An image of Cassandra Gross in a black-and-white-striped sweater with a bag of work documents under her arm marks the last time she was seen alive, her high school friend testified Thursday.
Westmoreland County prosecutors contend Thomas G. Stanko, 55, of Unity killed Gross, 51, after she was to meet him at his home on April 7, 2018, then discarded her body. Stanko is charged with criminal homicide and reckless burning. While her remains were never found, prosecutors argue he discarded or destroyed her body.
On the fourth day of the trial in Greensburg, Mary Ann Dicks testified that during a lunch date just hours before Gross went missing, Gross appeared happy but also reticent when asked about her relationship with Stanko.
“She said she thought she had everything under control and would deal with it on her own,” Dicks told jurors.
Testimony on Thursday appeared to lay the groundwork for prosecutors to argue Stanko plotted to kill Gross and, with his now-deceased mother, executed a scheme to discard her body and cover up their actions.
Harry Berkey, a neighbor of Stanko’s mother, Almira, testified he saw vehicles come and go from Almira Stanko’s home the morning of April 8. He told jurors he spotted Gross’ red SUV drive onto the property shortly after 7:30 a.m. Tinted windows prevented him from seeing who was behind the wheel.
Thomas Stanko’s white pickup truck then arrived with a backhoe loaded on a trailer. Hours later, Gross’ SUV was driven away. Berkey said he believed Almira Stanko was at the wheel based on the driving style. Stanko and his mother returned later that afternoon in her sedan, Berkey testified.
Days later, Gross’ burned-out SUV was discovered by now-retired state police Maj. Joseph Ruggery during an off-duty dirt bike ride near Twin Lakes Park east of Greensburg
State police Assistant Deputy Fire Marshal Keith Sobecki testified he inspected the vehicle April 10 at the park and ruled the cause of the fire undetermined. The vehicle’s license plate was missing, its gas cap was open and the back seats were reclined.
“There was tampering with that vehicle that was done on purpose,” Sobecki testified.
Under questioning from defense attorney Marc Daffner, Sobecki estimated it took two to three hours for the vehicle to completely burn and cool.
Meanwhile, Lee Stewart, superintendent at the Unity Cemetery adjacent to property owned by Almira Stanko, told jurors he spotted Thomas Stanko with a shovel while riding an off-road vehicle through the woods a week before Gross’ disappearance.
Stanko was questioned by police about Gross’ whereabouts in the days after her parents reported her missing.
Retired state police Trooper James McKenzie, the lead investigator, said cellphone records tracked Gross and Stanko’s calls and movements. Those records revealed they communicated throughout April 7 in text messages, in which she gave him a grocery list for dinner that night.
Records indicated they also had two calls after she left the Parkwood Inn in Southwest Greensburg, the last ending at 4:32 p.m. Gross’ phone last pinged a cell tower that afternoon just 1.6 miles from Thomas Stanko’s home, McKenzie testified.
McKenzie told jurors Stanko deleted all contact with Gross from his phone before her disappearance. Only text messages sent over the next three days remained, including several in which he seemed to express concern about her whereabouts.
Gross’ son, Brandon Diebold, testified he routinely talked to his mother at least three or four times a week and spoke with her after her lunch with Dicks. Gross had visited her son in North Carolina a week before she disappeared, he said.
Diebold and his grandmother sought a court order in January 2019, leading a Westmoreland County judge to declare Cassandra Gross legally deceased. Diebold said his mother’s bank accounts remained untouched after April 7.
In the years that followed, Diebold married and had a daughter, with another child on the way. Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar asked if Gross looked forward to being a grandmother.
“She hounded me about that,” Diebold said.
Through two days of testimony, 21 witnesses have testified as prosecutors attempt to prove Gross is dead and Stanko killed her. The prosecution is expected to continue its case when the trial reconvenes Friday morning.
