Born to Lose (15 page)

Base: 10–4. Hey, do we have any verification as to what type of weapon the shooter has?

Chief: The only thing we have is it's probably a pistol.

Base: The city police helicopter is on the way.

Plum Boro: The policeman … is he all right?

Base: Don't know. We hope … I'll send out any news pronto.

Herm Trozzi was as busy and concentrated as any juggler, fielding one call after another, offering assistance, receiving requests, and relaying directions. In addition to all the radio calls, his phone never quit ringing. The next time Trozzi picked up the receiver, he listened as a man identified himself by name adding, “I'm with county police. The morgue just called us.” Trozzi listened a few moments before hanging up. He hesitated over his broadcast, delaying a few more seconds his duty to say something so final. Not in possession of himself, his voice breaking, Trozzi flipped his transmit switch.

Base: To all police officers on this call. Officer Zanella has expired. Joe's dead.

When word came of Zanella's death, his killer had long since sped over the breadth of Oakmont, until sliding to a stop at Virginia Avenue. Hoss turned left, traveled one block, and nearly ran smack into the Oakmont Police Station, now emptied out save for “Speed” Buttgereit manning the phones. A right turn brought Hoss to Hulton Road, and it was here that a decision had to be made.

Hoss was most familiar with the towns and roads north of the Allegheny River; that's where he lived and where he had grown up. North of the river, he knew the country lanes, the dirt roads, the location of garages or barns; he knew where to stash a car, where to run, and where to hide out. But to get there he'd have to turn left and cross the Hulton Bridge, only a quarter mile away, but getting over the bridge was too risky. It was rush hour, when a stream of slow-moving cars headed to the bridge every day; when the light at the bridge turned red, there could be as many as forty stationary automobiles waiting for the light to change. To get caught up in that traffic would surely be the end of his run. Nothing for it now but to turn right onto Hulton Road and hope for the best. Compared with the droves of commuters returning to Oakmont at rush hour, the traffic leaving Oakmont was sparse. On the broad road, Hoss was able to get up his speed.

A few miles out of town Hoss veered east onto Route 909 toward New Kensington. He watched two police cars, lights flashing, pass him going in the opposite direction. In his mirror he saw both cars slam on their brakes, one of them sliding on roadside gravel, kicking up a cloud of dust. Hoss realized the description of his car had already been broadcast: any cops coming in from Plum Boro or New Kensington knew what to look for. He'd known all along he'd have to ditch the yellow Chevy but now, spotted as he was, he'd have to get off this main road, for even if the cops didn't catch up to him, they would be on their radios alerting everybody.

Cresting a hill, Hoss was momentarily out of sight of the police behind him, no doubt turning around their vehicles to give chase. He looked for
any kind of escape route, anywhere to get off the main road, and finally he saw what he wanted, the only slim chance he'd have. There was an old roadside fruit stand just off to the left. A sign read: Dom Defatta's Gardens. The place appeared closed. Behind the fruit stand, though, dirt tracks could be seen indicating a farm lane. It was unpaved, but it was enough for Hoss. He drove onto the lane, which sloped down and was flanked by old-growth trees. The bucolic setting swallowed up the killer and his car.

Up above, on Route 909, the two police cars were speeding ahead, the policemen thinking they would catch sight of the yellow car at any moment, at the top of the next hill or around the next bend. The fruit stand to their left was just a blur.

101 to Base: Plum Boro has just chased a car up Route 909, it's a yellow car. They don't know what the story is but they did chase him.

Perched atop a tower, Reed Kosmal, a lineman for Duquesne Light Company, always figured he had one of the best jobs in the world. Much of his work was out of doors, “high in the air with the best of mother nature all around.” Eleven years in with the company, Kosmal was skilled, knew his way around dangerous wires, and regularly partnered with his friend and fellow linesman, Garland McCune. On this Friday afternoon, it was past quitting time but “once up on these tall towers,” Kosmal explained, “with all your gear and tools, you just can't drop things without first finishing up the odds and ends or even setting up for the next day.”

Kosmal and McCune noticed a pair of deer walking through a field. “Something got their radar up,” Kosmal said,

because the deer broke into a run for the woods. It was at the same time we first saw this car coming down the lane. It was going way too fast, bumping up and down. Then, all you'd ever see on these dirt tracks were the local tractors or pickups. And the vehicle itself seemed out of place for a farm field. It looked fairly new, a yellow Impala with a white top. Pretty sporty. We saw later it was a convertible.

We kept watching the car, which drove to the end of the lane and wound up half on the dirt road and half in the weeds. A man got out in a hurry, carrying a dark colored gym bag, and left the passenger door open. I know the land around here pretty well, so what the guy did next surprised me. He ran straight into rough terrain then down a two-hundred-foot steep slope. It was dangerous to do that. The guy disappeared but I
joked to Garland that we'll go down there later and see where he threw the money, as if he'd just robbed a bank.

Kosmal and McCune returned to removing the grounds on some tower wires. Hours later, reflecting, Kosmal said, “I mean, we seen this guy jump out of that car and head full blast into those woods, so something was funny, but it's not something you climb down off a tower about and immediately call the police.”

At the end of the farm lane, unable to go further, Stanley Hoss leapt from the car. He didn't know where he was, but he didn't have time to get his bearings or think things through. Carrying a gym bag, Hoss raced into nearby woods, and then, with no hesitation, impelled by fear and desperation, plunged downhill—a very steep hill, with some parts virtual dropoffs. He scraped, slid, and banged ahead, roughed up by brush and branch and smacking into tree trunks. Hoss made it, exhausted and battered but whole, to one of the ridges of River Hill, where he began to run a grueling couple of miles over rough terrain. From most places on this ridge the river below could be seen, but the course was up and down, up and down, Hoss jumping over logs and rocks and swerving around trees. Finally, Hoss saw a house, then several more. He was at the outskirts of Barking, an old mining town.

Three youths, Lawrence Kurtik, Clarence Dickens, and Clarence's brother, Charlie, were tossing a football beside the rail tracks near the mine when a man walked up to them. Young Kurtik said the man, covered with sweat and dirt, asked directions and wanted to know if any trains ran through Barking.

Hoss moved on toward the mine's entrance. Miners at the end of their shift, in twos and threes, were leaving the mine, carrying black lunch boxes, heading toward their cars. Hoss waited a minute until he saw someone come out alone.

Fred Blank, a master mechanic at the mine recalled, “A young man, disheveled but friendly, asked if he could hitch a ride to New Kensington. I lived that way, so I said okay.” It was 5:30, about forty-five minutes after the shooting.

Meanwhile, the police had received their best information yet: a speeding yellow Chevy had been sighted up on 909. Cops in cruisers or their own cars converged upon the area, every eye strained for the getaway car. New Kensington was notified and its police had set up a roadblock where 909 intersected Route 56. It was manned by many armed men: no cop killer in any yellow car would have a chance of getting by them. By this
time, as well, every artery in and out of the area and all bridges were crawling with cops. Traffic was hopeless.

Close to the time Stanley Hoss requested a ride from miner Fred Blank, Reed Kosmal and Garland McCune, finally done with their day's work, climbed down the Duquesne light tower. No one had come back for the yellow car, which had been left parked any-old-which-way. Since its position, still half on the dirt road, would block their access for the next day's work, Kosmal radioed his boss and was told to go take a look.

Kosmal and McCune walked around the forsaken Chevy. The driver's side door was open, the red dummy lights for oil and ignition were glowing … and the ignition was popped. Kosmal hiked back to his truck and radioed his boss, “Look, this car down here I think is stolen.”

The boss called the company dispatcher about the car and the dispatcher called the Plum Township police. When given the description of a likely stolen car, the dispatcher exclaimed, “So that's where he is!”

Base: We have verified the information with Plum Boro. This
is
the car we are looking for. It's at Dom Defatta's Gardens on Route 909. That land, too, runs into Kreb's farm … but he's back in there.

This message got through to many, but not all. Some departments on different radio frequencies got their information second-, third-, or fourthhand. At this critical moment of the hunt, not all knew that only the car had been located; some believed Hoss had been captured with the car, and some thought Hoss was in the car, still driving like mad to get away.

After making the radio report from their work truck, Kosmal and McCune drove the few minutes back to Route 909. “When we got there,” Kosmal said, “I never saw so many policemen in my life and they just kept arriving. And it was here we learned of the shooting. I can remember Blackie DeLellis was there and I can tell you if the shooter was spotted he'd have never gotten out of those woods alive because Blackie had murder in his eyes, you could just see it.”

The linesmen told police what they had seen, and in what direction the suspicious man had run. Fifty police cars had assembled, with twice or more that number of police all busy putting on vests or leather jackets and rooting around in their car trunks pulling out extra weapons and slinging rifles over their shoulders. Sirens wailed everywhere, yet as Kosmal put it, explaining why they hadn't made a call at first sight of the car, “me and
McCune, we never heard a thing.” Perhaps the noise had been buffered by the surrounding trees and hills.

Blackie DeLellis tried to use his radio but wound up doing a lot of shouting, trying to separate the hordes of cops into manageable search teams. The chief calculated Hoss had a half-hour jump on them, but he was on foot. Peering down to where he'd been told Hoss had run, DeLellis thought the killer couldn't get too damn far. Maybe he'd try to swim the river, or maybe hide out under an outcrop or in deep foliage to wait till dark before slipping away. But he was armed, desperate, and not inclined to give up. The search would be a dangerous enterprise.

Base: Be careful! Be careful! The chief said be very careful.

Police: We got four carbines [favored pronounciation is “carbeens”] in our car, so anyone need any, stay there till we meet you.

101 to Base: Call the county to see if there's any pictures available on this guy.

Base to Chief: Oakmont radio is on the wrong wavelength so cannot contact the helicopter.

Police Car: We just have our sidearms. If we could get a rifle we'd appreciate it.

Response: Stay there. I told Sgt. Schrott. He's comin' with two rifles.

Before the search had shifted focus, Hoss had already slipped into the passenger seat of miner Fred Blank's car. To make conversation, Blank asked, “So, you a stranger 'round here?” Hoss said he'd come in from Chicago and planned to visit some people, adding that he had a sister who lived in Tarentum.

The road from Barking to Route 909 is narrow but paved, as it is this road which goes to the locks on the Allegheny. It took a few minutes for Blank to wind his way up to 909, during which he and his rider “engaged in sociable conversation, travel, hitchhiking, and the like.” When the pair came to 909, Blank was surprised at the slow line of traffic going toward Oakmont. Given Hoss's half-hour lead and the lag time between Kosmal and McCune seeing the yellow car pull into the field and reporting it to authorities, the police, not yet alerted to the car's whereabouts, had set up the 909 roadblock down from the outlet for the little mining town of Barking, never thinking the culprit could be down there.

When Blank looked to the right he noticed police setting up a roadblock about three hundred feet away, and he wondered out loud, ‘Hmmm, whaddya
think's goin' on?” His companion just shrugged his shoulders. Blank eased out onto the road and managed a left turn away from the roadblock and toward New Kensington. Minutes later, the pair approached an area called Parnassus, situated as a gateway to New Kensington. It was by the A & P grocery store that Blank saw six police cars parked close together, three on one side of the road, three on the other, with a dozen cops milling about, readying wooden supports and posts to bar the road. Three or four of the policemen carried shotguns, which meant, Blank surmised, something serious was in the works. Again Blank spoke up. “Wonder who they're lookin' for?”

Hoss kept his eyes straight ahead but said, “Don't know.” Blank noticed his rider “reach into his gym bag and fumble with its contents, partially exposing a road map.”

Blank proceeded slowly toward the police and their activity. Several cops gave Blank's car the once-over and others peered inside as the car passed by. They saw Blank's red hard hat, his lunch bucket, and the driver's unshaven, dirty-faced companion and categorized them as “coal-minin' workin' folk.” They were waved on.

At Ninth Street in New Ken, Hoss thanked Mr. Blank and got out of the car. He turned a corner, walked up a street, but within ten minutes was driving back down the street in a '56 Pontiac.