‘I’m truly, truly sorry’
Diane McClelland
David James McClelland
Homicide victim Evelyn Stepko is shown in an old family photo with her husband, Mike.
Struggling to gain composure, convicted homicide-conspirator Diane McClelland, manacled and wearing the orange uniform of a jail inmate, faced members of an elderly homicide victim’s family Thursday afternoon in Washington County court.
“I’m truly, truly sorry this happened to Mrs. Stepko,” McClelland, 50, said in a barely audible voice. Then she keeled over.
Her defense attorney, Brian Gorman, broke her fall but she sprawled to the floor between the judge’s bench and table where members of the prosecution team were seated.
Sheriff’s deputies lifted her and summoned help while Judge John F. DiSalle cleared the courtroom, where the blinds were drawn as a team of paramedics, one carrying a heart monitor, attended to her.
In the hallway, Stepko’s survivors speculated that McClelland’s collapse was calculated.
Gorman said his client has previously experienced light-headedness, and he attributed her fainting to extreme stress.
After a 15-minute recess, McClelland was pronounced well enough to continue.
DiSalle resumed the proceeding and, as she remained seated, he sentenced McClelland to 24 1/2 to 49 years in prison for conspiring in the homicide of her 92-year-old neighbor, Evelyn Stepko, who was found in July 2011 lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the basement steps in her Coal Center home. McClelland also was found guilty of receiving stolen property and dealing in unlawful proceeds.
Diane McClelland was one of three family members who either pleaded guilty or were convicted by juries of participating in acts that resulted in the slaying of Mrs. Stepko, who didn’t trust banks and therefore kept large amounts of cash in her modest home that lacked running water.
The judge did not require her to remain in the courtroom for her stepson’s sentencing, and she mouthed words to her two sisters who had flown in from Massachusetts as sheriff’s deputies escorted her from the courtroom.
Gorman had asked the judge for a sentence of 6 to 12 years because his client did not have a prior criminal record and did not participate in the actual murder of Mrs. Stepko.
“Her role does not necessitate that she be incarcerated for the rest of her life,” Gorman argued. He said he plans to ask DiSalle within 10 days to reconsider the sentence, the first step in appealing the convictions.
First Assistant District Attorney Michael Lucas noted that Diane McClelland’s crime was not a single incident, but a pattern of participation in a conspiracy that lasted for two years and escalated as time went on and rocked the foundations of the Coal Center community.
State police established a pattern of burglaries and menacing acts that occurred at the Stepko residence over a two-year period which were followed by large deposits of cash, sometimes very old bills, in the bank account of Diane and David A. McClelland, 58. Mrs. McClelland worked as a supermarket clerk earning about $22,000 a year while her husband received $1,000 a month in disability payments.
They and the man’s son, David J. McClelland, 38, a former part-time police officer in Monongahela and Washington Township, Fayette County, at the same time spent lavishly on casino visits, jewelry, vehicles, firearms, power tools, real estate and home improvements.
David J. McClelland, 38, who stood trial in April, was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced Thursday to mandatory life imprisonment with no chance of parole. DiSalle added 14 to 48 years to the younger McClelland’s sentence for his convictions on conspiracy, dealing in unlawful proceeds, burglary, theft and receiving stolen property. The man declined to address the court or Stepko’s survivors.
DiSalle said he found D.J. McClelland’s participation in the crimes particularly heinous because he was a police officer who should have upheld the law instead of violating it and asked his father for money when he knew it would come from Stepko’s life savings.
The McClellands collectively are to repay Stepko’s estate $215,820, an amount documented by receipts police found at their homes.
David A. McClelland, whose fingerprint and DNA were found on a bloody glove in a bucket in Stepko’s home, pleaded guilty last October to first-degree murder.
Joshua Camson, D.J. McClelland’s attorney asked that his client be housed in the Greene County jail until he can be transferred to the state prison system because his time in the Washington County jail has been equivalent to solitary confinement. Camson has said he plans to appeal D.J. McClelland’s convictions.
Statements from Stepko’s survivors were part of the record at the sentencing.
Kirsten Elizabeth Zbyl of Bentleyville, the great-grand niece of Evelyn Stepko, spoke on her own behalf and that of her mother, Mary. “She minded her own business and never bothered a soul,” Zbyl said. The last time Mrs. Stepko visited with family members was at the young woman’s high school graduation party.
“She didn’t hint anything was wrong,” Zbyl told the court. “She looked great at 92, was in perfect health and was walking better than most people.”
Questions about her great-great aunt haunt her. “How bad did she suffer? Did she say anything? What was the last thing she saw?” Zbyl asked. “She did not deserve to be stalked and hunted like a wild animal.”
Dolores Sprowls, 64, of Bentleyville, described her aunt as a soft-spoken, kind, lady. “Brought up in the Depression, she would always say today’s children have too much,” Sprowls said. She spoke of the McClellands’ greed, and said she hoped they “get what they deserve. Aunt Evelyn didn’t deserve what she got at the bottom of her steps, bleeding to death.”
Echoing their sentiments was Dolores Stein, also Stepko’s niece.
Sprowls said after court was adjourned that she was hoping for a harsher sentence for Diane McClelland. The maximum sentence could have been 37 to 74 years. Lucas said she turned down a plea bargain of 10 to 20 years in prison.