Justin Vellucci stories, Page 7
Fentanyl-laced pills kill Pittsburgh man and lead to court date for suspected dealer
A Homestead woman is headed to court on charges she sold fentanyl-laced pills that killed an area man with double the lethal levels of the drug. Police say Sharon Holt, 52, didn’t directly sell Jason Switzer the three blue pills that the 41-year-old man thought were Oxycodone, a potent opiate....
Pittsburgh police reveal location, timing of North Side sexual assaults
Pittsburgh police on Friday said the string of sexual assaults they’re investigating on the North Side occurred overnight this summer around the East Ohio Street business district. Police previously had not publicly narrowed down the location or divulged the timing of the assaults. The attacks occurred “roughly between 1 and...
Police probe vehicle thefts in multiple Allegheny County communities
Police on Friday arrested three Pittsburgh teens in connection with the theft of a pickup truck in Franklin Park, the latest episode in what appears to be a recent rash of auto thefts and car break-ins throughout Allegheny County. Shaler police said they arrested Jameea Matthews, 18, of South Side...
Police seek armed, masked carjackers who stole Jaguar in Scott
Authorities are looking for four men who they say carjacked a Jaguar at gunpoint Thursday afternoon outside a Scott shopping center. The men, all of whom were wearing masks, drove at least one vehicle, a white and black Dodge Durango, to a traffic light near the Greentree Shopping Center on...
Pittsburgh police probe videos of people taping mice to fireworks, then lighting them
Pittsburgh police are looking for individuals who duct-taped mice to fireworks before igniting the devices, then posted videos of the rodents’ deaths to social media. The police bureau announced Wednesday it was aware of the animal cruelty acts and an accompanying social-media post. Detectives said they have recovered a plastic...
‘Evil’: Ohio man goes to prison for sex trafficking girl at Monroeville hotel
A federal judge has sentenced an Ohio man to 12½ years in prison for renting Monroeville hotel rooms and prostituting a girl and two women he brought across state lines. Donte L. Cole, 40, of Euclid, Ohio transported the girl from Cleveland to the Rodeway Inn & Suites hotel in...
Police arrest Monroeville man in Downtown Pittsburgh daylight shooting
A Monroeville man has been arrested for wounding two people earlier this month in a daylight shooting in Downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District. Pittsburgh police say Jaraye McLaughlin, 28, opened fire Aug. 1 near the end of the work day on Penn Avenue, near the Barcelona Wine Bar. A woman was...
Authorities name Pittsburgh man fatally shot last month in Penn Hills
A man who was fatally shot in Penn Hills last month has been identified as a 31-year-old resident of Pittsburgh’s Sheraden neighborhood. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday publicly identified the victim as Austin Lamont Turner. He was found by police on July 7 in the 11000 block...
Clairton Coke Works, site of deadly explosions, stirs both pride and pain
Brian Doyle remembers the explosion that hurled him to the coke plant’s floor — but little else from that day. It was a Wednesday — July 14, 2010 — and Doyle, a steamfitters union member and contractor for Power Piping, was inside the Clairton Coke Works getting ready to repair...
‘Inherent dangers’ seen as ever-present in steel industry
Rich Lattanzi knows all about safety in U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley facilities. At age 26, decades before he was elected in 2010 as mayor of Clairton — a city built, largely, to run the coke works — the former plumber started a three-decade U.S. Steel career by toiling in the...
Pa. appeals court reinstates Pittsburgh cop fired over Taser use in fatal encounter
A Pennsylvania appeals court Friday paved the way for a controversial Pittsburgh police officer to return to work after he was fired for repeatedly using his Taser on a homeless man who died the next day. The city’s police union hailed the decision by a seven-member panel of Commonwealth Court...
Robinson cop charged with off-duty assault on business owner
A Robinson police officer is facing assault charges after, authorities say, he punched a township business owner during a road-rage spat while off duty. Allegheny County Police charged Steven Pies, 50, of Robinson on Wednesday with one count each of aggravated assault and simple assault. Investigators said Pies attacked Alan...
Allegheny County fires jail guard after furor over racist viral video
An embattled Allegheny County Jail corrections officer has been fired three weeks after a video surfaced online purportedly showing him making a racist comment about Black people while holding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. A county official confirmed Friday that Brian Davis, who started working at the Downtown...
‘The greatest guy’: Coraopolis mourns resident killed in hit-and-run crash
Ulises Montalvo plodded daily along Coraopolis’ sidewalks pushing a lawn mower, carrying his trusty weed-whacker and looking for work. On Wednesday, a symbol of that drive to work — Montalvo’s well-worn, black boots — sat empty at the foot of a makeshift memorial to the Coraopolis man, killed Sunday in...
Stowe carjacking arrest leads police to suspect in Pittsburgh shooting
One of the two men arrested Monday in connection with a carjacking and high-speed chase that shut down a Pittsburgh bridge was wanted for shooting someone last week. The man police identified as the passenger in the stolen vehicle — Vaughn Hall, 34, of Pittsburgh — was charged with an...
Police arrest 2 in Stowe carjacking after chase shuts 31st Street Bridge
Two carjacking suspects were arrested Monday afternoon after crashing the vehicle police said they stole and trying to run from authorities — triggering a manhunt that shut down the 31st Street Bridge and snarled traffic on nearby Route 28. Stowe police reported a carjacking around 3 p.m. and called in...
Probe into fatal East Hills fire that killed girl, 2, remains open
A 2-year-old girl killed when a December fire gutted a Pittsburgh apartment died from thermal injuries and breathing in carbon monoxide, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office announced Monday. Firefighters pulled Praise Lemons from the blaze that broke out at Maple Ridge Apartments in the city’s East Hills neighborhood around...
Final member of trio charged in fatal Pittsburgh drug robbery heads to trial
Police say Sammie Lane Jr. executed Tayrod Ford in August 2022 during a drug robbery in Pittsburgh’s East End and then fled several hours later aboard a Greyhound bus. It would take nearly three years for authorities to track Lane down. They found him in March in a Lancaster County...
Hockey mom charged after scuffle with teen ref at RMU sports complex
Nobody dropped the gloves, but a confrontation earlier this month between a hockey mom and a teenage referee at a Neville Island ice rink has led to a court date. Andrea Bucci, 38, of Franklin Park is facing assault charges and was banned from the Robert Morris University Island Sports...
Hockey mom charged after scuffle with teen ref at RMU sports complex
Nobody dropped the gloves, but a confrontation this month between a hockey mom and a teenage referee at a Neville Island ice rink has led to a court date. Andrea Bucci, 38, of Franklin Park is facing assault charges and was banned from the Robert Morris University Island Sports Complex...
Is Downtown Pittsburgh safe? With NFL Draft looming, perception battles realityVideo
Downtown Pittsburgh, by turns glamorous and grimy, boasts a split personality. Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey emphatically frames the gateway to the city as safe and vibrant. But persistent problems with homelessness, drugs and violent crime have long threatened to undermine that narrative. Just last month, police charged a man with...
Morning Roundup: Driver escapes injury in turnpike fire; 2 injured in Penn Hills crash
Here are some of the latest news items happening this morning, Thursday, July 24: Driver escapes injury in Turnpike fire A driver freed themselves from a tractor-trailer cab after a fire broke out inside of it Wednesday afternoon on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, authorities said. First responders from the Wexford Volunteer...
Police probe Wilkinsburg rollover crash
Two men were hospitalized early Tuesday after their car crashed and overturned in Wilkinsburg, authorities said. Police who were dispatched at 12:12 a.m. to the 400 block of Ardmore Boulevard said they found a red Chevy Camaro overturned, with two men inside. Paramedics took the driver, who police did not...
‘It’s hard not to break’: Daughter of Plum house explosion victims continues to grieve without closureVideo
Wherever Taylor Oravitz goes, her childhood home goes with her. The Plum native had her Rustic Ridge Drive home’s GPS coordinates tattooed on her forearm, though not for nostalgia’s sake. Rather, it’s a kind of memorial in ink and flesh. On Aug. 12, 2023, a massive explosion at her family’s...
‘Series of failures’: Lawsuit blames fatal Plum house explosion on pipeline leak, water heaterVideo
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on July 23. It’s being reposted on the two-year anniversary of the tragedy in Plum. Families of the six people killed in a 2023 house explosion in Plum’s Rustic Ridge subdivision have sued multiple companies for negligence and wrongful death, blaming them for...
