removing the vinyl top from his car. Kennedy is in Allegheny County jail awaiting trial, while the state Supreme Court irons out a handful of pretrial motions.

Prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty because it didn't exist in Pennsylvania at the time of the murder. But police are investigating whether Kennedy may have killed more than once. They believe Kennedy's alleged actions in 1977 and more recently paint the portrait of a dangerous man. State police Trooper Rebecca Loving spearheaded the effort to analyze the DNA in 2000, when she and other members of a cold- -4 -ilf -1 i 'iniifaii ii Susan Rush was found strangled in the trunk of her car Nov. 25, 1976 Mary Irene Gency, 16, of North Charleroi, disappeared Feb.

13, 1977. B'renda Lee Ritter was found strangled in scrub woods within several miles of her home in May 1 977. Rush's family. She was a deeply religious person who never had been on a date. Mary Irene Gency, 16, of North Charleroi, disappeared Feb.

13, 1977, when she left home after dinner to meet some friends. Her severely beaten and frozen body was found six days later in a secluded, wooded section of Fallow-field. She was raped and died fijom multiple skull fractures and brain lacerations. Although police arrested David Davoli, 19, several months later, he was released when prosecutors failed to establish evidence against him, except that Gency may have been seen in his car 90 minutes before her death. Loving and other members of law enforcement are convinced Kennedy was not responsible for Gency 's death and believe it was not related to the others.

Loving said there's a strong suspect in the case whom police' still are Deborah Jeannette Capiola was last seen alive March 17, 1977. Her body was found 1 0 days later. "I just cried like a baby," she said. Deja vu The series of local murders began with Rush, who vanished at about 6: 10 p.m. Nov.

24, 1970 after leaving her job at Murphy's department store in the Washington Mall in South Strabane. Her body was found shortly after 9 a.m. the next day, when her brother Gary Rush spotted her vehicle parked along North Avenue, less than a mile from the mall. Her car doors were locked and her body was in the trunk, hastily clad in pants and a turtleneck that was inside-out. Rush had been strangled with a piece of string or leather, according to the autopsy report.

There were no bruises or scratches on the body, except for the ligature marks, and tests showed Rush had sex shortly before her death, which occurred about midnight. If she submitted to sex, it was only to save her life, according to 2000. When Kennedy found out he was being investigated by Loving and her colleagues, Loving said he began stalking her. Loving said during a meeting with the suspect, Kennedy leaned toward her and in a casual, conversational voice told her he'd been following her, naming places she'd been recently and details of what she wore on certain days. She believes he followed her on at least two occasions.

"He scared the hell out of me," she said. Kennedy's attorney, William Manifesto, said he knows nothing about the stalking accusations and declined to comment on his client's case. "Because there is a pending case, it would be inappropriate for me to make any comment," Manifesto said. On the day Kennedy was arrested, Loving had mixed feelings of accomplishment and grief. case squad came up with the sperm sample on Capiola's blue jeans.

She believes Kennedy was watching Capiola walk to her bus in the mornings. "He was a stalker," Loving said. "Capiola's brother would go with her every day. Kennedy stalked her." Stalking is a typical sign of predatory behavior, and that's a bad omen, according to Loving. "He was a predator," Loving said.

'And they don't stop." Kennedy, married three times with no children, "fits the profile of a serial killer to a she said. Loving requested travel vouchers from the federal government, which employed Kennedy as a civilian mechanic at the 91 1th Airlift Wing of the Air Force Reserve base in Moon, Allegheny County. "Many times, he was out of state," she said. Most disturbing were Kennedy's alleged actions in Milling documentary debuts to packed house with promise of activism "We need to change this law. It's time for some fairness.

It's time to say to the Pennsylvania Coal Association that it no longer owns the state capitol. It's time to take care with undermined residents, to make the argument that the law and its enforcement are inadequate to protect the natural resources or the people of the region and should be amended. The film was followed by a parade, of coalfield residents who spoke from the theater's stage about the damage to their homes and the unhealthy stress that they experienced after being undermined, and by activists who urged action by state legislators, none of horn were in attendance. "We need to change this law," said Jeanne Clark, a spokeswoman for PennFuture. "It's time for some fairness.

It's time to say to the Pennsylvania Coal Association that it no longer owns the state capitol. It's time to take care of1 the people." Don Ho)xtj can be reached at dhopeij(d posNianettp.com or where we'll show the film and answer their questions," she said. "There has to be a way to get the word to all of them that we need better laws and better enforcement when it comes to long-wall mining." George Ellis, president of the Pennsylvania Coal Association, said the coalition of groups backing the film including the Raymond Proffitt Foundation, Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future and Tri-State Citizens Mining Network are trying to shut down the mining industry, which directly employs about 3,400 people in the two counties. Ellis was part of a 75-person contingent of coal industry spokesmen and miners who attended the screening, many wearing white T-shirts supplied by German-owned RAG that bore the message, "Coal: America's Energy Source." "If Pennsylvania is going to continue to have a stable, reliable supply of en- FILM FROM PAGE W-l ister of Historic Places, said the video will be used as the centerpiece of a campaign to educate legislators from other parts of the state about the problems caused by longwall mining in Washington and Greene counties. wras nice, but it's important we get to the next step, which is to get information about our problems out to all the legislators from across the state," said Williams, whose property was featured in the film.

"The only legislators that understand longwall mining live here, and most of those won't cross the coal companies." Williams said the coalition of five local and statewide environmental groups will send copies of the film to each of the legislators and set up private screenings for small groups of lawmakers. "Maybe we'll have breakfast meetings for small groups of legislators much of the southwestern part of the state. When the coal is removed in "panels" that are 1,000 feet wide and as long as 3 miles, immediate surface subsidence of as much as 5 feet occurs, damaging builcings, landscapes, water supplies and st-eams. With coal industry support, an amendment to the state mining law known as Act 51 was passed in 1994 to better accomnodate the longwall method by allowing coal companies that own the subterranean mineral rights to dig bf-neath homes and other structures as long as the mining company fixes the Carnage and replaces the water or compensates the surface property owner. The 15-minute documentary film, written and directed by Terri Taylor, a former television news reporter at KD-KA-TV and Emmy award-winning journalist, uses pictures of damage to homes and streams, and interviews of the people." Jeanne Clark, PennFuture ergy, it's going to have to continue to rely on coal, which now supplies about 60 percent of that energy," Ellis said.

Longwall mining is a deep-mining technique that removes all the coal from large sections of the 6-foot-thick Pittsburgh seam that runs underneath.