'Kill for Thrill' 40 years later: Two Murders In District Probed

Editor’s note: The Tribune-Review ran 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 Friday, Jan. 4, 1980.

PITTSBURGH – The new year is only four days old and police in Allegheny County district already have two mysterious murders to investigate.

The victims were Mrs. Artinna Sisson, 29, of Cleveland, Ohio, a housewife with two children whose frozen body was found here in suburban Ross Township; and Mrs. Marlene Sue Newcomer, 26, of Leisenring, Fayette County. Mrs. Newcomer, a widow with a six-year-old son, was found shot to death in a downtown Pittsburgh parking garage.

Mrs. Sisson reportedly left her two children with her mother the evening of December 2 in Cleveland to attend a bingo game.

Her frozen body was discovered lying 30 feet from the side of the Old Perry Highway in Ross Township January 2.

She was fully clothed except for shoes and a coat. The county morgue here and county homicide Inspector Robert Meinert have thus far declined to give the cause of her death.

However, detectives said she may have been dead since the night she disappeared.

County investigators have traveled to Cleveland to talk to her family and friends in an effort to determine a motive for the slaying.

On Wednesday, police police recovered her 1980 Buick Regal coupe on the city’s Northside. It had been stripped of its plates and reportedly had been in a parking space there since December 23.

A pair of boots apparently belonging to the victim were found in the back seat.

The Old Perry Highway is an abandoned right-of-way now owned by PennDOT for development of the planned I-279 expressway between Pittsburgh and the North Hills.

Mrs. Newcomer, the other victim, was found dead in the rear of her new Dodge Ram Charger recreational vehicle in the parking garage adjoining Gimbels downtown department store on Smithfield Street.

Mrs. Newcomer was reportedly employed at the Connellsville Sportswear Factory, a Fayette County clothing manufacturer. She had a six-year-old son and was recently widowed when her husband committed suicide, police reported.

Mrs. Newcomer died of gunshot wounds of the chest and head, but detectives have not divulged the specific type of gun used.

A widely circulated reported that city homicide investigators refuse to confirm is that she attended a New Year’s Eve party somewhere in Westmoreland County, then drove into the parking garage about 9:30 a.m. New Year’s Day.

One facet of that unconfirmed reported has it that her truck also carried a man and another woman when it entered the garage.

A garage attendant found her body about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday in her truck. The victim was fully clothed and there were no reported indications of a struggle in the vehicle.

Another mysterious aspect of the case which authorities have declined to talk about is the reported discovery of several checks belonging to Mrs. Newcomer under the Homestead High Level Bridge, about six miles away, after her body was discovered.