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| Photo of Washington County Coroner Farrell Jackson leaving the scene at the Brincko home in Chartiers Township on November 7, 1990. Washington Observer-Reporter November 8, 1990 |
The bodies of an elderly Chartiers Township couple were found in a pool of blood in their basement in 1990 causing an intense police investigation and a nationwide search for their killers. Thirty-six years have passed and there are still no leads, no arrest, or a motive.
At noon on November 7, 1990, relatives of Michael and Mary Banish Brincko made the shocking discovery when they went to check on the couple at their home at 2310 West Pike Street in Chartiers Township. This tidy, little brick home hid what appeared to be a gruesome crime scene with blood splattered from the basement door in the kitchen, down the steps, and on to the basement floor, where it trailed to the sink and over to a clothes hamper. There were numerous blood-soaked towels scattered about. Blood was everywhere.
When Chartiers Township Police Sgt. Jim Horvath and his officers arrived at the house, they found Michael, 73, and his 72-year-old wife Mary at the bottom of the cellar stairs, lying about 15 feet apart from each other with Michael on his back and Mary in a fetal position. Sgt. Horvath immediately contacted the state police in Washington for assistance. State Police Sgt. Roger Waters assigned me to the case as I was part of the Troop B criminal investigation unit, and I quickly joined a half dozen other investigators and headed for West Pike Street.
By 1990, I had served with the state police for about 17 years and had seen my share of murders, traffic accidents, and other tragic crimes. These experiences tend to harden your soul a bit, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of shock when I saw the Brinckos lying on the floor. I was struck by the amount of blood at the scene and my mind raced as I tried to fathom what could have possibly happened to them. It was unsettling to think that such a violent crime could happen in a well-kept, orderly home in a safe and secure little Washington County town. Something like this couldn’t happen in Chartiers. Could it?
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| Pittsburgh Press November 1991 |
Sgt. Horvath brought us up to speed and I knew we had a daunting task ahead of us. Our undivided focus and years of training would be needed to sort out this horrible crime. I don’t know why, but this case seemed personal to me. Maybe it’s because we all know a couple like the Brinckos: he was a hardworking, retired coal miner and she was a homemaker. Although they were married for 47 years, they didn’t have any children.
The last person to see them alive was Josephine Brezinski, Mary’s sister and neighbor, who had seen them at 6 p.m. the day before. She and her brother, William Banish, who also lived next door to the Brinckos, had the misfortune of stumbling upon this scene when they entered an unlocked door to check on their sister and brother-in-law. Banish, who tried to shield his sister from this gruesome sight, was distraught and couldn’t comprehend what he had seen. He wondered, along with everyone else in the room, how anyone could kill this unassuming, elderly couple.
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| Washington Observer-Reporter November 1991 |
We processed the scene by taking photographs, lifting fingerprints, taking measurements, analyzing blood spatters, and searching for any type of evidence we could find. Other troopers and officers canvased the neighborhood. A nationwide alert was issued to see if any similar incidents had occurred. The family was interviewed to see if the couple had been concerned about anything. Did the victims have any enemies, or had they been threatened by anyone? The response was always the same: the couple, who were faithful members of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal Church in Meadow Lands, did not have any known enemies, and it appeared as if everyone liked them.
The Brincko neighborhood was close-knit, and everyone looked out for each other and kept an eye out for suspicious activity. Their neighbors were now concerned about this heinous crime that had occurred in their community. Extra police patrols were added to the area, and the rumors started to fly. Was it a burglary? Or maybe a professional contract hit gone awry; did a cult come through the area to perform a ritualistic killing before moving on; or maybe it was a crazed serial killer who had strayed from Interstate 79 and randomly selected the couple as his victims. We thought we had discovered a motive when we learned that there was a large amount of cash in the Brincko house. We found no evidence that this money had been taken or disturbed. The family also confirmed that nothing else had been removed or stolen from the house.
In addition to trying to keep everyone calm, we had to deal with the news reporters who were persistently trying to get the facts. It didn’t help that the public was convinced that a crazed killer was on the loose. One pervasive rumor we heard was that the Brincko’s were the victims of mistaken identity and accidentally killed by professional contract killer who was hired to kill someone else in the neighborhood. This theory was thoroughly investigated, but we found no evidence to support it.
In addition to canvassing the neighborhood, we decided to implement a commonly used investigative tool: the traffic check. So, a team of law enforcement officers diligently stopped traffic in front of the Brincko house around the same time frame that the incident occurred. They did this on numerous occasions, interviewed hundreds of drivers, asking them if they had seen or noticed anything unusual around the time of the murders. We came up with nothing. At one point we were looking for a white van that had been seen in the area at the time of the deaths, but that turned out to be a wild goose chase.
The couple’s personal records were scoured, and we meticulously combed over the scene in search of evidence: fiber, fingerprints, footprints, a murder weapon, but nothing was discovered. Sgt. Horvath, who was born, raised, and educated in this town, had the trust of the community and at no time did he hear of, or discover, any evidence or information that could explain what may have happened. Normally, in a small community like this, people talk and information comes to the attention of the police. This didn’t happen in the Brincko case.
In addition to the local investigation, national investigators were searching for evidence. They were also able to debunk the theory that someone traveling through the area had randomly picked the Brincko residence for their crime. FBI and the National Criminal Investigation database searches of past crimes with this modus operandi were negative. Despite our efforts, we kept getting the same results and found no evidence that anyone had entered the house that night.
An interesting detail that surfaced during the investigation was that Michael suffered from emphysema and a condition that caused uncontrollable nose bleeds. The bleeding was profuse and so uncontrollable that he would get lightheaded and occasionally pass out. Family said it happened frequently and that Mary would try to get him to the nearest sink to stop the bleeding and clean up the mess. There were instances when the bleeding was so bad that he had to go to the emergency room.
Banish told the police that his sister would make her husband go down to the basement sink when he had a nosebleed, because she didn’t want to get blood all over the upstairs rooms. She was known to keep a spotless home, after all.
Did Michael have an uncontrollable nosebleed on the day the couple died? Was it a bloody nose that sent him scurrying to the basement, with his wife in tow. When the situation got to the point that Mary needed help, did she try to get him upstairs, into the kitchen, and out of the kitchen door? We wondered if she was struggling to help her weak husband up the stairs, only to tumble backwards, causing each of them to strike their heads on the sharp edges of the steps before falling to the basement floor. Could this have happened several times? We also discovered some of Mary’s hair follicles on the blood-soaked steps, indicating that this is where she hit her head. But one thing we didn’t find were bloody footprints from an intruder and based on the amount of blood at the scene it seemed impossible that anyone could have gotten out of the house without stepping in blood.
Pathologist and Chief Deputy Coroner Dr. Ernest Abernathy’s findings indicated that the couple had died of a “possible homicidal assault” because both had large, depressed skull fractures at the back of their heads and both had a smaller indentation on the top of the head with “combed shape” skull fractures beneath. He concluded that the blows “could have” been from a blunt instrument such as a hammer. However, our investigation revealed that Michael’s hammer was in the toolbox and appeared to be dusty and unused. When tested, it showed no evidence of blood spatters or fingerprints.
When asked if it was possible to sustain such injuries by falling down the stairs, Dr. Abernathy confirmed that it was indeed possible. He said Mary had a third fracture near her left temple and lacerations on her legs and two fingers of one hand, as well as bruises on her legs and back, which could have been caused by falling down the stairs. In the end, he could not conclude from the postmortem examination whether the Brincko deaths were caused by homicide or an accidental fall precipitated by loss of blood and emphysema. A month after the deaths, Washington County Corner Farrell Jackson was quoted in the Washington Observer-Reporter as saying, “There is no doubt in my mind from the severe injuries these people suffered that there was more involved here than an accidental fall down the stairs.” In the early 2000s, the case was sent to the FBI criminal profile unit, and they could not come up with clear evidence of a crime or an accident.
Today, the case is listed as criminal homicide and remains unsolved and is open with the state police and Chartiers Township police. As with all unsolved, open deaths, a state police investigator is assigned to keep a fresh set of eyes on the circumstance, seeking evidence and additional facts. As a former investigator, I admit that I am disappointed that the evidence and investigation did not give a clear-cut explanation and understanding as to what happened to this elderly couple. It is upsetting to not be able to give answers to the family and public.
As you can probably guess, I have thought about this case a lot over the years; maybe you have as well. Now that you have the facts, you can come up with your own theory about the deaths of Michael and Mary Brincko. Were they victims of a brutal homicide or were their deaths caused by a tragically sad accident? You can be the judge.
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| Washington Observer-Reporter January 7, 1997 |
Larry Maggi is a retired trooper who served with the Pennsylvania State Police from 1973 to 1998. He is a former Washington County Sheriff and is currently a member of the Washington County Board of Commissioners, serving over 209,000 constituents in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Larry Maggi
larry.maggi@washcopa.gov
