Homicide
A lot of the murders that occurred in the early 1900s seemed to involve guns, which was a little surprising considering that so many other methods of death are drastically different from what we encounter today. This probably has to due with the prevalence of guns in American society ever since the Constitution was written giving the right to bare arms to the people. Several records detailed death by gunshot, such as a man being shot after having a dispute with his friend at a bar, and a case where a criminal who was being arrested ended up shooting at police and shooting his accomplice instead. 190107_009, 190109_194
1898
A 46-year-old woman was murdered when her husband shot her. They had many fights over the course of their marriage and her husband threatened to kill her many times. She was found by her oldest daughter, still alive; she named her husband as her murderer before she died. They had three children together. 189801_221
AP 25 April 08
1902
Beyond gun-related homicides, one specific case of mass murder that occurred in 1902 involved the death of an entire family at the hands of another member of the family (190211_329-334). The incident occurred in the Homestead area in the middle of the night. The assailant proceeded to murder his entire family with an axe, from the youngest sibling at the age of 3 to his father aged 46. No mention was made of what happened to the murderer, or why he committed such a heinous act, though it is implied in the record that the man was mentally unstable. Even more eerie is that in my research, I found an incident almost identical to the one detailed above that occurred in 1876. Once again, a man killed his entire family with an axe, leaving no survivors beyond himself. This also occurred in the Homestead area, leading to many questions. Was the incident in 1902 a copycat murder? Was this type of murder prevalent during the time period; has similar accounts of axe murders been found by anyone else? Finally, is it merely a case of mistaken dating on the part of the history book that I found the record in? While the last names are different and they occurred thirty years apart, I find it very difficult to believe that these murders are not somehow related.
1903
There was a very strange case in 1903 in which a school teacher was supervising a recess at a grade school. The children were engaged in a snowball fight when the teacher remarked "You fire and I'll fire". The children, not fully aware of what he meant, threw a snowball. The teacher responded by pulling a revolver from his back pocket and shooting a seven-year-old boy. The bullet struck the child's arm fracturing the bone in his upper arm before penetrating the chest and puncturing the lungs. After the man fired he simply walked away. Many witnesses were present, mostly children.
One case file that was very disturbing to me was when a father apparently slit the throat of his 11-year-old boy. The witnesses of the incident could not give any reason for why the father would commit the murder. Everyone in the house, including a brother, brother-in-law, two sisters, and mother, could only attest to the fact that the father was acting strange, mumbling to himself and speaking in his native tongue. All of these people said the father and this son did not have any fights; only the mother could say that the father made some sort of comment about the boy would not be a problem any longer, but she could not remember the exact wording or anything specific. This case seemed very suspicious to me the fact that all of these witnesses did not see or hear the boy being murdered and the fact they could not give any reasoning behind why the father would murder his son.
In 1903 I came across two interesting homicides, one involving the church and the other was a crime of passion. In September of 1903 a young man was attacked by a disgruntled friend during the christening of his child during church. The witnesses all attested to the fact that during the ceremony the two men began to argue and eventually assault each other. On man grabbed a large iron pillar and struck the other man in head, killing him instantly. The other case that really grabbed my attention was something one would find on a soap opera. In October of 1903 a 56-year-old farmer fell in love with a 20-year-old woman who began working as a maid in his home. She was an immigrant in need of a job. The man was married, had children of his own and a successful farm, but he was focused on his much younger mistress. She became involved with her boss and eventually feared him. According to witnesses she attempted to leave him, but he forced her to stay, saying, "We will only be parted by death." She attempted to leave him again and he caught her, shot her in the temple and then shot himself in the heart.
I think that some of my case files that were ruled suicides were actually misdiagnosed or just plain wrong. In one file a man was found in the Allegheny River, his feet bound and stab wounds in his chest. The coroner ruled it a suicide when he was clearly murdered. Another man was found in the river with a gunshot wound to the neck, which was also ruled a suicide. It appears if you were found in the river the coroner did not take the time to adequately investigate the deaths.
I have also come across files of kids accidentally shooting other kids, because by the age of twelve most were allowed to go hunting, and accidents occurred. For instance, two kids were hunting deer and got into a fight over who would kill the big deer that had come out of the woods. During the scuffle, the gun went off and one of the boys was shot and killed.
I also found a few case files where the wealthy were mistreating their servants. One example was of a woman who wanted to leave for the store, but her servant girl was not moving fast enough. So the woman grabbed a gun and shot the girl in cold blood. Another murder occurred when a farm owner suspected one of his workers of stealing and had one of his hands cut off to prove a point. The hand got seriously infected and the man died.
1904-1905
The 1904-1905 case files I am going through now seem to have a few more murders than the previous boxes I have gone through. Perhaps this is due to the reason another intern has mentioned, the fact that they just were not labeled murders and instead labeled suicides. Two of the cases sort of surprised me, they were murder suicides. These cases surprised me because of the lack of information given for the motives of these incidents.
The first murder suicide I came across was something that many of us have seen in the news today- a domestic dispute. The details about what the couple was fighting about or what even lead to this tragic end were unknown. The only information given was by one of the borders who claimed the husband and wife had been fighting on and off for the past week. Then one day, when the witness came back to the house from work he found both of them dead from gunshot wounds on the kitchen floor. After a brief investigation this incident was dubbed a murder suicide due to the fact that the woman was shot in the chest and the man was killed by a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head. From what I read in this file it seems that no further investigation took place because the coroner believed it was not needed based on the preliminary investigation.
The second incident also has little detail as to why the incident occurred but there were a few more witnesses that were better able to piece the events together. This case was another domestic dispute between an unmarried couple who were living together in the same house as borders. She was a maid and he was a mill worker who was taken on as a border. The other borders and this maid were sitting down eating supper when the man came in. One of the boarders asked him to join them but he said no and walked right over to the maid. The one border realizing something was going on tried to make conversation with him and asked him what he was doing home from work. To this the man only replied it was none of his business. He then proceeded to bend down and whisper something into the maid’s ear. What he whispered was unknown but whatever it was apparently scared the maid. The other people sitting down eating then began to try and calm her down but the man grabbed her. From the reports there was a scuffle and in the end the man ended up shooting the maid and killing her. Someone went to get a doctor while the others tended to her. Another boarder stayed to talk to the man that had shot her. He was trying to figure out why he would shoot her but he said he could not understand what the man was saying. Then, when he tried to get the gun out of his hands the man turned the weapon on himself. This case was bizarre to me because none of the borders or other residence of the house could explain why he would do this. There was no mention of previous tension between the two.
In most of these murder cases, the men who committed the act were referred to be put on trial. For other murders in which the assailant was not known the coroner would merely note that it was unknown who murdered the victim.
An Italian man was stabbed to death by 2 men, Guiseppa and Francesco Panucco. They told him that they had to talk to him and then when they had him alone they stabbed him in the lung and neck with a stiletto knife. Both Gyuseppa and Francesco admitted to killing him. This looks an awful lot like a mob murder to me. 190502-196
May 19, 2008 AFS
1906-1909
In 1906 I ran across the first case of justifiable homicide I have seen the entire time I have been a part of the coroner's project. While the official records themselves are somewhat vague on just what occurred, the testimony of the man who committed the homicide is much more detailed and sheds some light on the incident. The man in question ran a corner store in one of Pittsburgh's seedier areas, which had frequently in the past been vandalized and broken into at night. As the man recounts, he had had enough and decided to stakeout his store with his newly purchased shotgun. One night around 3 a.m. he heard the shattering of glass from one of his windows. Hiding in the shadows, he waited as over a period of about 20 minutes three men conversed with each other in a foreign language and carefully began clearing the window of glass fragments so they could enter the store. At this point the man inside began yelling at the men to leave the area, which temporarily scared them off. The burglars eventually came back, either because they thought the man had left the area or they did not understand what the man was saying. One of the intruders attempted to enter the building; as he was halfway inside the store owner stood up and shot him. The other two men fled, while the noise caused the authorities to show up. They attempted to get the injured man to a hospital, but he died in transit. The store owner was eventually cleared of all charges.
It appears that I am coming across more homicides in 1906 than in the previous years. Perhaps this is due to the coroner actually labeling the murders as murders, instead of accidental or suicides. The homicides I come across, though, almost always seem like disputes between two or more males that escalate to the point where one of the males reaches for an object or a gun to attack the other one with.
The files are also somewhat vague, making it difficult to piece everything together. In one such case a man shot one of his friends in the early morning hours on the porch. The neighbors heard the gun shots and a few came out to see what was going on. Upon seeing the injured man a few of the neighbors went into the city to find an officer and bring him back. Unfortunately one could not be found quick enough and the man bled to death. There were people in the house who also heard the shots and saw the incident, but could not offer any real detail other than the two men were arguing and wrestling for the gun. Even though the person who shot and murdered the man was known, according the case file he got away.
1917
On November 11, a 47-year-old Slavic man who worked as a coal miner was shot in the chest and killed while he was at a Christening. A witness, who had been beaten with a club, reported that 4-5 boys had attempted to rob the house. 1917_152.
RLM 08 Jun 08
A 28-year-old Hungarian man commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, after also murdering his wife while she was asleep in bed. He came home on furlough 5 days previous from Camp Sherinaw, where he had been serving as a soldier for 3 months. An investigation had been underway into the conduct of his 21-year-old Austrian wife, alleged to be living an "immoral life." She was found to be guilty of adultery with a local barber. The deceased's brother stated that this was the only reason he supposed would have led his brother to this end. The file contains what appears to be a suicide note written in Hungarian.
RLM 08 Jun 08
1918
Late in 1917, two police officers were shot by a James Gibson while they were pursuing him. He shot both of them, one in the neck, and the other in the face and head. One police officer died soon afterwards and one lingered until early January.
191801-280 and 191801-281
AFS 11 June 2008
In May of 1918, a woman was killed by her husband because she was "flirting" with another man. Apparently he had seen her meet him in the park but had not actually seen her acting in any way unfitting, besides the flirting. It made him very jealous and he killed her by shooting her in the back, neck and chest.
191805-165
AFS 18 June 2008
1919
An 11 year old boy was shot by a neighbor one night when the neighbor, Orazio Baldini, tried to kill his older sister. The neighbor was in love with the girl and since she had rejected him and was in love with someone else, Baldini tried to shoot her but shot the boy instead.
191903-043
AFS 05 Aug 2008
A woman was robbed and the robber killed her very brutally. He hit her in the head with a brick hard enough to crush her skull in and then strangled her with one of her husband's neckties. The file includes a wanted poster for the man that was suspected of killing the woman.
191903-115
AFS 05 Aug 2008
1920
A woman was murdered by her husband after telling him that she wanted to return to the "Old country" (she was Austrian). He hit her with a hatchet and fractured her skull. He immediately went to the police and told them what happened. He had previously suffered from a brain fever. 192001-176
AFS May 19, 2008
1925
An unusual death seems to have been caused by a domestic dispute. A wife threw boiling water on her husband, and this led to septicemia and his death. 192506_121
The day before Christmas, 1924, a black man was shot through the back as he was leaving a home, and he died from internal hemorrhage. William Paitlow was arrested and held for trial. The file also includes a typed examination of the body (the first of this I'd seen). 192501-071
AFS May 23, 2008
The first Chinese Immigrant I've come across was a murder case. He was shot in the laudry that he worked at by two unknown Chinese men. Apparently they brought in two bags that seemingly held laundry. However, one bag held a gun that they shot him with. It is also interesting to note that under "color," the Chinese were put down as "yellow." 192501-082
AFS May 23, 2008
A ten-year-old boy was shot through the window of his home. His mother was with him and she did not realize what had happened until he turned to her and said "Mama, I've been shot." It was unknown who had shot the boy. 192501-118
AFS May 23, 2008
1926
The second murder was interesting because the case was dropped against the man who admitted killing the victim. There is a newspaper article to accompany this case as well. The reason for dropping the case against the man was vague, but from what I gather from the article, there was trouble finding witnesses to support the murderer’s confession. The number on that file is 192609_20
MG 13 Sept 2007
In case file 192610_5 and 192610_6 I a man was found dead due to a stab wound from and unknown person, but the victim had a gun in his hand. Next to him another man was found dead due to being shot by the former. The latter victim did not have a knife so there was no reason to believe that he killed the other man. I am not sure if there was a fight between the two men and another person or if they were set up. That sounds like a good plot for a murder mystery novel. AL 9/20/07
1930-1939
On January 1, 1930, police were called to a pool hall located at 1321 Wylie Ave to break up a brawl between 4 "colored" men. One man, aged 35, was stabbed with a large pen-knife and taken to Passavant Hospital, where he died from fatal wounds above his heart and abdomen. The other 3 were arrested, and the man with the knife was ultimately charged with homicide. The case file includes typewritten interviews with the men involved. 193001_154.
2008 May 26 RLM
I found a homicide where the murderer was not held responsible because of self-defense. There was a robbery attempt at a pharmacy on Shady Avenue. One man asked for some pills and an employee went behind the counter to get them. Another armed man entered the drug store and attempted to rob the place, when the employee behind the counter drew a gun and killed the robber. He was not charged because was considered to be an act of self-defense. I found this to be interesting because, as far as I know, it is the only self-defense file we have come across so far. 193004_188
MG 03 Oct 2007
I found an interesting file that ended with a cop being murdered. The officer tried to arrest a man who was very drunk, but the man resisted arrest. The cop proceeded to beat the man with his club. The man, badly beaten, pulled out a gun and shot the officer. A newspaper article was enclosed that said that the cop and the man were good friends prior to this incident. The man held target practice in his back yard for the local officers. As the two injured men were brought into the hospital the drunk man yelled to the officer, "You started this!" The officer replied, "Shut you mouth!" None of the other officers at his station knew why the officer was mad at the man or what started the fight. 193012_118
AL 05 Oct 2007
I found two unusual murders in the year 1926. On September 8th George C. Ortman died while on the job during a bank robbery. Ortman was a Special Police Officer on duty at the bank when an unidentified man entered and asked teller Everett Jones to hand over $2000. The robber said that he had a bomb (several sticks of dynamite) in a sack with a cord that would set off the bomb when pulled. The teller described the threat of the bomb when the robber wrote in his note that it will make a sound "the entire city of Pittsburgh will hear." The bomb was detonated and Ortman, along with the robber were killed. The location of the robbery was in the banking rooms of the Farmer’s Deposit Savings Bank at 5th and Wood streets. The robber's Coroner report can be found under 192609_40. Included in the report are several newspaper articles about the robbery and the actual note handed over to the teller demanding $2000. The robber was described as an "anarchist" and "terrorist." “Anarchist” was a term used frequently in the late 19th and early 20th century to describe labor activists/union leaders in particular. It was interesting to see the use of terrorist back then compared to how the word is used now. Through observation, I do not think that the word terrorist would be used today to describe a robbery or a murder by a white person within the United States. It seems that the title has been reserved for Islamic extremists. 193012_118
The other case files I came across for murders were also lacking details. A number of them were from arguments getting out of hand and one person grabbing an object and hitting the other over the head with it. One example of this was when two men began arguing in a bar. As the argument escalated one of them left. Later on that evening the two men met up again outside someone’s house and resumed the argument. One of the men grabbed a hammer that was lying around and hit it over the other man’s head.
Case number 193112_68, involving a 12-year-old boy, was originally ruled an accidental death from a concussion from playing football. About six or seven months later, however, the body was exhumed and an autopsy was performed, with toxicology testing. It was discovered there was no head injury at all, but instead the death was caused by "phlegmonous enteritis." This condition consists of a "severe acute inflammation of the intestine, with edematous bowel wall infiltrated with pus." This time the death was ruled a murder, as the boy had been poisoned with "soluble salts of tin in stannous condition" ingested in tea and milk. It was discovered that the boy had been murdered by his stepmother, Anna Allas, with the assistance of her friend Mary Chalfa, both of whom were eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment (see Commonwealth v. Chalfa et al., 313 Pa. 175 1933). The exhumation was ordered as part of an investigation into a later death, 193208_162. Apparently the victim's murder was part of a plan to get insurance money, in which six members of the defendants’ families had been insured for large sums of money. Three people, including the boy who was exhumed, were probably murdered by poison, and there was evidence that Anna Allas had poisoned her previous husband before he died in a fall down some stairs. It was noted that the poison works "insidiously by irritating the intestinal tract, causing cramps and convulsions, followed by a terrible death.” One of the defendants, who admitted their guilt, said "if they take him out of the ground twenty times the American doctors cannot discover the poison." Apparently the defendants were wrong about that, since the poison was found during toxicology testing. Unfortunately three people had to die before the insurance companies got suspicious enough to request further investigation, or so it seems. Probably the poison described as "soluble salts of tin in stannous condition" was Stannous Oxalate. It is a toxic organic compound, taking the form of a white powder soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. Tin salts have a variety of industrial applications and are even today unregulated so it was probably not difficult to acquire in an industrial city like Pittsburgh in 1931.
1938
A young 19-year-old male patient of St. Frances Psych Ward, who was confined to a bed by wrist, waist, and ankle straps due to his violent nature, managed to get his hands free enough to grab another male patient and strangle him to death. The attendee said he left them alone in the room for two minutes and when he came back the young patient was still strapped to the bed with the dead man next to him. The 19-year-old was charged with the murder of his fellow psych ward patient.
AS 24 Oct 2007
1940
In the first murder case I've seen with a female being accused of murder, a woman was strangled with a silk scarf. The motive for the murder is unknown but the women were together in a Hotel room and there was a fight and a struggle. The woman was held for trial by the Grand Jury. 194001-300
AFS May 23, 2008
1943
A psych patient at Woodville State Hospital was in his bed sleeping one evening. Another patient was using the restroom without supervision, and he decided to take advantage of the situation. He found a broom in a janitor’s closet and made his way to the room that the sleeping patient was in. He beat the sleeping victim to death while he was restrained to the bed. 194310_232
AL 09 Nov 2007
1956
A man murdered his wife of about 41 years with a hatchet. They had been having marital problems for over 30 years (since 1926) according to the husband's statement. They fought all time, were not having sex, and she refused to let him into her separate bedroom. He did say that, despite all of this, he never cheated on her because he was a good Catholic man. They had a fight the night before he killed her and the next morning as she was going out the door to a babysitting job, he tried to kiss her in an attempt to make up with her, to which she responded by slapping him across the face. At that point, he was still in his pajamas, he went into the kitchen, picked up the hatchet left out on the counter, went back to her and smacked her across the back of the head with it. He continued to unleash 30 years of marital discontent on his wife until he realized he killed her. He then called the police and changed into nicer clothes while awaiting their arrival. He was charged with murder of his wife. They had three children. 195601_92
AP 21 Jan 2008
A woman killed her 65-year-old husband when she stabbed in him the abdomen and chest with a pair of scissors. They had been married for 10 years and she was angry because he would not eat dinner with her, but would get up at 3 a.m. and eat on his own. At first she told the officers that he fell into a bucket and hurt himself, but after they saw the scene, where there was blood all over the bedroom and the kitchen, they questioned her more thoroughly. Eventually she admitted to the crime, adding that it was his fault because he would not have dinner with her. 195602_102
NM 19 Jan 2008
A woman's husband came home from a business trip, and while she was going through his laundry she discovers a lipstick stain on one of his shirts. Enraged and believing that he has been unfaithful to her, she shot him twice in the chest with a shotgun from only three feet away. When detained by the police she showed little remorse, and said something like, "He's worse than a sailor! He has a woman in every port!" Her primary concern was with the fate of her two children, who were only 5 and 7 years old. The mother requested that the children be placed in a Christian home, possibly in Baltimore. This is the first case I have seen where a person was killed by a female at all, intentionally or otherwise. The file contains a few newspaper clippings as well, one with a photograph of the woman, who looks like a typically sweet and kindly lady. 195706-132
RB 23 Jan 2008
A 41-year-old widow was murdered. Her 8-year-old son found her in the basement of their house with her pants pulled down and hatchet wounds to her head. There were some newspaper clippings in the file that advised people to look out for a maniacal axe-killer. But in later clippings it said that her son confessed to the murder two years later. She had been trying to hit him with a belt, so he ran to the basement, grabbed the hatchet, and knocked her down with the blunt end. Then he hit her with the sharp end until she died, and pulled her pants down to make it look like a sex crime. 195701_144
A man showed up on the porch of his common-law wife. He threatened her, so she shot him from the second floor window of her parents' home. She was later cleared of murder charges because police considered it to be self-defense. 195712_84
Four men and one woman were arrested for the murder of an 85-year-old woman. It was a popular rumor that this woman had a lot of money hidden in her house, so the men planned to break into her house and take it. They beat her and slightly stabbed her cheeks, but she fought back, and was severely injured. The men left the house penniless, and one of them called the police to send an ambulance to the woman's house. When police got there she was already dead. 195712_132
LB 25 Jan 2008
An abusive 30-year-old army dad pushed his son over the edge. Dad was unhappy that his wife has cooked a dinner with no meat in it (mac & cheese and corn on the cob).He threw part of the meal at her and then made her clean up his mess. While she cleaned, the father caught his son with his shoes on the couch and proceeded to beat him with a belt for this offense. After years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his father the youngster had had enough. He went into his parent’s room and took a rifle out from under the bed, loaded it as his father taught him, then lied in wait on the second story steps. When his father passed the stairwell, he was executed with a gunshot wound to the chest. The boy ran out of the house and waited for his mother to exit as well. After a trial where several neighbors attested to the mean and abusive nature of the deceased, the 10-year-old was set free. The court concludes that it was a justifiable homicide. There are many articles included with this case, some of which contain photos of the boy and his mom. 195709-90
RB 27 Jan 2008
A 13-year-old boy was murdered by a 17-year-old boy and two teenage accomplices. He was informed by his two accomplices that the 13-year-old boy had been given $20.30 by his mother to pay some bills. The 17-year-old was criminally attempting to acquire a sum of $350 for each of his accomplices as a bribe for not notifying authorities about his escape from Mayview State Hospital a few months earlier. He was later arrested in Ohio after attempting to rob a candy store and then sent back to Pittsburgh. The 17-year-old confessed to fracturing the victim’s skull with a ball peen hammer and kicking him while he was on the ground bleeding. 195710_230
TG 29 Jan 2008
Unsolved murder: A body of a West Virginia man was found in the trunk of a car in Wilkinsburg. The body was badly decomposed and covered in maggots. The autopsy report said that maggots filled the nostrils and mouth. The coroner was unsure of how the man died, but it was probably due to strangulation. The reason he was killed was probably because he was a gambler and he owed people money. The investigation for a killer played out like a movie. There were a lot of suspects who had possible motives, but they were all cleared of charges. Because the man was from West Virginia, Allegheny County tried to pass the case off to the man's home county, and vice versa. Newspaper articles from months later said that the investigation was at a standstill. 195710_166
BF 30 Jan 2008
1958
A criminal with an extensive record of 20 years robbing small business was reported robbing a local bar in the Pittsburgh area in April 1958. The criminal broke into the bar with a crowbar with the intention of looting the bar’s cash register, jukebox, pinball machine, and cigarette machine. The cops caught him in the act. The criminal used the crowbar to smash out the back kitchen window and escape out the back alley carrying around $76.00 dollars consisting of only change from the cash register and the various machines. The police called backup and met him in the back alley. Told to surrender, the criminal panicked, clobbered one of the officers in the back of the head, and then tried to run away, only to be shot down by another officer. The court jury ruled this justified homicide considering resisting arrest and assault of an officer. There was a good amount of information complied in this file: many officer reports, former offensive reports and jail time rep, and even a mug shot picture. 195804_202
BG 28 Jan 2008
A 53-year-old man died from shock and hemorrhage following stab wound of chest when pierced with steel wire, 5/32 of an inch in diameter and 7 1/2 inches long by a patient at the hospital where he was also a patient. The patient who committed the crime was considered insane, and had been institutionalized for 11 years. He claimed to have done it so he would be transferred to a better institution. The metal was pushed so far into the man who died, that his skin covered it, and it was not found until the embalmer was preparing him for the funeral. 195807_76
NM 03 Feb 2008
A 21-year-old man was killed in a car accident, and the driver and other passenger were injured. The driver and passengers had been at a party and had a few beers in them. The driver had been going over 90 mph at the time of the crash. He was an unlicensed driver and had borrowed his father's car. 195809_74
AP 05 Feb 2008
A 47-year-old invalid woman was murdered by her estranged husband with a kitchen knife. (195809_116) The woman was described as being over 300 lbs; the local paper referred to her as "huge" and "mammoth" a number of times. The woman was visited by a male friend who watched TV with her after her husband left. He saw them together and got jealous, so he came to her place drunk and confronted her. At some point he picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed her. When the police caught up with him, he first claimed he could not remember the incident because he “blacked out.” Eventually he admitted to killing her.
AP 05 Feb 2008
A 23-year-old female was shot in the chest and wrists by her husband because he thought she was cheating on him. He also attempted to shoot and kill who he thought was her 'lover' but only shot him in the leg, so he was able to get away. 195810_128
NM 03 Feb 2008
A 19-year-old girl was strangled to death by her boyfriend in a car for refusing to finish him. She wanted $5.00 from him for it. They had been seen in numerous diners all night order food, arguing, and him complaining about the check when it arrived. When the boyfriend was on the stand during the coroner’s inquest the girl's mother pulled a gun from the police man sitting in front of her and attempted to kill the boyfriend. She was restrained by police and, as she was being dragged from the room, she screamed that she would kill him. As a result of this incident the coroner put in to place new rules requiring police to check their guns before entering the hearing room. 195811_118
AP 05 Feb 2008
A 59-year-old hotel maid died as a result of "shock and hemorrhage following lacerations and contusions of face with compound fractures of bones of face and contusions of body." The woman had requested a light bulb to be sent to the room in which she was attacked. She was found by the janitor bringing the light bulb...he had actually almost entered the room during the attack, but thought he was interrupting guests and backed out. The maid was apparently sexually molested, as some of her garments had been ripped off her. She resisted and was beaten to death in the struggle. The murderer struck her with a glass ashtray and likely stomped on her face after she fell to the ground. The examiner performing the autopsy said her face between the eye and mouth level was crushed almost to a pulp. Sixty-two lie detector tests were conducted on the hotel staff, but resulted in no suspects. The murderer was not found. Drops of blood could be followed from the 11th floor where the murder took place down the steps to the 5th floor, where they ended. 195806_84
TG 29 Jan 2008
1959
Here are two murders of similar circumstances:
A man was in his second floor apartment and three men broke into his apartment and robbed him of $190. They thought he had more money so they beat him. When another tenant came to see what the commotion was, the men escaped; one jumped out the window and the others pushed the woman out of the way. The man, thinking he was going to be okay, lay in bed for a day or two, but then died. A manhunt for the three men ensued, and the perpetrators were all caught; one of the criminals was even captured by the FBI in Oregon. The ringleader got life in prison. 195902_146
A young man and woman beat a North Carolina man to death during a robbery in his hotel room at the airport. They then hailed a cab, and took it to New Orleans. Coincidentally, the cab driver had served three different sentences in prison. The FBI found the couple in New Orleans and brought them back to Pittsburgh, and then the cab driver turned himself in with the Pittsburgh police. A newspaper article was included that said that taxi companies should have more screenings on the people they hire, because the customer's life is in the hand of the driver. 195910_162
BF 05 Feb 2008
A Coraopolis woman was brutally murdered by the same man that she had gone out on a date with earlier the same night. When detectives found the body ,it was floating in Montour Creek in Robinson Twp. near Route 51. Tire tracks from the vehicle driven by the accused, the woman's shoes, and puddles of blood were found nearby. According to the owner of the bar that the two were at, both had been drinking heavily. Near where the victim was found, they had sexual relations in the man's car. According to the testimony of the defendant, she told him that she loved him, which did not sit right with him as she was twenty years older than he. He exited the car to relieve himself, and then came back and beat her with a tire iron in the automobile. He then dragged her down to the creek where she was later found, but not before beating her several more times when she started moving again. Cause of death is listed as "shock and hemorrhage following compound commuted fractures of facial bones." Several days later the woman's purse was found in a stream near the man's house, as well as the tire iron used in the murder. 195912_12
MWB 07 Feb 2008
Ruled a case of involuntary manslaughter, a 17-year-old boy fatally shot his friend in the chest while he and some other boys were playing. The boy had run into his house and grabbed his father's gun in an attempt to scare away his friends who were chasing him. His friends were chasing him in order to give him his "birthday bumps", a punch for each year of his age. The boy said that he had no intention of actually firing the gun, claiming it went off accidentally. Although the gun belonged to his father, it was kept in the boy's bedroom. The files commented on the danger of children having easy access to firearms. 195909_26
TG 13 Feb 2008
A convict shot a 57-year-old sheriff in the abdomen during a prison transfer. The convict was handcuffed and in the back seat of the car, the sheriff was in the passenger seat and a friend of the sheriff was driving, the sheriff's gun sat on the middle front seat. The convict grabbed the sheriff's gun, the sheriff climbed into the backseat attempting to wrestle the gun away from the convict. The driver pulled the car over so he could go back and help the sheriff. A shot was fired and when the driver opened the back door, the sheriff slumped out wounded. The convict threatened to fire on the driver if he tried to stop him, so the driver ran. The convict escaped into Butler County and an armed search ensued. The convict was caught the next day. When asked at the hearing why he did this, the defendant said he went crazy for a moment. He had nothing against the sheriff and even thought he was a nice guy. He did not mean to shoot the sheriff, but during the fight for the gun accidentally shot him. At the inquest hearing, rumors circulated that the deputy was going to go after the convict for killing his friend the sheriff, so two local wrestlers were ordered to guard the convict. The deputy did try to go after him, but the wrestlers subdued him. 195906_92
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 23-year-old man was out at a bar on Centre Avenue and began to touch the backside of a woman who was seated next to him without her consent. Her boyfriend, sitting in a seat beyond nearby, warned him that he had better keep his hands to himself. The 23-year-old defied the suggestion and continues to repeatedly violate the woman’s personal space. Infuriated, the boyfriend went outside and picked up a standard house brick. He came back into the bar and smashed the offender in the head with it, fracturing his skull. Onlookers pulled the injured man into a booth until the authorities arrived. The injured man died in the hospital the next day. 195910_60
RB 18 Feb 2008
In an apparent murder-suicide a Bethel Borough man went crazy, shot and killed his brother, shot and wounded his nephew, and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. Apparently a family friend, also present with the group and shot at by the man, had run away when he was younger, and robbed a store whose owner was the shooter's, who did not know of the incident until the nephew told of it. It was at that point that he went upstairs and returned with a revolver, at which point he started shooting. The incident made headlines on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that day. 195901_235-195901_236
TG 29 Jan 2008
1960
A 38-year-old steel worker was shot in the chest by his wife while they were arguing. No investigation was present in the report. This case is interesting because it could be a possible case of Battered Women's Syndrome. 196001_128
AP 15 Feb 2008
Another case that appears to be Battered Women's Syndrome: a 56-year-old man was shot in the head and chest by his wife while sleeping, again following an argument.
AP 15 Feb 2008
A 60-year-old woman was found murdered in her bed, struck in the head with an axe. The report noted that she died of, "Shock and Hemorrhage and Laceration of Brain due to Compound Comminuted Depressed Fracture of Skull." When police arrived at the scene the victim's husband was acting emotionally, claiming that he saw an intruder leaving the apartment building just before he found his wife's body. He was brandishing a baseball bat and saying he was going to kill the man that had hurt his wife. He appeared to have been drinking. The police took him in for questioning. He maintained that his wife was murdered by an intruder, even throughout the coroner's inquest. One police officer, however, testified that the man admitted to the crime during a second round of questioning. The axe was later found in the rear of the building hidden in some weeds. 196004_159
TG 15 Feb 2008
A 59-year-old black man was beaten to death in a rage by another black man. The defendant had been drinking, came home, and began choking his girlfriend. She cried for help and one of the respondents was the deceased, her landlord. When he began interfering in the couple's business the defendant became enraged and attacked the deceased. Another man tried to break them up by restraining the defendant, but could not stop him. At some point in the fight the defendant broke the deceased's jaw with a bottle. 196008_144
AP 22 Feb 2008
A 53-year-old man was shot in the chest by a friend following an argument. Two friends were trying to watch a television show and told the defendant to quiet down. Offended, the defendant crossed the room to confront the deceased and the deceased pushed him into a booth. The defendant got up and shot the deceased twice, killing him. The defendant spoke poor English and had great difficultly answering the questions posed by police. 196009_30
AP 25 Feb 2008
A 36-year-old woman was strangled to death by her husband. The murdered mother of four was found by her children the next morning after their father had left. The children said they heard their parents arguing, and then saw their father cleaning up blood before he left. The husband had just returned from Little Rock, Arkansas. He had apparently strangled her with two stockings after beating her. He fled back to Little Rock, Arkansas, hoping the driving time between Little Rock and Pittsburgh would throw the police off his trail by providing an alibi. His story broke down when he realized the effect his wife's murder had on his children. 196009_121
AP 25 Feb 2008
A man died of extensive burns of his skin and carbon monoxide poisoning after his brother poured paint thinner over him and lit a match while the two were fighting and drunk. The man's body was covered 70% in third degree burns. 196010_70
NM 20 Feb 2008
In October a 23-year-old woman was shot by her husband because he saw her hugging his best friend. They had four children aged 6, 3, and 2 years, and one child 14 months old. After he realized what he did the husband had to be dragged away from the body. 196011_08
NM 20 Feb 2008
In late September of 1960 a 53-year-old man shot three of his neighbors from his upstairs bedroom window, killing a father and a son and severely wounding another neighbor. Then he went to the basement and turned the gun on himself. 196010_11-196010_13
A man came back from the bar and wanted to sleep since he had not got very much rest in the past few days. He was laying in bed, but his wife kept playing with the radio and he could not sleep. They argued and then started to physically fight. They knocked over a chamber pot on the floor, and as they were fighting they kept slipping and falling due to the human waste on the floor. The husband hit her and she fell down, she got back up and he hit her again. She then ran outside and probably fell down the porch steps and was found by the paper boy the next morning, barely alive. There was a trail of blood down the hallway to the outside. The husband was charged with involuntary manslaughter. 196012_63
BF 03 Mar 2008
1961
A 50-year-old man was shot in the chest and buttocks by his stepson-in-law. They had a quarrel one night when he was attacked. The deceased died from paraplegia, acute bronchopneumonia and septicemia one year later, after charges of attempted murder had been dropped against his stepson-in-law. 196102_58
A 14-year-old boy was stabbed in the chest by one of his friends. They were in the backseat of a car when the deceased asked to see a letter opener that was in the defendant's pocket. The defendant was carrying it around for protection against a gang during a gang war. The defendant took the letter opener out and accidentally made a sweeping motion with his hand as the deceased leaned forward, plunging the letter opener into his chest. The defendant was charged with involuntary manslaughter. 196103_150
LB 22 Feb 2008
This case is about the murder of a divorced 35-year-old mother of three sons. She had recently befriended a Hungarian refugee who had survived imprisonment in a German concentration camp during WWII; many considered him a heroic freedom fighter. He had fallen in love with his American friend, but when she rejected his romantic advances he was infuriated and strangled the woman to death with a plastic clothesline in her own home. After his apprehension, all the media attention flattered the refugee. Some of the many newspaper articles in this file suggest that he was often in high spirits during his own murder trial, laughing and joking with officials and spectators alike as if he were a minor celebrity. 196101_230
RB 27 Feb 2008
A 23-year-old man was shot in the abdomen with a shotgun at point blank range. He got into a "wrassling" match with another man. After being separated, the defendant got into his car, went home, got his gun, and returned to the party. At this point, he confronted the deceased and shot him. He then threw the gun to another man and fled to his father's house where police caught up with him. 196104_90
AP 29 Feb 2008
1962
This is a cold case found in November 1962 but happened in 1954. A man was having relationship with woman. One day the woman saw the man and ran into her apartment. The man caught up with her and got inside the apartment. He told police that she was getting "rowdy and loud," so he gagged her mouth with a rag and tied her hands and threw her on to the couch in her apartment. He left her their while he went down to the liquor store for some wine. When he came back she was alive and struggling, and again he termed her as "rowdy" and went back to the liquor store to purchase more wine. When he came back she was unconscious. The man thought she was dead. He called a storage company and purchased two cardboard boxes and one metal box. He placed her body in the boxes, cardboard in the inside, and metal on the outside. Then took the box to the storage company who did not ask what was inside the box, due to their policy. Eight years later, in November 1962, workers were going through old unclaimed boxes for auctioning materials and the box was pulled down. Detectives and Pittsburgh police was called down immediately because of the obvious bad odor of the box. The man's name was on the box and fingerprints identified him guilty. 196211_136
BG 03 Mar 2008
A homemaker stabs her 34-year-old husband in the heart with an 8-inch butcher knife. He had been arguing with her about her lateness getting back from an errand, which kept him from leaving their four children and going out to a stag party that he had been anticipating. When arrested, she claims that she did not intentionally stab her husband, but that the knife had slipped while she was slicing watermelon. Two of their children had been witness to the stabbing. The Assistant District Attorney remarked, "to believe this accidental, you'd have to assume she mistook her husband for a watermelon." 196208_60
RB 13 Mar 08
A 51-year-old man was shot and killed by a woman. There are no further details, such as why the woman shot the man, except that she claimed the gun accidentally went off in her hand and she was being held on a charge of voluntary manslaughter. I wonder why the reports for homicides like this one are not as detailed as they were in the 1950s files. 196307_60
A 29-year-old man entered a bar and, according to several patrons and the bar owner, "Started going beserk." He threw some tables and chairs and kept saying taht he was going to break all the windows and bottles in the bar. The bar owner fired a warning shot into the ground of the bar to scare him. The decedent stopped for a little bit, but started throwing things again. The bar owner than shot and killed him. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter. 196307_106
A 31-year-old woman was shot in the face and neck. There were no further details about this case. 196309_71
A 39-year-old man was shot in the head in a men's restroom at a bar. No further details were given. 196309_92
A 34-year-old man was killed by his wife when she shot him in the chest with a rifle. She claimed she did it in self-defense because her husband mistreated and beat her and their kids. She walked free after several of the man's acquantances and own relatives testified to the truth of his abusive nature. 196310_06
A 19-year-old star football player at a local high school was stabbed in the abdomen and chest. He was out celebrating a big football victory with his buddies when he got into a fight with a school dropout. The dropout left and returned with four other school dropouts, who chased the football players and killed the decedent. They all had extensive criminal records. The sad part is that the football player had several scholarship offers to play football at various universities. 196311_180
LB 07 Mar 2008
1964
In February of this year, a 32-year-old white male fatally shot his girlfriend, 38, in the head. This man was also shot in the head, most likely by himself. The man survived and according to the estimates of the police, drove his car nearly a mile after sustaining the self-inflicted bullet wound to his head. The police had initially noticed his car swerving on the road and pulled him over. At this time they didn't notice the unconscious body of the man's girlfriend in the front seat next to him, only that the driver had two black-eyes. They assumed he'd been in a fight and let him go, but followed him while checking the license plate on his vehicle. He came to a stop near his girlfriend's house and the police approached his car again. This time they saw the body in the front seat and called an ambulance. They didn't notice that the driver had been shot until the woman was being put into the ambulance. The woman died shortly thereafter in the hospital and the man was arrested on the charge of murder. The man was unable to remember any details of the shootings as a result of the brain damage he suffered from the gunshot. After police explained to him that there was no evidence of his girlfriend firing the gun, he said that he must have done it. The man was able to remember that he got the gun from a mail-order company in Chicago for $12.98. An accompanying newspaper clipping quotes the coroner as recommending the permanent curbing of the mail-order purchase of guns. 196402_42
TG 10 Mar 2008
I think this would be classified more as an accident (I hope) than a homicide. In May of this year, a father was in the woods behind his house with his 7-year-old son, teaching him about guns. The father was demonstrating the safety mechanism of the gun, and said that the gun could not shoot when the safety was on. The son had his gun and pulled the trigger, thinking the safety was on. He accidentally shot his father, who later died in a hospital. In the hospital, the father told his wife that telling his son that a gun could not shoot with the safety on was the biggest mistake he ever made. 196405_38
BF 11 Mar 2008
A 49-year-old man was hit in the head with a milk case, receiving severe head injuries, during a pool room brawl. He died in the hospital two months later. His assailant was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, receiving 11 to 23 months in the workouse. 196407_220
A 20-year-old woman was stabbed in the chest by her boyfriend. She had a husband in the army, who was in South Vietnam at the time. When the autopsy was performed the coroner found a cathater in her vagina, indicating that she may have been pregnant with her boyfriend's baby. The boyfriend was later arrested for her murder. 196411_172
LB 13 Mar 2008
While eating dinner with his mother and father, a 16 year old boy stabbed his father to death. The were arguing about the kid's truancy. This boy was someone who was always getting into trouble. He had been charged with burglary, truancy, and malicious mischief. The kid stabbed his dad once with a table knife. When investigators asked them about it, the mother tried to cover it up by saying that he tripped and fell on the knife. Of course they didn't believe that. 196406_134
BF 20 Mar 2008
1965
An 18-year-old male who had just graduated from high school was stabbed with a butcher knife when he got into a fight with boys who tried to crash his sister's birthday party. The boys, uninvited guests, were kicked out by various invited guests. The deceased, however, was stabbed when one of the partygoers swung at one pf the party crashers with a butcher knife he grabbed from the kitchen and missed. 196502_66
A 40-year-old widow and her 9-year-old daughter died of carbon monoxide poisoning and extensive charring of the body when their home, in an apartment building, was set on fire. This case was determined to be a double homicide and one man was arrested for the crime, but there were no further details in the case file indicating how the police came to this conclusion. 196502_235-196502_236
The following is a case of two murders and a suicide. A 21-year-old man stabbed his 21-year-old wife and his 3-year-old stepson, and then shot himself in the head on Easter Sunday, 1965. No apparent motive for the killings was found at all. 196505_01-196505_03
An off-duty patrol officer came to a tavern around midnight, after his shift ended, and ordered a drink. His wife was in the tavern as well, but they sat on opposite ends of the room from each other. A few minutes later the wife got up, walked up to her husband, shot him in the back, and then set the gun on the counter of the bar and waited for the police to arrive. The policeman died on the way to the hospital. When asked why she had killed her husband, the wife replied that it was over a minor thing that had gone too far. 196505_14
LB 13 Mar 2008
In my sample files from 1965, I have come across 2 black women (seperate cases) that were both murdered by their husbands. In one case the husband was held for trial, 196501-138. However in the second case, 196501-166, the husband commited suicide later that day. While these cases were reviewed in January of 1965, they are both actually from December of 1964, within 9 days of each other.
AFS 2 June 2008
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