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Decade in review: Photos, stories that shaped Western Pa. during 2010s

Tribune-Review
| Tuesday, December 31, 2019 3:24 p.m.
Tribune-Review
Taylor Allderdice High School students who organized a vigil following the Tree of Life massacre sing at the corner of Murray and Forbes avenues in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Oct. 27, 2018. That morning, gunman Robert Bowers burst into Tree of Life synagogue and started shooting. Eleven worshippers were killed. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Bowers.

The past decade was filled with major moments, both horrific and heartwarming, in local and regional news.

Police officers, white and black, died in the line of duty. Protestors took to the streets after a white police officer shot and killed a black teenager.

One Pittsburgh sports team ended a two-decade playoff drought. Another won back-to-back championships — for the second time.

A giant rubber duck floated down the Three Rivers, and soon a million people flocked to see.

A kid took knives to school and slashed classmates in a hallway. A gunman carried firearms into a synagogue and opened fire, taking 11 souls and steeling a city’s resolve against hate.

Here are some of the top stories from 2010-19 told through Tribune-Review photos.

2010

Jennifer Daugherty murder

Outside the Westmoreland County Courthouse in February 2010, friends of Jennifer Daugherty plead for the district attorney to seek the death penalty. Daugherty, a 30-year-old cognitively challenged women from Mt. Pleasant, was tortured and murdered inside a Greensburg apartment. Her body — bound by Christmas lights and stuffed in a trash can — was found Feb. 11, 2010, in a snowy school parking lot. Six people were convicted of her death, including two sentenced to death.

2011

Officer Derek Kotecki killed

Lower Burrell residents Elizabeth and Richard Kotecki, parents of slain Officer Derek Kotecki, are escorted by police at the beginning of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Vigil in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, May 13, 2012. The 40-year-old was ambushed and murdered in a Dairy Queen parking lot by a fugitive on Oct. 12, 2011. The gunman also died in a shootout with police.

Tornado touches down in Hempfield

Below is an aerial view of damaged homes along Fosterville Road in Hempfield Township on March 24, 2011, the day after a tornado touched down. Dozens of homes across Hempfield and Sewickley townships were heavily damaged along with the auditorium and athletic field at the Hempfield Area Senior High School. Damage from the F2 tornado was estimated at $4.5 million.

2014

Stabbing spree at Franklin Regional

Alex Hribal, 16, is led away from a district judge office after being arraigned on April 9, 2014, the day he stabbed and slashed 20 students and a security guard at Franklin Regional Senior High School. No one died, but many suffered serious wounds. Hribal pleaded guilty to 43 counts, including attempted murder and aggravated assault. A Pennsylvania appeals court in October 2019 upheld Hribal’s sentence of 23 1/2 to 60 years in prison.

Former Pitt researcher guilty of killing wife with cyanide

On Nov. 7, 2014, An Allegheny County jury convicted former University of Pittsburgh medical researcher Robert Ferrante of first-degree murder for using a dietary supplement spiked with cyanide to fatally poison his wife, Dr. Autumn Marie Klein, 41, in April 2013. Ferrante, 66, insisted he was innocent, telling jurors that he had nothing to do with the poisoning and would never hurt his wife because the two were “like peas in a pod.” Ferrante has appealed his conviction, which carries a mandatory life sentence.


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