Brother of Penn Hills woman killed in 1973 calls cold case arrest 'bittersweet'

Michael Pietropola was 11 when his sister Janice was killed while vacationing in Virginia Beach.

Her death hit the family hard, Pietropola, now 57, told the Tribune-Review in a telephone interview Wednesday from his home in the Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek, Ga.

“It was beyond words to describe the pain, the sorrow and grief a family experiences, especially my parents,” Pietropola said.

His father, Michael J. Pietropola Sr., died in 2002, eight years after his wife Lucille passed away. The parents went to their graves without knowing exactly what happened to their daughter, who was 19 when she was killed in June 1973.

Janice Pietropola and her friend Lynn Seethaler, also 19, were found “brutally murdered” in a motel cottage, according to Virginia Beach police.

On Monday, authorities issued an arrest warrant in the case and Ernest Broadnax, 80, of the St. Albans section of Queens, New York, was arrested on charges of second-degree murder and rape in connection with the killings.

“It’s bittersweet,” Pietropola’s brother said of Broadnax’s arrest.

The family is anticipating the judicial process and hopes to gain an explanation of what happened in Virginia Beach, where the young women were enjoying a vacation a year after graduating from Penn Hills High School.

“There really hasn’t been any time that Janice hasn’t been on all of our minds,” Michael Pietropola said. “My sisters and I are appreciative of the Virginia Beach Cold Case unit.”

Surviving members of Lynn Seethaler’s family couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday. Her father Paul died in 2016, and her mother Phyllis died in 2011, according to obituaries.

In the decades since the killings, Michael Pietropola kept in touch with authorities, who had pursued leads over the years to no avail.

In recent years, there was renewed hope because of advances in forensic technology, Pietropola said.

The family was told Tuesday that Broadnax was arrested, he said.

“We all accepted many years ago we would go to our graves without knowing who did it,” Pietropola said.

He declined to describe what happened after the family was informed of Janice’s death.

Penn Hills police Chief Howard Burton was a patrolman with about four years on the force in 1973, he told the Tribune-Review.

“It really hit the community hard,” Burton said.

Reading news about the arrest brought the case back into his mind, he said.

“At the time, it was unique something like that happened,” Burton said.

Janice Pietropola and Seethaler were both 1972 graduates of Penn Hills High School. According to the school yearbook, both were studying “commercial” subjects.

Pietropola was a student secretary, on the booster club and was junior homeroom secretary. Seethaler was nicknamed “Skinny,” was also in the booster club and a member of the Rhythmettes. She was on student council and was a student secretary, the yearbook said.

“She was a wonderful human being, very positive, looking forward to the next chapter of her life,” Michael Pietropola said of his sister.

She was well-liked at school and was beautiful “both in spirit and physically,” he said.

“We miss her dearly,” he said.

After high school, both women took jobs as filing clerks and office assistants at the Dun and Bradstreet business credit firm located near a hospital in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood.

Harvey Jones, 71, of Duquesne, joined the firm as a business analyst while Seethaler was working there in 1972. Soon after, Janice Pietropola joined the office.

At the time, Jones was 25 and the only black man on the payroll, and he believes he may have been the first or among the first black workers hired there. Both women stood out for being among the first to socialize with him and form friendships that extended beyond the workplace, he said. They were outgoing — Seethaler perhaps more so than “Jan,” who kept more to herself, Jones said. They enjoyed small talk at the office and hung out together at parties.

He recalled how excited both women were the week before they left for Virginia Beach, that they had been raving about their plans to coworkers and saying the trip would be their first time there.

“We come back into work and word gets around that they wound up dead … We just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I was very, very sad and shocked. Everybody was in shock.”

Broadnax was 35 at the time of the killings and has lived in New York City for nearly 30 years, according to a story in The New York Times.

In his time in the city he’s had a lengthy arrest record — mostly charges of assault and burglary and he’s been incarcerated three times.

“Our objective now is to be able to bring justice for the victims, and for their families to be able to have a sense of peace and closure,” said Officer Linda Kuehn, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Beach police https://t.co/b3GGvsReGU

— NYT Metro (@NYTMetro) April 10, 2019

Neighbors told The Times he was “cordial, but distant” and had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction.

A retired detective who handled the initial investigation told The Times that Seethaler’s throat was slashed and she was shot twice in the head. Pietropola was strangled, raped and shot three times, the detective, William Haden, told The Times.

It is the oldest cold case to be considered solved by the Virginia Beach Police Department’s Cold Case Unit, police Chief James A. Cervera said in a news conference that was streamed on Facebook.

The department doesn’t comment on pending cases, so Cervera was unable to detail what led to Broadnax’s arrest, aside from to cite “advances in technology.”

He started with the department in 1978, and said it was “personally satisfying” to be able to inform the detectives who worked the case in the 1970s and had been his superiors that it was solved.

Resolving cold cases also brings some closure to the families of the victims, Cervera said.

As far as any other details about what made the case, “we’ll hold that for court,” he said.

“We want this system to play out as it should,” Cervera said.