Born to Lose (11 page)

Diane put her face close to the screen door to look inside, then turned toward the patrolman. “I've got to get in now. I don't hear anything, so God knows what they're up to.”

“Diane, just another minute? Have you seen or heard from Stanley since he escaped?”

Diane looked Bucha square in the eye. “I've been married to Stan for ten years and have been afraid of him the last nine and a half. But I can't live like this, in fear, no more. Funny thing, too. I think Stan knows it, knows I won't put up with his shit no more. I used to visit him in county lockup some years ago, but you can check the records at the workhouse. I never visited him even once. Why should I? Leaving me and the kids like he did. Do you know I'm on welfare? Do you think he'd send me a dime, not for me but for his own kids? So no, haven't seen him and don't expect to. You may not believe me but if he did show up, I would not take him in. I'd call the cops on him. That's why he won't come here.”

Bucha later reported the interview to Chief Belotti, who said, “You might feel bad for her and you may believe her, that she'll turn in her husband, but I want you and Szlong covering that house round the clock, both of you going on twelve-hour shifts, till Hoss is caught.”

After a couple of days with no sightings or news, the police were beginning to think the pair had blown the area. Officers had visited the families, friends, and criminal associates of the escapees, but all said they didn't know a thing. The cops that interviewed Hoss's one full sister, Betty, had a gut feeling that she had heard from Stanley, but she was smug and insolent. Short of torture, nothing would get her to talk. Harry, Hoss's brother, had moved to Chicago some months earlier, so police in Illinois were noti-fied of Stanley's escape.

Then, on the Sunday following Thurday's escape, came a break. East Deer's police station in Tarentum was only blocks from Hoss's last known address, 203½ West 11th Avenue, where Hoss's wife and kids still lived. Red Orris was working the desk there at noon when he answered the phone to hear an unidentified male caller claim that a woman was visiting Stanley Hoss and bringing him food at an old farm off Saxonburg Road in Fawn Township. The tipster quickly detailed the farm's location and then hung up before Orris could say a word. Orris phoned Chief Floyd Mason of the Fawn Township Police Department. “So we got a tip that Hoss was holed up at ol' Punch Painter's Place,” Mason recalled,

a setup of a couple-three rooms, that's it. The Painter family ran their farm out there for years; some died off, some went to the coal mines, but Punch Painter was deeded a little patch of land and that's where he pretty much stayed, in his shanty—you'd be too generous to even call it a cabin. Legend had it that a $10,000 payroll, taken in the holdup of Flaccus Glass Company fifty years ago, was buried in a wooded area on the Painter farm and was never recovered. Punch was always lookin' for it. But Punch didn't bother much with anyone. In short, he was a drunk. The most ruckus he'd do was loose off a round when he had too much hooch in him. Ol' Punch was up there in the woods by himself but, still, we had ordinances about shootin' and what not, so every now and again we'd have to go visit and tell him to quit shootin' treetops, critters, and such. All us cops in Fawn Township knew ol' Punch. He didn't take to company, but if you came callin' with Old Crow under your arm or a case of Black Label, then Punch Painter was your friend.

Well, right after Red Orris fills me in about this tip, I radioed my deputy,
Cliff Thompson and tell him what we got. Course, this could be a prank call, but you gotta check everything out. In no time, Cliff pulls up to the station. I hop in and bring along the sawed-off shotgun we'd use on occasion. We knew where we were going, but you still had to look sharp or you'd miss the rutted driveway, overgrown as it was. In the car there was no chance of surprising anyone 'cause once the woods broke you came to an open meadow, on which sat Punch's shanty. Sure enough, when we could view the place, Cliff and me see Punch, a young man, and a woman. We're pullin' closer, lookin' at them, and they're lookin' right back. I got the shotgun ready on my lap, case something bad comes about, and I see Cliff unsnap his holster. All of a sudden, while Punch and the woman stand still, the guy bolts, who we presume is Hoss. He takes off round back of the place, then disappears into the woods, runnin' like a deer. We jump out and start chasin', but after a little bit in them woods we knew it was hopeless. So we run back to the car, yellin' at Punch and the girl to stay put. We took a road where we'd come to the other side of the woods Hoss ran into, figuring maybe he'd run the couple miles right through and come out where we'd be waitin' on him. But nothin'.

I already radioed for backup, so me and Cliff drove back to Punch's shanty, where we'd meet the fellas comin' in to help with a search. Since Hoss and Lubresky escaped a few days before, we were all alerted, runnin' down leads, but I'll have to say I was still surprised at the manpower that arrived to get up a search party. The state police of Butler sent a sizable contingent, plus a lot of the townships sent men, not to mention a bunch of guys from fire departments. Detective Dick Byers and his boss Bill Jennings showed up, which goes to show there was considerable interest in ending this Hoss escapade. Most everyone was armed, and I'll bet at least five guys were carrying Thompson machine guns. Within an hour, we even had a helicopter sent by the state boys.

We first saw Hoss around one, and by two-thirty we'd gathered one hundred men for the search. But when Cliff and me first got back to Punch's, we straight off went up to him to see what he knew. First thing we see is the girl's gone. We ask Punch if that was Stanley Hoss who ran off into the woods. He acted stupid, as usual, said he couldn't really say, it was just someone who stopped by to ask for directions. I wasn't in the mood for this crap, so I said, “Punch, you know me and you know Cliff. Cliff 's out of breath from runnin' so much and as for me, Punch, if I'd of been official-like every time I got called out here, like I should'uv, you'd be eatin' your meals at county expense—so cut the shit!”

He sees we ain't foolin' and suddenly looks more sober than he's likely been for a week. Punch stares at me with his rheumy eyes, then blurts out, “Yeah, Floyd, that was Stanley. I knowed him some years back an' he'd come up here now 'n' then … ya know, shoot the bull, maybe set trap lines. We was always okay with each other. By the radio I know Stanley got hisself in a real pinch this time, an' I was surprised when he showed up like he did with that girl.”

“And where is that girl?” I says to Punch.

Punch replies, “In your hurry you didn't notice the car parked in the trees to your left as ya pulled up. She got in the car with her baby and drives off.”

I was surprised and said, “You mean she had a baby with her?”

Punch answered, “Yep, barely born, two months old, called Michael.”

Cliff puts in, “Punch, did you get her name?”

Punch looks up in the air and squints his eyes, like he's thinkin' hard, still wonderin' how much he should tell the fuzz, but finally he says, “Well, Stanley kept callin' her Joe, but once't he called her Jodine, so I guess that's it. Didn't get no last name.”

More men are comin' in, so me an' Cliff head over toward Newton and Jennings to get everyone into details. Punch calls after us. He's standin' on the ten or so boards that serve as his porch, swayin' a bit till he leans against a rail, then, in a moment of goodness, I reckin', he says, “Floyd, Cliff, watch it … Hoss said he won't go back easy.”

The search lasted till nightfall, then continued the next day, but everything amounted to nothing. Quoted in the
Valley News Dispatch
, Chief Floyd Mason explained there are so many coal mines in Fawn Township, Hoss could be in any shaft or tunnel. It was also reported that police did not know if Hoss was armed.

He was armed. A gun taken during the March 27 morning robbery of Nancy Falconer, a .22 Higgins, was loaded and kept in his shirt.

After the second day, the search was called off. In the several days following, there seemed to be a lull. There were no sightings, no tips, no word at all. Hoss's victims were on edge. The Falconers were uneasy behind their newly installed security system. Kathy Defino was so shaken as to be barely functioning. The small-town cops up and down the Allegheny Valley remained vigilant. Diane Hoss wished for her husband's capture, while Jodine, Hoss's mistress (for she'd been tracked down), longed for a secret visit, and all the while Stanley Hoss, whereabouts unknown, moved inexorably toward measureless calamity.

Founded a century earlier by landowner James Verner, the little town of Verona had been settled by a good number of immigrants along a big bend in the Allegheny River a dozen miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Although most of its inhabitants assimilated into the general American culture, the town always retained vestiges of the ways and customs of old Europe. In a small grassy area just outside town, a war memorial of stone and bronze offers “Sincere Tribute to the Living and Dead of Verona, Pennsylvania, Whose Valiant Efforts and Selfless Sacrifices Have Made America Great.” Although the original immigrants became fewer and fewer in the decades following World War I, the town stayed much the same, for the descendants of those settlers kept up the family home or bought a house just the street over.

Verona sits beside its sister community, Oakmont. While they're called the twin boroughs, they're opposite twins, to be sure. Oakmont boasts considerable wealth; it is home to many executives and managers of Pittsburgh's power corporations—U.S. Steel, Koppers, PPG, Westinghouse, Gulf Oil, and the like. Its country club occasionally hosts the U.S. Open. By contrast, Verona is decidedly blue collar, most of the men there laboring at steel plants or iron works. Offering financial counsel, an Oakmont resident might say, “Never touch your principal,” while a man from Verona would venture, “Always keep twenty bucks in your checkbook.” Verona residents fondly remember Sunday gatherings, Eagles and VFW socials, rag-tag holiday parades down Main Street, and having the same paperboy for years, until a younger brother took over. One young woman, the daughter of one of the town's teachers, said it best: “I grew up happily in Verona, literally without a care in the world. You knew where you belonged and you knew who you belonged to.”

Verona had a six-man police force. Carmen “Blackie” DeLellis was chief. Blackie had quit school at seventeen to work in a mill, but found himself a year later in General Patton's 3rd Army 37th Infantry. After the war, Blackie returned to the mill, his job guaranteed like that of other returning vets. In 1955, he left the mill to become a cop, serving five years as a patrolman and
four more as lieutenant before becoming chief in 1964. Another army vet, Milt Remmick, was the lieutenant. The patrolmen were the Maroney brothers, Michael and Jimmy, and Kenneth Eichledinger, each in his thirties, plus young Joe Zanella. They all shared Verona's one police car.

Joe Zanella, the youngest and most recent addition to the force, had that rare personality that drew young and old alike. Outgoing and cheerful, Joe knew no strangers. Zanellas had lived in western Pennsylvania since 1900. Austrian and Italian by descent, Joe's parents had raised their five children in a “two-story wood frame, like everyone else's,” close by the river in Verona. Joe was the second child and only boy; it was Joe who was the apple of everyone's eye in the family. Growing up, he was a favorite in the neighborhood as well. Schoolmates called him Joe, but family, friends, and neighbors always called him Sonny.

Joe had busied himself with one job after another from a young age. “Even with that paper route, his first job I think,” said his older sister Barbara, “Sonny always had a half dozen kids tagging along. He'd joke, tell stories, toss a football, or organize quick pickup games with the kids. After Sonny became a policeman in Verona, I'd sometimes see him talking with the teens. A lot of the other cops would come down hard on the young people if they'd see them loafing on the streets. Sonny had a knack with these kids, and he'd never talk down to them. He was a natural with his easy conversation. This was a gift he had.”

Graduating from his paper route, Joe Zanella began working at a gas station at age fourteen, but even then his goal—indeed, his dream—was to be a cop. Chief Blackie DeLellis well remembered the teenaged Joe hanging around the stationhouse to learn what he could, and staying longer if he could listen to some shop talk. “That kid was a gem, really,” the chief said. “I just hoped we'd have a spot for him when he was ready, and, after Joe's stint in the army, that's exactly what happened. In April of '67, I myself handed him his service revolver and badge. In his dark blue police uniform, our newest addition couldn't keep a grin off his face. He was awfully happy.”

After a year on the job, Officer Joe Zanella was well settled in and busy as ever. He was in the army reserves and was a volunteer fireman. Joe had married an attractive brunette, Mary Ella Langus, and the couple had just celebrated their third wedding anniversary. They had their first child, Charles, in 1967 and their second, Michelle, in June 1969. As they saved to buy their own house, Joe and Mary Ella lived in a second-floor apartment at 477 Center Avenue in Verona. They made for a popular couple; no one
in their circle had a lot of money, but the Zanellas entertained modestly and were often invited out.

In addition to friendships with officers in his own station, Joe had a fine friendship with a pair of cops in Oakmont, Bob Fescemyer and Dick Zoller. The three were nearly the same age and had grown up together. “When Joe and I were kids,” Fescemyer said,

we lived in the Sylvan area of Verona. This is on the lower side of town, near the Allegheny. This little neighborhood was made up of lower-class working folks. We called ourselves the “Sylvan rats.” We were poor but we didn't know it. On windy days, we'd climb the tallest pines to the top, then hang on, swaying back and forth, or we'd swim in the river every chance we got. We lived a Huck Finn existence.