Westmoreland DA says solving Cassandra Gross case from 2018 remains a priority

Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said solving the 2018 disappearance of Cassandra Gross is a priority for prosecutors.

“This is one of the cases that was at the forefront of my mind when I took office (in January),” Ziccarelli said. “We are very committed to this case.”

She’s had several briefings with state police and discussed the investigation with Kathe Gross, Cassandra’s mother. Four years have passed since her daughter’s disappearance without an arrest and Gross is frustrated that the Unity man troopers suspect was involved has not been charged.

“It’s not moving,” she said. “It’s been four years. They have all of the evidence.”

Cassandra Edlyn Gross of Unity called her mom at 3:35 p.m. April 7, 2018 while driving on Route 30, headed to her Unity apartment. She’d just finished lunch with a friend at the Parkwood Inn in Southwest Greensburg. Mother and daughter made plans to see each other the next day. She was never heard from again.

Baxter, her blind, diabetic dog that has since died, was found two days later wandering alone in the Beatty Crossroads area. On April 10, 2018 her Mitsubishi Outlander was found burned along a rail line near Twin Lakes Park. State police now classify the case as a homicide and Cassandra has been declared legally dead by a judge. Several searches have been conducted by police, but her whereabouts have been elusive.

Kathe Gross, 73, said she plans to do another search soon with help from a cadaver dog. She’s already conducted dozens.

Investigators focused their searches on two properties then owned by Thomas G. Stanko, 51, of Unity, who has been jailed for the past four years on unrelated state and federal charges. Stanko, who at one time dated Gross, has repeatedly maintained his innocence. Troopers recovered “several items of interest” in May 2020 at one of the properties. Details of those items have not been released publicly.

Those two properties were transferred in March 2021 to Earl D. Barkley of New Florence for $1 each, according to Westmoreland County deeds.

Cassandra would have turned 56 on May 17.

“Her spirit’s in heaven, she went to heaven,” Kathe Gross said. “It’s only my faith in God that has gotten me to this point.”

While she tries to get through the day Thursday, Stanko is awaiting a hearing in federal court to see if his request to get a new attorney in an unrelated gun case will be granted. He pleaded guilty in November to illegally having two guns as a convicted felon.

Preliminary hearings are pending in three Westmoreland County cases filed in 2018 and 2019 unrelated to the disappearance. Kathe Gross has been pushing for years to have homicide charges filed while prosecutors have said Stanko being in federal custody renders him unavailable for state court proceedings. A trial is the only way she said she will get closure, regardless of whether prosecutors secure a conviction.

“There’s no life for us as long as this is hanging over us,” she said. “They gotta move. They have to move and get the trial date set.”