OP-ED: The murder that haunted Washington County
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. I’ve watched many television shows and movies where technology, DNA analysis, and dramatic scenarios are used to solve cases. However, I will offer insight about the behind-the-scenes activities, hunches, knowledge of the area, investigative processes, hard work and luck needed to solve a major crime.
Coincidentally, we are marking 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 Sarah Kuntz, 85, were brutally murdered during the summer of 1985. Roland William Steele, 38, of Canonsburg, was eventually convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for their deaths, along with robbery and theft. He was sentenced to three separate death sentences.
I remember the 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 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 site of Southpointe. We went to the scene with Washington County Coroner Farrell Jackson and members of the Cecil Township Police Department.
A team processed the scene by taking photographs, measurements, and collecting any evidence that could help solve the 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 victims were taken to the morgue at Washington Hospital, where autopsies were conducted. It was determined that all three 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. The time of death was placed at between 12:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday, June 21, 1985.
The team met to discuss the case and map out a course of action. Each investigator was given an assignment, and this is my recollection of the events that led to solving the case.
The three women had attended a volunteer luncheon at Club International at the Millcraft Center on West Chestnut Street in Washington at 1 p.m. that day. 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 her apartment window overlooking the Millcraft Center’s parking lot and 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 women, who were waiting by Millcraft Center. Another witness observed a man of the same description help the two ladies into the back seat before driving away at approximately 2:30 p.m. 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 are particularly important, as this time is used to gather as much information as possible by interviewing witnesses and collecting information. Numerous investigators must work together and as quickly as possible. We stopped every vehicle near the crime scene for two days, interviewed the owner of a local gas station who spoke to Steele who was driving Mrs. Horner’s car, and arranged for witnesses to look at a photo lineup of suspects.
This is when I learned the importance of paying attention to every detail, no matter how insignificant. 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 Washington, 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.”
Beels knew Steele because he had arrested him previously for criminal activity. He knew that Steele had been convicted and sentenced to jail, and had apparently been released. At that 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 emerge that led Beels to make the connection between Steele and the witness accounts. The accounts included reports of a man matching Steele’s 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 Beels and the witnesses are what cracked the 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.
Steele’s trial was held at the Washington County Courthouse from Jan. 10 to 22, 1986, and he was convicted by a jury after only 45 minutes of deliberation. He was sentenced to death on March 25, 1988, and on April 1, 2009, then-Gov. 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 Greene, received a stay of execution. Today, the 78-year-old Steele remains on death row in the 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 drowning. 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, 40 years later, it’s still hard to fathom why anyone would use their strength to brutally bludgeon three loving, trusting, and helpless grandmothers.
Larry Maggi is a Washington County commissioner and former Pennsylvania State Police Trooper.