Born to Lose (36 page)

At the jail, Hoss had somehow acquired a pair of sunglasses, which he wore to and from court appearances. They projected the image he wanted now that he'd come to consider himself a media personality. One morning before court, he couldn't find his sunglasses, and when officers arrived to escort him out, Hoss refused to budge, swearing they'd been stolen. He'd go
nowhere
without his sunglasses, particularly these days when a photographer could be found in every corner and hallway. The crisis passed when the officers, highly irritated, found the damned glasses under a newspaper in Hoss's own cell.

Hoss may have taken a bitter pleasure in the wider publicity he was receiving, but within the prison his reputation worked against him. The negro inmates found in Hoss a white guy that the public hated more than it hated them. Groups of hecklers, after lockup and lights out, crooned in unison, singsong fashion: “Oh Staan-lee! Wherejah put thuh bay-bee, Staan-lee?” Hoss would shout past his bars for them to shut up. They didn't. (Stanley's rep behind bars wasn't then what it would become.) The ruckus brought out Warden Bill Robinson, who heard an envenomed Hoss spit, “If you don't stop this, I'm gonna kill the first nigger I get my hands on.”

The case was causing bigger problems in the courthouse. The FBI informed Sheriff Eugene Coon that a wild, dangerous plan had been uncovered. A gun was to be smuggled into the courthouse and either placed where Hoss could retrieve it or, more likely, quickly thrust in his hands. Once holding the deadly weapon, said the feds, Hoss planned to grab someone as hostage, threaten to kill the unfortunate or anyone else who tried to foil him, then back his way down steps and through corridors out to Ross Street to escape by waiting car, the nimble theft of an auto (no sweat for Hoss), or a mad dash into the bustle of downtown Pittsburgh. An incredulous Sheriff Coon asked who would dream of sneaking a gun to Hoss? The answer: Jodine Fawkes.

Coon wanted to know where this information had come from. Was it worthy of belief? The FBI assured him it was rock solid but held back their source. This made Coon suspect a wiretap, but he didn't press.

Coon had never run into anything so brazen. Would every single person coming into the courtroom have to be frisked, he wondered, women as well as men? Would all their belongings have to be searched—purses, bags, overcoats? It would be a nightmare. A young deputy in Coon's office mentioned that he'd recently read of a new security device, shaped like a trellis but made of wired piping, that could detect metal when a person passed underneath. Realizing that such a device could detect a knife or gun, Coon scrambled to get one in time. So it came to be that the machinations of Jodine and Stanley—nicknamed for office amusement Bonnie and Clyde—brought about the first metal detector used in Allegheny County.

Jodine has always denied with vigor any affiliation with this dark plot— and she was never charged for such.

For someone with his life on the line, Stanley Hoss was pretty easy when he walked into the courtroom on the first day of trial. He made small talk with his attorneys and was seen to laugh a few times. On the other side, the prosecution was prepared but still worried. Despite all the bystanders at the crime scene, not a single person could clearly identify the defendant as the shooter of Officer Zanella. “We had a circumstantial case,” said Don Minahan, “I happen to like circumstantial evidence, but the jury has to follow closely.”

Without a definitive identification of Hoss, the prosecution had to prove its case by means of the corpus delicti—literally, “body of the crime” but legally signifying the material substance suffering the crime and proving its existence. “If each piece of evidence is a strand of hemp,” said Ted Fagan, “I would try to wind them together into a rope.”

Asked if it was his call to seek the death penalty against Hoss, Fagan said, “I guess so, but really, we never had any meetings about it. After all, a nine-year-old could have made this decision.”

On Thursday, March 5, 1970, the jury watched the suspect remove his sunglasses before taking a seat at the defense table. Clean-shaven and groomed, he wore a black suit, a dark blue mod-style shirt, and a tie striped in bright blue, white, and gold. Hoss was the centerpiece of the trial that had secretaries sneaking out of county offices to catch a look at this famous criminal.

Judge Samuel Strauss entered the courtroom at 10:05 A.M. Determined to avoid a circus atmosphere, he demanded quiet. Security was very tight. Of the four deputies who brought Hoss to his seat, two stayed “within lunging distance.” The courtroom was packed with spectators, while the overflow milled about the hallways. A dozen detectives ringed the courtroom looking for anything untoward … and if they could spot a gun-toting moll, so much the better.

The unshackled defendant stood while the indictment was read. The jury was then informed that Hoss had pleaded not guilty. Within a minute,
Ted Fagan, the chief prosecutor, began his opening statement, describing where and when the crime occurred and the circumstances leading to the fatal conjunction of fugitive Hoss and Officer Zanella on an Oakmont street. He also mentioned the presence of witnesses who would provide evidence. Following Fagan, Edgar Snyder, the chief defense counsel, began his opening statement by explaining his duty to give his client every constitutional protection, and followed with, “I believe the defendant cannot be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Charles McInery, director of the county crime lab, provided the first strand of hemp for the rope the prosecution sought to twist: the J. C. Higgins nine-shot .22 caliber pistol, tagged as exhibit #1. McInery identified the handgun as the one retrieved from the car Hoss was driving when arrested in Iowa. Although the jury was not told the particulars of the robbery of Nancy Falconer by Hoss and Zurka the previous March, Dennis Falconer identified the weapon as one, among others, stolen from their home.

Directly after the prosecution made this powerful link between the murder weapon and the accused, Ted Fagan took the jurors to the day and scene of the shooting. The waitress at Winky's Restaurant, Elizabeth Parker, pointed to Hoss as the very man who had bought coffee at Winky's and left hurriedly on September 19. Winky's manager, Fred Mangol, testified that he had known his customer was a fugitive, wanted for escape from the workhouse, and explained that he had phoned in the particulars of the car Hoss drove to the Pittsburgh police as soon as Hoss left the restaurant.

The next witness was ham radio operator John McCall. He testified that he'd been at home, idly listening to calls on the police band, when he heard the voice of his long-time friend, Joe Zanella, say he was following a yellow Chevy convertible with Ohio plates—driven by Stanley Hoss. McCall described hearing his friend call for backup, then silence until another voice yelled on the radio, “Officer needs help … he's shot!”

Fagan needed no theatrics to keep the jurors' attention; they sat still as statues, all keen. His next three witnesses were those who'd been at the scene of the shooting: service station owner Ben Tarr, who had been working close to the spot where Zanella fell, and Theodore Sokol and his son, Teddy, who'd been working at an auto body shop on the right. While all three witnessed the shooting, they were all positioned on the passenger side of the police cruiser and the yellow Chevy, unable to see the shooter's face. Beyond a general description, none of the three could say the defendant was the triggerman.

Of the day's twenty-three witnesses, one of the last called was easily
the witness best-known to the public. At thirty-nine, Dr. Cyril Wecht, Allegheny County's bright, urbane coroner, was already a national figure. Wecht held degrees in both law and medicine, and his expertise in forensic pathology had already led to his involvement in the investigations of the most sensational deaths of the century, including the assassinations of both John F. and Robert Kennedy and the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne. In the years to come, his list of famous cases would expand to include the deaths of Elvis Presley and Jon-Benet Ramsey, and the criminal trials of Claus Von Bulow, Capt. Jeffrey McDonald, O. J. Simpson, and Scott Peterson, among others.

When called in the Zanella trial, Dr. Wecht recited his specific professional role. “I am responsible for the investigation of suspicious, violent, unexpected, unexplained, or medically unattended deaths.”

“Dr. Wecht,” Fagan began, “when did you first become aware of the victim?”

A. September 20 of last year, the day after Patrolman Zanella was killed. My duty was to perform the autopsy.

Q. Did you determine the cause of death?

A. Simply put, the victim was shot straight through the heart. The bullet entered his left chest, cut through the heart, and fractured a rib. The slug lodged in the officer's back, just below the skin surface, and formed a small bubble.

Q. After receiving such a wound, how long could Officer Zanella have lived?”

A. No more than a few minutes.

Seated in the front row with other family members, Zanella's widow, Mary Ella, had kept her composure throughout the day, but Wecht's description of her husband's final moments proved too much. She wept in a quiet courtroom.

Judge Strauss tapped his gavel to end the day. The prosecution was pleased. They'd gotten into evidence the murder weapon and the killing bullet, had created a tight time frame, and had placed Hoss in a stolen car at the crime scene—at least as well as they could without definitive witness testimony that it was Hoss in the car with the gun.

Edgar Snyder had to admit that the prosecution's case looked strong. He'd have to bide his time, wait for an opening, spring when the time was right.

“In this time,” Snyder recalled, “there were two big news stories in Pittsburgh. One was the election of Pete Flaherty, the other was Stanley Hoss. Flaherty was the renegade mayoral candidate not endorsed by the party, but it was Hoss who was on everyone's mind.”

As defender of the unpopular, Snyder became unpopular, too. “You have to understand the time period,” said Snyder. “Gideon vs. Wainwright was the case that established the right for all defendants to have a lawyer. That was in '64 or '65, so it hadn't been around very long. People didn't understand why a nice young man like myself would represent someone like Hoss. I had worries about hate mail and a few phone threats, but I kept this from my wife, who was about to give birth to our second. Anyhow, I told myself it was just people blowing off steam.”

Snyder's benign view changed abruptly one evening during the week of trial. He nearly lost control of his car when a bullet shattered the windshield. “No one was ever caught for this,” said Snyder, “and, who knows, maybe it was coincidental, but with the thousands of cars at rush hour and it's my car that takes a bullet? … I got totally paranoid.”

Meanwhile, new information surfaced that was a wish come true for Fagan and Minahan. A witness had come forth to say she could identify the man who shot the policeman. Her name was Esther Santone, and she came from out of the blue to report timidly that she had watched the shooting from only twenty yards away. Yet five months had passed since the fateful day. The trial was under way. Where had she been?

“I did not know of the witness beforehand,” said Fagan, “but that didn't stop Snyder from making a big stink about it. Of course, I'm supposed to notify the defense prior to trial of any witnesses I have, but how could I reveal what I didn't know? Snyder pissed and moaned, like I was trying to pull a fast one. Turned out there were two other witnesses, Mrs. Santone's husband, Mario, and a friend, Inez Stockhausen. Keep in mind, up till then the best witness in the case was dead.”

The papers reported that the Santones and Stockhausen “had not come forward until recently.” Rumor had it that Mario was responsible for the delay, having scared his wife and friend into silence by theorizing that the shooting might have mob ties. That's how the matter would have rested, said the insiders, had not Mario thrown back one too many bourbons late one night in a bar and bragged to all in earshot that he knew for damn sure who'd killed Zanella, backing his boast with the tale of witnessing the shooting. Although Mario was said to have followed this up by earnestly, if drunkenly, explaining why it's best to keep your mouth shut on such
matters, at least one civic-minded bar patron apparently disagreed and reported Mario's boasts to the police. The Santones found detectives on their doorstep and ultimately offered up their tardy but valuable cooperation.

With Hoss staring at her none too cordially, the fiftyish Esther Santone spoke nervously from the stand. Guided by Fagan, she said she'd been preparing to leave the Foodland parking lot when, from the front seat of her husband's car, she saw a yellow convertible being pursued by a police car. The two cars stopped opposite the store, and as the patrolman approached the convertible, Esther saw its driver “reach over his left shoulder with his right hand. I said, ‘Oh my God, he's got a gun,' and then I heard two shots. The patrolman grabbed his stomach and said, ‘Oh my God,' and fell to the road. The yellow car then pulled out.”

“Did you see who was driving that car?” asked Fagan.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“The defendant.”

Mario and Inez testified along the same lines, but neither positively identified Hoss as the shooter. No matter though: Esther did. Snyder tried to rattle her, and Esther did admit under cross-examination that she recognized Hoss from the TV and the newspapers, but she couldn't be moved from her initial testimony. Hoss had been the man with the gun.

After this engrossing testimony, the bulk of the day was taken up with a string of witnesses, each adding weight to the prosecution's theme that the pleasant-looking young man in the nice suit sitting at the defense table was a heartless killer.

Late in the afternoon, the courtroom's great oak doors parted. All heads turned to see a comely brunette walk to the front. This last witness of day two was Karen Maxwell. She would testify about her abduction from the Greenwood Cemetery and the things Hoss said to her—but not about all he had done to her. She'd been solemnly reassured that her secrets would be guarded by the court, but it wasn't long before the promise began to unravel.