'Kill for Thrill' 40 years later: Three Arrested In 'Thrill Killings'

Editor’s note: The Tribune-Review wrote a series of articles 40 years ago about a murder spree in which four people were killed in eight days across Western Pennsylvania. This is one of the original articles, published Saturday, Jan. 5, 1980.

The arrest of three men and a 15-year-old juvenile after a series of bizarre and seemingly senseless murders in Westmoreland and Indiana counties may aid police in other unsolved homicides in western Pennsylvania.

Those arrests – for the killing of a rookie Armstrong County policeman, a Fayette County mother, a Pittsburgh man and a former Irwin resident – have led area police to focus on other unsolved murders within the past year.

The arrests late Thursday night culminated an intensive police investigation involving dozens of police officers from the state police in Greensburg and Kiski, Westmoreland County detectives, Pittsburgh police, and Apollo police.

Arrested and charged with homicide in the deaths of Apollo police officer Leonard Miller, Mrs. Marlene Sue Newcomer, and Peter Levato, are:

• Michael J. Travaglia, 21, of Apollo RD4.

• John Charles Lesko, 21, of 5608 Keefe St., Pittsburgh.

• Richard Rutherford, 15, of the Garfield section of Pittsburgh.

Daniel Keith Montgomery, 34, of Weston W.Va., was charged with receiving stolen property and was arraigned before Distric Magistrate Robert Scott of Murrysville. Authorities also said Montgomery is a suspect in a number of armed robberies along Route 22 in the past several days.

Travaglia, Lesko, and Rutherford were arraigned before District Magistrate Michael Moschetti in Greensburg and ordered held in the Westmoreland County Detenction Center in lieu of $250,000 bond each. Montgomery is also being held in the detentrion center under $10,000 bond. Travaglia and Lesko have been charged with homicide and crimianal conspiracy in the death of Levato and Mrs. Newcomer. Travaglia, Lesko, and Rutherford are charged with homicide and criminal conspiracy in the death of Miller.

Criminal homicide and complicity charges against Travaglia, Lesko, and Rutherford were filed later Friday in the death of Tollin William Nicholls, 32, of Mt. Lebanon, a former Irwin resident and graduate of Greensburg Central Catholic High School. His body was discovered Friday by State police scuba divers in a lake in Indiana County.

Westmoreland County District Attorney Albert M. Nichols said that while state police and Westmoreland County detectives are investigating the four slayings, they are also checking the possibility that the suspects were involved in other slayings.

“Yes, the police are aware of other murders that haven’t been solved, and the possibility that they were involved is still being investigated,” Nichols said.

“The DA said, “At this time, it does not appear that there are more, but we are not going to rule out that possibility.”

Nichols said the follow-up phase of the investigation began Thursday night in Pittsburgh after the four were arrested. Detectives are checking files of unsolved murders for similar modes of operation.

“It’s no secret that they sang like canaries, each one seeming to try to outdo the other,” he continued.

Other sources said the suspects gave Pittsburgh homicide detectives tape-recorded statements. Their statements apparently led state police divers to the exact location of a fourth victim.

Nichols said special emphasis will be placed on reviewing murders of the past six to 12 months. He expressed doubt, however, that there would be a connection with murders prior to that.

Nichols and state police Troop A commander Capt. Blair Swistock announced the arrests at a Friday morning press conference, but declined to comment on what led police to believe that the four were involved in the murders, which were apparently committed for “thrills.”

But the Tribune-Review has been able to trace details of the crimes of various sources close to the investigation.

Officer Miller was the last to die in the two-county killing spree.

A silver Lancia sped past Miller’s patrol car at about 4:53 a.m. on Jan. 3, but it was headed out of the tiny Armstrong County borough so Miller, a 21-year-old cop who had been on the job full-time for only three days, let it go.

But the occupants of the car weren’t so willing to let Miller go.

The driver of the Lancia doubled back and again sped past Miller’s patrol car, apparently daring Miller to chase them. This time Miller had no choice. He gave chase across a steel bridge, stopping the vehicle about on-half mile inside Westmoreland County.

Miller walked up to the car, peered trough the open window and was hit by two bullets fired into his chest. The pipe Miller was smoking fell into the vehicle as the Lancia sped south on Route 66. Despite his wounds, Miller fired six rounds at the fleeing car from his .357 Magnum before falling to the ground mortally wounded.

Marlene Sue Newcomer, 26, of Fayette County, thought she was doing the hitchhikers a favor when she picked them up in her late model Ramcharger in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day. That decision was fatal.

Her body was found in her vehicle in a parking garage at a downtown Pittsburgh department store. She was shot in the head and chest.

Just before New Year’s, a vehicle owned by Peter Levato, a 49-year-old Northside man would be located by police behind Joe’s Steakhouse in Penn Township. His body would be found Dec. 29 in a wooded area of Loyalhanna Township. He was killed by two gunshots to the head.

Tollin William Nicholls had just left a choir practice and had gone to pick up the new car he had purchased on Jan. 2 and was last seen at a Dormont auto dealership. State police divers found his body, bound and gagged, in an Indiana County lake. The pockets of his coat were filled with stones. Autopsy reports indicate that Nicholls was thrown into the lake while he was still alive.

At first police were baffled by the seemingly unconnected homicides. Then, a combination of luck and dogged police work led officers to the Edison Hotel, a seedy Pittsburgh nightspot frequented by transients, homosexuals, and prostitutes.

City detectives spotted Montgomery in a downtown restaurant and recognized him as the subject n a warrant that had been issued in the slaying of Officer Miller. He was carrying a .38-caliber revolver with one spent shell. A short time later, detectives arrested Travaglia and Lesko in a room at the Edison Hotel and picked up Rutherford a short time later in the same area.

When detectives broke into the hotel room, Lesko allegedly pointed a .22-caliber pistol at one of the policeman before he was subdued. Nichols and Swistock would not say how detectives were led to the four men, but, according to police sources, the search for the alleged killers began in the Delmont area.

“We have our own theories on what may have happened,” Nichols said. “But they’ll have to wait.

“There are still many other matters that are unresolved,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Tribune-Review has learned that three of the suspects were staying at Thatcher’s Motel on Route 22 in Salem Township, near Delmont, for several weeks prior to Levato’s death. Some of the suspects are under investigation for the armed robber of Sonny’s Bar, located next to the motel. After the men had left the motel, state police investigators found several items stolen from the bar that the suspects had kept stored in large garbage bags.

Levato was apparently abducted in Penn Township and driven to a wooded area in Loyalhanna Township. A youngster checking his traps in the woods found Levato’s body. He had been shot twice in the back of the head and once in the chest.

Mrs. Newcomer, a seamstress for Connellsville Sportswear Co., Was found sprawled on the back seat of her Ramcharger.

According to police sources, Mrs. Newcomer had picked up at least two of the suspects who were hitchhiking along Route 22. She had been returning home from a New Year’s Eve party in the Vandergrift area.

The sources said Mrs. Newcomer had asked one of the suspects to drive her vehicle while she crawled in back to sleep.

According to the sources, Travaglia shot her in the head as she slept and then, caught up in the thrill, shot her again.

After allegedly shooting Mrs. Newcomer, the suspects then drove into Indiana County where they robbed a store at gunpoint before returning to Pittsburgh. Her vehicle, with her body still in the back seat, was found by a security guard who called police. When state police learned that the Ramcharger matched the description of the vehicle in the Indiana holdup, police narrowed their search. Apparently some parking tickets found in the vehicle traced the suspects to the 900 block of Penn Avenue. Informants then told Pittsburgh detectives that the suspects might be staying at the Edison Hotel.

Indications are that Nicholls was probably abducted after he picked up his new car in Dormont.

Nicholls, who graduated from Greensburg Central Catholic High School and attended Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, missed an appointment to play the organ at a funeral mass at St. Anne Church in Castle Shannon.

Police theorize he was driven to a lake at Blue Spruce County Park in Rayne Township, about six miles northwest of the Borough of Indiana.

According to police accounts of the slaying, Nicholls was shot once in the arm. His hands were then bound and rocks were zipped inside his coat. He was thrown into the lake alive. Divers located his body on the first dive in about 38 feet of water. Ice had formed on the lake and divers cut a hole to enter the water. Access to the lake is a township road that loops around the reservoir.

George Satora, the county park supervisor, said the office at the lake is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily and anyone can get to the lake by simply walking down to the water’s edge from the road.

Nicholls’ wallet was found in his vehicle when state police discovered the abandoned car on Route 356 in Murrysville, about 10 miles from where Miller was shot.

A witness in the Monroevilla area told state police he saw the suspects hitchhiking toward Pittsburgh after abandoning the car. Another witness in a convenience food store in Apollo saw Miller chase the silver Lancia.

Rutherford, the juvenile, allegedly told police he met the three men by accident and knew he was wrong to get involved with them but was afraid they would kill him.

Police sources said when the two adults and the juvenile were arrigned in Greensburg, they were calm and appeared surprised when Moschetti set bail at $250,000. Troopers Richard Dickey and Robert Luniewski from the Kiski Valley station filed the charges against the three.