I saw things that I will never
unsee and discovered details so explicit that I will never be able to forget
the karate-style murder of three elderly East Washington women on June 21,
1985.
Although I typically write about my role as a Washington County Commissioner, I’ve been thinking about the 30-plus major crimes I investigated while serving with the Pennsylvania State Police from 1978 to 1998 with Troop B in Washington. Like you, I’ve watched many television shows and movies where technology, DNA analysis, and dramatic scenarios are used to solve and break cases wide open. However, I will give insight about the behind-the-scenes activities, hunches, knowledge of the area, investigative processes, hard work, and the luck needed to solve a major crime.
Coincidentally, we are coming up on the 40-year anniversary of a particularly heinous crime that was solved quickly due to hard work and luck.
Lucille Horner, 88; Minnie Warwick, 86; and
85-year-old Sarah Kuntz, were brutally murdered during the summer of 1985. Roland
William Steele, 35, of Canonsburg, formerly of Collier Township, was eventually
convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for their deaths, two counts
of robbery, and two counts of theft by unlawful taking. He was sentenced to
three separate death sentences for the first-degree murder convictions.
I remember this case well, because I had just been assigned to the criminal investigation unit for Troop B about a week before. On this particular Saturday, I reported to the State Police barracks, where the criminal unit was advised that three bodies had been discovered off a dirt road in a wooded and secluded area of Interstate 79 in Cecil Township, near the current location of Southpointe. Our investigative team proceeded to the scene along with Washington County Coroner Farrell Jackson and members of the Cecil Township Police Department.
A team of investigators processed the scene by taking photographs,
measurements, and collecting any type of evidence that could help solve this
crime. I was relatively new at this type of work, and I did what some of the
more experienced investigators told me to do. The bodies of the victims were
taken to the county morgue at Washington Hospital, where autopsies were
conducted by Dr. Earnest L. Abernathy of Washington County. Without getting
into the graphic details, it was determined that all three victims died from
blunt force trauma that had been inflicted all over their bodies. It was as if
human hands had delivered each deadly karate-type blow. Dr. Abernathy placed
the time of deaths between approximately 12:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Friday,
June 21, 1985.
Like every murder case, all resources and manpower
were used to investigate. After the scene was processed, the victims
identified, and the cause of death determined, the team met to discuss the case
and map out a course of action. Each investigator was given their assignment
and duties and this is my recollection of the events and a brief synopsis
of the facts and the processes that led to solving the case and the
conviction of Steele.
Mrs. Horner, Mrs. Warwick, and Mrs. Kuntz had all
attended a volunteer luncheon at the Club International at the Millcraft Center
on West Chestnut Street in Washington at 1 p.m. on Friday, June 21, 1985. They
had driven together in Mrs. Horner’s beige four-door Dodge Dart. A witness later
reported that on that afternoon she was looking out of her apartment window overlooking
the Millcraft Center’s parking lot, when she saw an elderly woman standing next
to a car talking to a bald, well-dressed African American man. She saw the man pointing
to the rear of the car as if something was wrong with it. The two got into the
car and the witness watched them drive away and pick up the two other ladies,
who were waiting for them by the Millcraft Center. Another witness observed a
man of the same description help the other two ladies into the back seat of the
vehicle before driving away at approximately 2:30 pm. The bodies, which had
been hidden under a pile of old tires, were discovered during the early
morning hours of Saturday, June 22, 1985.
The first 48 hours in a homicide investigation is particularly
important, as this time is used to gather as much information as possible by
interviewing witnesses and collecting information for analysis and processing.
Numerous investigators must work together and as quickly as possible because it
is often a race against time. We stopped every vehicle near the crime scene for
two days, we interviewed the owner of a local gas station who spoke to Steele
who was driving Mrs. Horner’s car; and we arranged for witnesses to look at a
photo lineup of suspects.
This is when I learned just how important it is to pay
attention to every detail, no matter how insignificant it may seem. As we
assembled during those early hours of Saturday, June 22, I was assigned to work
with veteran criminal investigator Trooper Barry Beels. We left the barracks on
Murtland Avenue to make the 1-mile trek to the Washington County Courthouse and
as we drove down Ridge Avenue near Highland and North Lincoln streets in the
City of Washington, Trooper Beels noticed Roland Steele walking down the empty street.
“There’s Roland Steele,” he said as we drove by. “I
didn’t know he was out of prison.”
Trooper Beels knew Steele because he had arrested him
before for criminal activity. He knew that Steele had subsequently been
convicted, sentenced to jail, and had now, apparently, had been released. At
this time, we didn’t have a description of the killer or any information that
would lead us to believe that Steele could have been involved in the crime. Nothing
more was said about Steele until witnesses were interviewed and details started
to immerge that led Trooper Beels to make the connection between Steele and the
witness accounts. The accounts included reports of a man (matching Steele description)
giving Mrs. Warnick’s locket to a child at a gas station, and an account from a
Collier Township woman who said a man matching Steele’s description had tried
to lure her into her car by telling her she had a flat tire.
The keen observations of Trooper Beels and the
witnesses are what cracked this case, leading to the swift arrest of Steele
that weekend in McKees Rocks. I can’t stress enough how important it is for the
average person to pay attention to what they see and hear and to report this
information to investigators. We often think crimes are solved with high tech,
DNA analysis, cell phone tracking, computers, and a myriad of other tools. While
these are important, crimes are often solved with the help of observant people who
remember the details of what they saw and heard or by the intuition of an investigator
who was in the right place and the right time.
Steele’s trial was held at the Washington County
Courthouse from January 10-22, 1986, and he was convicted by a jury after only
45 minutes of deliberation. Steele, a.k.a. the Karate Killer, was sentenced to
death on March 25, 1988, and on April 1, 2009, Pennsylvania Governor Ed.
Rendell signed an execution warrant, with his execution by lethal injection set
for June 18, 2009. At the time, Steele who was being held in SCI Green, received
a stay of execution. Today, the 78-year-old Steele remains on death row in the
Pennsylvania State Correctional system. During his trial it was revealed that
Steele had a black belt in karate, his motive to kill was robbery, and that in
the past he had received the Carnegie Medal of Bravery for saving a young boy
from being hit by a train. I heard through the correctional-facility grapevine that because
of the notoriety of this infamous crime, Steele was given a misguided respect
by his peers in jail.
When the murders occurred, I had already served 12
years on the state police force, and I thought I had seen all the savagery
society had to offer. But this case was a brutal wakeup call for me and for the
residents of Washington County. Now, forty years later, it’s still hard to
fathom why anyone would use their strength to brutally bludgeon three loving,
trusting, and helpless grandmothers.
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| A photo of me when I served with the Pennsylvania State Police. |
