If the ill-starred prisoner had any thoughts trudging up the dozen broad steps to the massive steel door of the penitentiary, he said nothing. Once inside, a group of deputy sheriffs handed over their charge to prison authority; guards then took Hoss to the Behavior Adjustment Unit, commonly called the Home Block.
As Hoss lay down on the bunk of his bleak cell, restaurant owner Fred Warner, 140 miles away in the village of Cresaptown, Maryland, was walking to a nearby field carrying ladder and knife. The good people of Pittsburgh had spoken, and endless hosannas to them. Hoss would die. Warner felt he could now cut down the “body” of Stanley Hoss. Warner had hanged Hoss in effigy, suspending it from a crossbar fixed near the top of a sixteen-foot post, in a fever of rage and grief a fortnight after the cur had kidnapped his employee, the shining Linda Peugeot. Warner’s action had won broad community support. “Something this egregious,” Warner explained, “it’s up to us to speak out, let our officials know what we think, and when Hoss comes here for trial I suspect we’ll repay in kind and protect ourselves.”
Now, as Warner cut down the effigy, he noticed that it was worn by sun, rain, and snow, and torn by “crows pecking at it.” And Hoss was a condemned murderer, sentenced to death, with his crimes against the Peugeots still to account for. So stood Cresaptown, locked and loaded.
Outrage against Hoss was so great in Cresaptown that Warner couldn’t fathom anyone feeling otherwise, so he was appalled when he saw a letter by N. L. Monnett in the Cumberland Times. “Forget the mother and child. Don’t get emotional. Hoss is sick and has his rights.”
Warner countered, “Monster Hoss lost all rights with the rape of the first woman. He killed two of our neighbors. Two little girls. Our community has never been exposed to such a frightful deed. To hell with monster Hoss. I would be happy to pull the trigger on him myself.”
Momentarily stymied, Stanley Hoss had no intention of accepting his fate. But even if Hoss had been resigned to the state’s deathblow, his attorneys wouldn’t hear of it. To Edgar Snyder and Fred Baxter, the character, even the actions, of their client were beside the point. His degree of villainy or error did not matter when the principle of law had been shortchanged—and this, they staunchly held, was the case with their suffering client. The first volley from the defense came almost immediately. Barely after Hoss had been issued bed sheets and a toothbrush following his sentencing, his lawyers initiated motions for a new trial. After all, they argued, who can ever be free if one man’s rights are trampled?
The prosecution disagreed. Don Minahan said, “We played it by the book. From A to Z, Hoss was treated fairly.” Like the custody battle for Hoss between the feds and the state, and the evidentiary squabbles at trial, the verdict and sentence in the Zanella trial had opposing agendas and philosophies lining up. Each side, in its own way, sought protection of the public through justice. While Fred Warner may have typified the attitude of most local residents that the best way to protect the public was through Hoss’s execution, the defense team was equally convinced that the public would be better served by challenging prosecutorial excess, overthrowing Hoss’s conviction, and granting him a new trial, if not simply dropping the case altogether, all depending on how much protection the public needed. As things stood, though, Judge Strauss would formally render the jury’s decision— that is, formally sentence Hoss to death—six months hence, in September.
Ten days after Stanley’s trial, the divorce suit filed in December by his wife was finalized. The grounds were indignities and her husband’s rape conviction. It was a long time coming, but of “his women,” Diane was the first to bail out—or try to.
In this early period of her brother’s incarceration, sister Betty wrote him frequently to keep him up to date with family news. Her three older girls, Laurie, Susan, and Mary, were “all in scouts,” while her youngest, Tracie, was “getting fat and sassy.” Betty joked that “Susan has the Hoss ears.” As for her newborn, Billy, “You will know my happiness at having a boy.”
Stanley also learned that his brother, Harry, had returned from Chicago and now lived just up the road from Betty. Of this, Betty wrote to Diane, “I don’t know why Harry came back here. His name is Hoss. You know how it is.”
Betty tried to keep her letters newsy and upbeat. She rarely mentioned Stan’s predicament and kept from him worrisome items such as their mother’s high blood pressure or the fact that their father had “aged ten years in the last six months.”
Snyder and Baxter filed their appeal for a new trial for Hoss in late March, citing venue and testimony issues. A week later, Edgar Snyder, feisty and erudite first assistant of the Public Defenders Office, resigned his post.
. . .
Since Hoss escaped from the workhouse in September 1969, he had so dominated the news that his partner in that clever getaway was nearly forgotten. What of Tom Lubresky, initially thought to be the worse of the two?
On the last Friday in March, 1970, on the other side of the country from the newly convicted Hoss, a drunk sat inside a Burbank, California, tavern, sucking on cigarettes, blowing smoke rings, and catching peeks of himself in the wall mirror behind all the bottles of booze. Every so often, he’d vacate his bar stool and walk around a bit before ordering another drink. He grew increasingly loud, obnoxious, and intimidating. The big blond man with tangled hair, bulging muscles, and a look in his eyes that was devious or plain crazy, was an unknown in this watering hole. He didn’t fit, didn’t belong. The bar manager kept track of the stranger as he swaggered around, his muscles dancing at the slightest exertion. The newcomer was boorish to other patrons and rudely familiar with the girls, even those accompanied by dates or friends. Smelling trouble, the bar manager tried to reel him in. “Hey ol’ buddy, come on back over, next drink’s on me.” Not bothering to turn around, the lout grabbed a tankard from a table of four, took a long swig, then set it down with a bang. It was this that finally brought a call to the cops.
Four Burbank officers showed up. Asked to put his hands on the bar, the culprit pulled a gun, pointing it up in the air. Two officers pulled their guns while the other two talked sense to the guy. He fired two rounds into the ceiling, prompting the cops to rush him.
Subdued, the inebriate said his name was James Francis Drake but could produce no ID. In his pocket was some marijuana. “Drake” was taken to the station for booking and fingerprints, which proved him to be Thomas J. Lubresky, wanted by Pennsylvania for escaping from prison. Lubresky’s name was also linked to Stanley Hoss, making the catch all the more serendipitous for Burbank’s finest.
. . .
Prior to the divorce, during the trial period, Stanley had written his wife.
“I look for you every day in the courtroom, but no luck.”
Indeed, Diane did not attend any of the proceedings, and she didn’t know what to make of hearing from him. There were the children, of course, but fatherhood had never influenced him much before. Stanley’s ways had ensured that his ten-year marriage with Diane had been turbulent or empty. At first, Diane had hoped he would change, but by 1965, “the feelings were gone. It was mutual.” Since then, Stanley’s absences had been more frequent, and during the past year Diane and the kids had hardly seen him at all. Then there was Jodine Fawkes. He’d been with her for sure, and, according to the papers, wasn’t she his great love? Didn’t he risk his life to see her again? Diane didn’t answer his letters.
Therefore, Diane was surprised when he wrote to her again after the divorce became final. Conciliation, hope, love. Anyhow, that’s how it began.
Dear Diane, I would love to keep the kids knowing me as their father. I hope your new life is better than what I gave you. But I will always consider you my wife. Betty wrote and told me Steven said if he can’t have his old dad back, he does not want any. I can’t tell you how that made me fill [sic]. Will you send me pictures of the kids? Love, Stan
Dear Diane, I get 10 letterheads a month. As you can see, they are only one page. Do you remember out in Illinois? I was happy in those days but we both knew my life would end this way. I know you have seen too much of me on TV and radio. It was like my own show every night. Please give the kids a kiss for me. Like I say, I did not divorce you, so your still my wife. Remember our song. “Please Love Me Forever.”
P.S. I never leave my cell or have anyone to talk to so please write as much as you can. I have a lot of time to think but my thinking is always wrong. I get one book a week. I am reading Les Miserables. It’s about a lot of poor kids with no parents who live in the streets.
On April 7, 1970, Diane gave birth to a daughter, Marcie, born of a relationship that had lasted about a year, in the period Stanley was never home, locked up, or on the run. Hoss remained unaware of this milestone.
In the meantime, he wrote often, sometimes daily, apparently finding a way to procure more letterheads. From a sense of obligation, from pity, charity, or some other reason, Diane reciprocated, but not in the same quantity. His letters were filled with nostalgia, mush, and regret for the way he’d treated her. “You were the best wife and mother,” he wrote. “So meny [sic] times I did not want to leave the house at night. If you would have just put your foot down and said no.”
In mid-April a letter arrived holding a particular question that alarmed her. “I hear you were in the hospital. Well, what is it? I will be waiting to hear all about it.”
Diane supposed it inevitable that Stanley would learn of the baby, but nonetheless fretted over what to say. Still, how did he know? She hadn’t seen him in a year and those close to her were sworn to secrecy. A following letter made Diane wonder if she could ever be free to live a normal life.
At the county jail last June, the cops took me to the Justice of the Peace to put more charges on me. They had me chained up like a wild animal. At the JP there is Rich (partner to the Defino rape) with his mom talking real nice to the cops. A woman was in there with her husband getting papers filled out. She kept looking at me. The next day at the jail I had a visitor. It was this woman. She said she couldn’t get me out of her mind. Well, this woman fell in love with me. She buys me anything I want and does anything I want. She has been around your place a lot of times. I really don’t care for this girl but she keeps me up on things. Well, I will be waiting to hear all about the hospital.
The story of a spy in Stanley’s pocket was probably a fabrication. Paperwork to visit a prisoner takes time. Still, Stanley knew things. Though locked in a dim cell deep in the bowels of a prison—a redoubt—he could receive information, could get word.
“Rich got word to me a while ago,” he wrote. “He asked me to take all the blame and set him free. A real punk.”
Diane wanted out, but she was still afraid. It was not so easy to break clean away. Yes, she’d had an affair. If the thought had crossed her mind before, it was dismissed. But in recent years, Stanley had been barely more than a visiting stranger, what with his mistress a town over, the other girls, and the carefree lifestyle that had taken precedence over her and their children. The man she’d met was like an elixir. She felt again like someone to somebody. She smiled more. She laughed with him. Yes, it would end, but she didn’t regret that it had happened.
Diane worried she’d again fall prey to Stanley’s influence. Already he wanted her to visit him, bring the kids, and do favors. “Darling,” he wrote, “it would mean so much if you could get a Valley News subscription for me.”
Ought she tell him to go to hell, where he’d be going anyway? But sometimes his words got to her. “It would be better to let you go but I cannot stop loving you. You and the children are everything.”
“This time, though,” Diane told her sister, “he’s in prison, not for a week or a few months like before. This is it!” Diane got up her resolve to completely sever ties, then the jitters set in. She recalled the time Stanley, against her protest, had marched into the elementary school and threatened the principal. No one would discipline any of his kids. Or the time when Stanley, perceiving that the milkman was sweet on her, grabbed him around the throat. Also, she’d heard about Stanley—while in jail—setting his dastardly pals upon the Defino family. Did he still have this reach? Was there a female spy hanging around? It came down to “Goodbye, Stan”—or getting that subscription for him.
Diane scrounged up the money, which included cash from returning pop bottles, then signed him up not for a full year, but for half. Maybe he’d be dead by then.
For the time being, it seemed to work out. Stanley continued to write. He had his highs and lows but “I do not know what I would do without you in my life” was the prevailing sentiment of his letters. Diane finally informed Stan of the birth of infant Marcie by another man, and was relieved when he signaled acceptance of the situation. “I know what I put you through,” he wrote. “None of this would have happened if I was a better husband. Now I have three girls to love, and I mean it.”
It was in these moments that Diane, still with plans to inch away, wondered if Stan could make decent changes within himself? But then another letter arrived. “I heard some wonderful news on the radio today. Two good guys shot two pigs, you would say cops. That made me so happy I could have danced. I hope all the pigs had big families. Please hug the boys and kiss the girls for me.”
. . .
On May 25, 1970, the legal battle to save Stanley Hoss began. Even though Edgar Snyder had resigned from the Public Defenders Office, he felt morally bound not to leave Stanley hanging, as it were. Teamed as before with Fred Baxter, Snyder continued along pro bono.
The court listened to an assault upon the Split Verdict Act, the procedure where, after a conviction, the same jury hears additional testimony to determine punishment. “In this particular case,” said Baxter, “the jury should not have been informed [that] Mr. Hoss was a suspect in the kidnap-slaying of Mrs. Peugeot and her daughter. We were not prepared to defend our client on the Peugeot charges.”
“Baloney,” replied Samuel Strauss, the trial judge, who sat en blanc with judges Loran L. Lewis and Robert Van der Voort. “You had no defense and you know it. The Peugeots were not mentioned prior to the guilty verdict for Officer Zanella. Established precedent was followed.”
Snyder characterized the months’-long media coverage preceding the trial as inflammatory and prejudicial. “The case should not have been heard in Allegheny County,” he argued. The court seemed little swayed. Ending the proceeding, Strauss announced that prosecutor Ted Fagan had until July 1 to submit the state’s brief.
. . .
Only rarely these days did Hoss’s letters mention the fix he was in. Once or twice he made a scant reference to “that cop case,” or “the crap in Maryland,” but otherwise, his missives spoke of love and hate, and all in between.
I read a book about emotional behavior. There was a story about a little girl who was punished by getting put in a clothes closet. After a rather long silence the mother inquired from her side of the door, “What are you doing?” The child replied, “I’ve spat on your hat, I’ve spat on your coat, I’ve spat on your shoes. Now I’m waiting for more spit.”
Stan said the story reminded him of something LeAnn, their three-year-old, would do. Diane agreed, but also mused that it was how Stan had always been. He just never could have enough spit.
For one so undereducated, Stanley’s letters showed a fair degree of skill, despite the occasional grammatical error or misspelling. May 25 brought his book of the week, which included Rudolf Flesch’s 25 Rules of Effective Writing, and fostered an alchemy. As the weeks passed, mistakes decreased, and Hoss’s penmanship approached calligraphy. He’d joke, “These people down here want me to learn something before they kill me.” Yet this cold man— one bullet for Joe, two for Linda, and a bunch for Lori Mae—now showed the same pride in his improved letter writing as he had in honing his criminal skills as a boy. “I’m getting good at it,” he boasted.
Upon his conviction and return to prison, Hoss’s situation was markedly changed. As a convict condemned to death, he was locked up for all but fifteen minutes each day. He was denied the privileges available to inmates “free” in the general population. He was not allowed to work, use the telephone, socialize, or participate in any groups, activities, or education. Even his visits were restricted to one per month, although this was eventually expanded to four.
“I read my weekly book, usually in a day, then I look at the walls. I listen to W.E.E.P from 8 to 10 then go to sleep,” wrote Hoss.
He rarely spoke to the guards or to prisoners in nearby cells. Letters were his lifeline. Now a prolific letter writer himself, he usually responded in kind, and he implored family, friends, and women to come see him.
Stanley pressed Diane to visit with the kids. Feeling guilty about keeping their children away, she finally acquiesced. He got upset when Diane discussed changing her last name, and that of the kids. At the end of the visit, she turned away from Stanley’s kiss. After a week he wrote to apologize.
I know you are right about changing names. I don’t want my kids to suffer or feel different from other kids. But I want to say to you I’m very proud of the name Stanley B. Hoss, Jr. I made fools out of the best FBI guys in the country.
“Made fools out of …”? Did he mean it took so long to catch him, or something more consequential: legerdemain during FBI interviews, a shell game with bodies?
Stanley assured Diane that it was over with Jodine, but Diane was leery. One day she received an envelope. Inside was a Wanted poster of Hoss, and a piece of paper with a fly squashed on it. She knew this creepy message came from Jodine. In any case, Diane wrote gingerly to Stan, “I still love you but not in the strong love I used to have for you.” This wounded Stan, but he continued to write, seeking sympathy—“The world holds nothing for me”— or venting irritation about prison life—“It’s no wonder I can’t write you a good letter. They have this f—— homosexual locked up above me. All day long he runs his mouth to these niggers in here and it gets on my nerves.”
If Diane failed to write for a period, he’d wheedle: “Soon I’ll pay for all those people I hurt. Can’t you wait till then to stop hurting me?”
On June 20, 1970, Hoss was arraigned for prison breach from the Allegheny County Workhouse. At a hearing a week later the prosecution sought the addition of ten years to Hoss’s sentence for Defino’s rape, but Hoss’s attorney adroitly argued his client had not actually been sentenced to the workhouse when the escape occurred (having been transfered there because of overcrowding), so punishment had to be capped at two years.
Hoss convinced the officers assigned to death row to play loose with the book quota. By mid-summer, he was reading almost as much as he liked, and his newspaper subscription began as well. He devoured each issue, down to the Stork Club announcements. Further, he became enamored with Shakespeare, politics (hanging a picture of George Wallace on his wall), and military history, especially Rommel, Patton, and Custer. He tried to learn, but his interpretation of what he learned was poor. In one letter, he wrote, “Judge Strauss is nothing but a dirty Jew. Hitler should have got all those f—— Jews.”
Hoss began a fitness regimen in his cell: isotonics, situps, and, as he grew stronger, 1,000 daily pushups, done in sets of 100. At 198 pounds, he had no flab. Haircuts were available monthly, but Hoss skipped them. On one legal visit, Edgar Snyder joked, “Stanley, you look like one of the Rolling Stones.”
Word spread among staff that their prize captive was devouring a book a day—Poe, Steinbeck, Twain, even the English poets—but the thinking that had brought him to prison was unchanged.
I was reading in my paper a witness against me at my trial got robbed of $36.00 then the bandit got away. The witness was Ben Tarr who has that Texaco station on Plum Street where that punk cop got shot. The only mistake the bandit made was not putting a bullet in Tarr’s head.
. . .
Over the summer, a three-judge panel considered the defense’s appeal of Hoss’s conviction. It addressed the issues raised, one by one, and rejected them. Left for last were the two points with the most weight, the denial of a change of venue for the trial, and the introduction of testimony not strictly limited to Zanella’s shooting for the sentencing phase. Judge Strauss did most of the talking for the panel.
“That venue was not changed we do not believe violated the rights of the accused,” said Strauss, “and you’re aware an agreement was reached with the media to hold publicity to a minimum, particularly with regard to sensationalism. Keep in mind an unbiased jury does not mean the entire population of Allegheny County should be hermetically sealed against all largely factual news exposure.”
The venue issue done away with, all in the room, including law students and a good many established criminal attorneys, waited to hear how the panel handled the defense’s chief objection.
The relatively new Split Verdict Act provided that after a verdict of first-degree murder is returned, the convicting jury may hear evidence regarding past deeds of the accused to help it determine the sentence. During the sentencing phase, therefore, Strauss had allowed the jury to hear of prior convictions, confessions, and admissions. This was unambiguous; as Fagan put it, “It says what it says.” Now Strauss fortified this position.
“The court did not violate Hoss’s rights when permitting testimony concerning crimes for which he’d not been charged or tried,” Strauss advised. “Pertaining to Karen Maxwell and the Peugeots, the Commonwealth can offer testimony of the crimes committed during flight, to show the defendant’s state of mind, consciousness of guilt.”
Strauss removed his glasses and leaned forward before starting again, speaking extemporaneously. “Every fact which will aid in passing a proper judgment is relevant, not only the facts of the crime involved but every bit of trustworthy information that will aid in determining the type of individual to be sentenced [“My darling Diane, Don’t pity me. What I did I would do again if it came to it.”] … and this is mandatory when the decision involves a possible imposition of death.”
Strauss raised his hands to shoulder level, palms cupped as if weighing two grapefruits, then spoke with patience and common sense. “Certainly, therefore, evidence of a defendant’s other crimes, consisting of his own freely made admissions, even though the crimes were committed after the crime on trial, is relevant, important for the jury to consider what manner of man the defendant is on the day the awesome decision must be made whether he should live or die.” [“Dear Diane,” wrote Hoss, “one more thing I heard at my trial and I almost broke out laughing, was when that cop stopped that bullet the people said he started to pray. How do you like that? All those big bad cops punk out at the end. I sleep like a baby at night.”]
The motion for a new trial was denied, clearing the way for the formal sentencing of Stanley Hoss.
With the usual high security, Sheriff Coon’s men transported Hoss to Pittsburgh’s courthouse from the penitentiary, then escorted him to Courtroom Number 3, newly renovated with gold-toned carpeting and lowered ceiling. As with Hoss’s other court appearances, faces filled windows and bodies crowded the hallways but there was strict order.
On this September 18, 1970, one year less a day since Officer Joe Zanella was killed, spectators watched Hoss enter, dressed in a dark suit and tie with a pastel shirt. He’d evidently decided on a haircut; his hair was combed forward in the front while the sides were slicked back, calling to mind a fifties rocker rather than a Rolling Stone.
Judge Strauss knew well the type of individual before him but, as a God-fearing Christian, he took no joy in this profound moment. Strauss listened to prosecutor Ted Fagan ask pro forma that the court impose the sentence of death, as decreed by the jury.
Strauss asked Hoss if he had anything to say. Even those close by strained to hear as Hoss answered, “I have nothing to say.” With that, Strauss read a prepared statement, that Hoss would suffer death during a week fixed by the governor, and ended with, “May God in his infinite wisdom have mercy on your soul.” There was no enigmatic smile this time from the condemned man. Some said they swore Hoss gulped at Strauss’s last words, but his eyes remained stony.
With the sentence a foregone conclusion, Snyder and Baxter continued to fight for Hoss, announcing that they’d appeal to the commonwealth’s Supreme Court. Other legal matters cluttered Hoss’s file, including multiple detainers for crimes he’d committed on the run, but most significantly the looming trial in Maryland for the kidnapping of Linda and Lori Mae Peugeot. Prudence would advise Hoss to delay extradition to Maryland at all costs, yet weeks earlier, an unadvised, untutored Stanley Hoss had written to the Maryland courts demanding a speedy trial.
. . .
On the one-year anniversary of the Peugeots’ kidnapping, journalist Steve Morrow visited with Linda’s mother, Edna Thompson. It had been many months since he had last seen her. The mignonne woman appeared even smaller, with thinner hair and paler skin. Morrow was also struck by the hollowness in Edna’s eyes, a frightening vacancy. Edna sadly recalled her daughter’s and granddaughter’s disappearance.
I remember when she didn’t come back, we called the police. They said it was too early to put out an alert. Then the FBI came to say she’d been kidnapped.
They kept telling me there was no hope, but sometimes I thought maybe she could be alive. About three months ago I got a phone call. In the background I heard a girl’s voice say the name Lori Mae—and it sounded like my Linda. I was panicked, excited, everything. I called the FBI right then. They said Linda couldn’t be alive, that there was just too much blood in the trunk of the car.
On the wall behind Edna hung a number of framed photographs: Linda with husband Gerald in his navy blues; Linda seated in an MG making a funny face; Lori Mae nose to nose with Duke, the family’s pet poodle …
“The year has been a hard one,” said Edna. “My son-in-law Gerald is a steel worker now in Pittsburgh. He doesn’t say much but he’s the kind that takes it out inside. My husband and I get upset and say things to him we shouldn’t, and he doesn’t say anything.”
“And you, Edna?” asked Morrow gently. “How are you?”
“Some nights I sleep well, and some nights I just sit in my room till morning. The other night I jumped out of bed as I dreamed I felt the bullets going through me. Sometimes in the daytime I go down into the basement and scream and scream. I don’t think I’ll ever be through it.”
. . .
In the tedium of death row, one month is like three. Yet, like any shut-in, the inmate becomes reconciled to a routine. Breakfast and lunch at 6:30 and 10:30, supper at 3:30, or 4:00 at the latest. At first exposure to early mealtimes, prisoners would complain, only to get the unvarying response, “Get used to it.” From the prison kitchen, the food would come over on wheeled carts called trucks, their arrival signaled by the rattle of their wheels, and the traditional, loud-voiced Truuh-Kupp! The food was tepid. Hoss never griped about the meals, except to say he sometimes ate too much and had to watch his weight.
After months of a self-imposed Spartan regimen, Hoss began to loosen up. For the first time he bought from the commissary a bag of potato chips. He also found a chum. “I have been talking to my friend all day,” he wrote Diane at the end of June 1970. “He’s in the cell above me and they just put him in there today. It’s the first I’ve talked to anyone. I feel so much better now.”
Still, Stanley’s mind churned about his future. Two things dominated his attention: his appeal for a new trial on Zanella’s shooting and his meeting with his lawyers from Maryland.
Triggered by Hoss’s demand for an immediate trial in Maryland, two lawyers drove from Cumberland to the penitentiary for a first meeting. Their names were Louis Fatkin and John Robb.
Cumberland did not have a Public Defenders Office, but as Hoss had filed en pauperus, the court was mandated to appoint counsel. From a pool of local lawyers on record as willing to take such cases, Fatkin and Robb were plucked.
The Maryland attorneys had read about Hoss and heard all the rumors, so they were relieved when their new client appeared in the interview room shackled, with a giant guard posted just outside.
Today I had a visit from the two attorneys who will represent me in Cumberland on those kidnapping charges. They said if I’m found guilty Maryland will give me death for each kidnapping. They said people down there want my blood real bad and are even mad at them for taking my case. I thought I could beat one death sentence but I’ll never beat three. Oh well.
There was only one thing to do: escape. To that end Hoss plotted. Knowing it was impossible to escape from death row and almost as impossible to escape from the general confines of Western Penitentiary, Hoss determined that he’d have to connive to be taken out, to come up with some legitimate purpose for travel. This opportunity—to be in transport—was the same one he’d engineered by telling the feds he’d lead them to the Peugeot graves, and maybe he could have pulled off an escape then had not the trip been aborted after it had hardly begun. Hoss now figured correctly that if he had to appear at a trial or proceeding far away from Pittsburgh, he’d be held at a local jail, often a place lacking the security of a major prison. He’d skip from there. He’d done it before.
With this calculation, Hoss became hell-bent on facing the disagreeable charges in Maryland, the sooner the better—but his new attorneys disagreed. Fatkin and Robb not only saw no advantage in rushing matters, they actively counseled delay. They also explained that Maryland might be unable to proceed to trial until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had ruled on Hoss’s appeal in the policeman’s killing. Hoss left his meeting with Fatkin and Robb frustrated and angry. He wrote Diane,
I’m firing those attorneys in Maryland and be my own attorney. You will hear about it in the news. The name change for the kids is smart. It won’t get better. You know what a big thing they make out of the Hoss name.
Hoss never carried through with sacking Fatkin and Robb, but he worried they would not abide by his wishes, and thus redoubled his personal efforts. For the first time in his life, he employed the written word to get his way, rather than gun or fist. As he wrote Diane, “My main thing now is law. Day and night I’m busy studying. My cell is filled with nothing but law books.”
Compared with his earlier letter to the Maryland courts, Hoss’s motion of August 27 was based on legal principle, and polished. He railed against Fatkin and Robb as likely to seek a continuance—to delay a trial beyond the 180 days a speedy trial requires—but Hoss would have none of it: “Because I am innocent I seek an immediate trial before Maryland’s malicious delay irreparably damages my defense.” Not above theatrics, Hoss wrote, “Maryland knows she falsely accuses, has no good case against me, and strives to murder me,” ending his three-page letter with, “I in NO WAY seek, desire or accept a continuance of these indictments.”
Once the motion was notarized and mailed, Hoss began to fret. He wondered if Maryland required reasons why he demanded a speedy trial other than he was innocent as a lamb.
Dog-earing more pages, Hoss again petitioned Maryland on September 15. Again, his demand was ably written—and bolstered with lies. In this four-page thrust, Hoss branded Fatkin and Robb as vipers. “If Fatkin and Robb defy my demand, they will be colluding criminally with Maryland’s prosecutor, whose tactics have already caused a loss forever [of the] testimony of four witnesses who would have established beyond all doubt my innocence.” Without a speedy trial, Hoss argued, “I’ll never be able to defend myself because of my remaining witnesses, one will soon be in Viet Nam, and two are elderly in poor health. If trial is further delayed I will lose contact with my witnesses, their memories will dim and they might die or be killed, and with them their words establishing my complete innocence.” Then Hoss once more slurred the Maryland courts for conspiring to murder him.
Not forgetting his goal to escape, Hoss got word of his plan to two carefully chosen convicts. Would they join him? He got word back: They were in.
. . .
Since Hoss’s conviction for her rape, Kathy Defino had graduated high school but had forgone an academic scholarship to college. She couldn’t concentrate. Maybe later. Something was wrong but she did not know what. She kept up a front, particularly for her family—hadn’t she caused them enough trouble?—but her soul was hollow, vitality and interests gone. She’d go places but not as much as before. It was a chore to laugh with friends. Happier in isolation, contact dwindled.
After high school, the Defino kids were expected to pay their own way, and full-time work forced Kathy from the refuge of her bedroom. She found a job as a secretary in a Pittsburgh law firm, but its location near the courthouse was always a reminder of her ordeal. Six months into the job, Kathy remained withdrawn, although her reserve was mistaken for shyness. Still, she felt obliged to attend a few company social events. The men told her what a good job she was doing, offered her wine, and told her how pretty she was. Kathy, her self-esteem shot, could not imagine how they could think so. As Kathy would say many years later, “Once you are raped with a gun to your head, you can get in your mind a fear of confrontation, of resistance, not just with men but in all areas of life. Maybe this reluctance to say no, to fight, can be seen in the eyes of victims of violent rape? I don’t know.”
Kathy had difficulties with unwanted relationships at work and eventually left her job, telling her parents there’d been cutbacks. Her depression deepened. Two weeks later she was hospitalized, diagnosed with a nervous breakdown. She was medicated, and her flat affect became flatter. Since she divulged nothing, no one knew what was wrong. There was Stanley Hoss, true, but, as Kathy’s father asked her mother, “Isn’t she over that yet?”
Feelings of self-blame and worthlessness took hold. Kathy’s “aloneness” was searing. Hoss’s continued presence in news accounts made it even harder for Kathy to keep Hoss from reinvading. Wasn’t he just now saying he was innocent of killing that young mother and her child? Who is he kidding? Kathy thought. He was sentenced to die, so why can’t he be dead already?
When Kathy finally rose from her sick bed—“There, sweetie, just a little of the doldrums,” her mother said, “you’re fine now”—she got another job. Trying to regain her sense of self, she forced herself to try to reconnect socially, but her efforts led her into promiscuity, and she cried herself to sleep every night. What is wrong with me? she wondered.
. . .
In a public statement made in November 1970, Don Mason, state’s attorney for Maryland, said the death penalty would be sought against Stanley Hoss. Mason knew he had sufficient, even ample, evidence to ensure a guilty verdict. The trial was scheduled to begin January 11, 1971, a date that met by one week the requirement to provide a speedy trial by bringing Hoss to trial within 180 days of his request. Hoss was charged with kidnapping Linda Mae Peugeot and stealing her Pontiac GTO. Oddly, no mention was made in the indictment of Lori Mae.
By this time, fourteen months after the kidnappings, not a soul believed the Peugeots to be alive, yet, legally speaking, “a crime’s jurisdiction cannot be waived.” This meant that the authority to prosecute murder rests with the state where the murder occurred. Since there was no evidence that either Peugeot had been slain in Maryland, that state seemingly had to defer to Pennsylvania or Kansas. Hoss’s multistate travels had further muddied the waters. What if Linda’s body was eventually found in Ohio, and Lori’s in a state bordering Kansas? Was it necessary to find their bodies to bring Hoss to account for their murders? The various agencies involved were trying to sort out these issues, but in the meantime, trying Hoss for murder in Maryland was not in the cards. Still, a conviction for kidnapping could result in a death sentence; Mason and his constituents were still planning on building a scaffold for Hoss.
The hype leading up to the trial promised to be something never seen before in Maryland. Mason wondered more than once why Hoss wanted to face the charges without delay, but so be it. Mason wrote to the Attorney General’s Office for clarification of the Interstate Detainer Act, employed by Hoss to force a speedy trial. Because Hoss was under the death penalty in Pennsylvania, Mason questioned whether the act was applicable to Hoss. Mason was advised to file a continuance, to allow further time before trial to address any issues and to guard against a mistake.
On December 4, 1970, Fatkin and Robb petitioned for their client’s transfer to Cumberland several days before the start of trial. In addition, Hoss had requested the presence of two witnesses (secret partners in his escape plan), Richard Mayberry and Frank Phelan. Contrary to Hoss’s earlier claims, neither witness was was elderly, fatally ill, plagued by dimming memory, or scheduled to return to Viet Nam. Both men were criminals, and no ordinary ones at that.
Mayberry was considered extremely dangerous. Initially sent to a juvenile facility for armed robbery in 1957, Mayberry had within a few years accumulated a substantial record of inciting riots and attempting jail breaks. He’d also shot another inmate with a zip gun. Maryland authorities learned that it was Mayberry, along with two others, who had been charged in 1965 with holding a hostage within the walls of Western Penitentiary and exchanging gunfire with three guards. Then, when all three were housed for trial at Allegheny County Jail in late 1966, it was ringleader Mayberry who had made an incredible escape. Any corrections official who’d ever known the daring Mayberry categorized his intelligence as being within the top 1% of all criminals.
Frank “Hatchetman” Phelan was likewise no dimwit. With an IQ of 117, he was considered bright-normal by the psychologists. Whereas Mayberry had a spare frame, Phelan was a menacing 6 feet, 3 inches, and 220 pounds. A former boxer and extremely brutal, he had been called before the Athletic Commission after his one pro fight for the terrific beating he gave his opponent. At age thirty-one, Phelan had accumulated a record of assaults, gun possession, and a prison break, but he reached the big time as a hit man.
Philadelphia restaurateur Jack Lopinson preferred his mistress, a model and part-time actress, to his wife. Wife Judy, a winsome brunette and former art teacher, was in the way. So Lopinson hired Phelan to do away with her for ten thousand dollars. Phelan did so—with a couple shots to Judy’s head. However, both Phelan and Lopinson (who never did pay up) were caught, convicted, and sentenced to death. To separate the two in prison, Lopinson was incarcerated at Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary while Phelan was sent to Western Penitentiary (a cell over from Stanley Hoss), although not before he had caused brain damage in another inmate by clubbing him with a pipe.
Given their histories and prospects, Mayberry, doing twenty to forty years and with more charges hanging over him, and Phelan, facing execution—the King of Terrors—readily threw in with the ever-ominous Stanley Hoss and his scheme to escape.
Hearing of the alarming credentials of Hoss’s “witnesses,” and smelling a rat, Don Mason huddled with Judge Getty. The two concluded Hoss was obviously requesting a trial to effect an escape. Mason and Getty also considered their ancient brick jail, its twelve cells usually host to the town drunks and some minor-league thieves, and concluded that to bring from Pennsylvania three dangerous men, escape artists all, would be, to say the least, imprudent. Mason and Getty agreed on a delay, at least until Hoss’s appeal of his Pennsylvania death sentence had been finally litigated. Ironically then, it was Hoss himself who handed Mason “good cause” to file for a continuance.
Good cause or not, Hoss’s defense counsel objected to any continuance, so the issue was to be decided just into the new year by Judge Getty.
Judge Getty sat, biding his time, within Cumberland’s fourth courthouse. A tavern had served as the first courthouse in the late 1700s; the second had been built across the street, with a small jail behind it; and the third, built somewhat larger, had burned down years later. The fourth courthouse—still standing and still in use—had opened for business on Washington Street in 1904. It is a handsome building, three stories of red brick, with a steep roof and prettily gabled with gargoyles peering down from on high.
Getty had been Don Mason’s predecessor as state’s attorney before becoming a circuit court judge, and the intricacies of the Peugeot case were now before him. In the early afternoon of January 5, 1971, the 6 foot 5 inch Getty eased himself into his high-backed leather chair and asked Don Mason, as filer for the continuance, to go first. “The state is asking for a continuance on two bases,” explained Mason. “One, is the Interstate Detainer Act, under which Mr. Hoss has requested a speedy trial, applicable, since he is under a death sentence? Secondly, if the court should decide it is applicable, then we feel the Peugeot case here should be continued until Pennsylvania’s case is finished, because if his death penalty is upheld it would be moot to have any trials here.” Mason’s argument clearly ran against the strong public sentiment to see Hoss tried for his unblinking terrors.
Expanding on the first of his two reasons, Mason argued that the purpose of the Interstate Detainer Act was to enable prisoners to obtain a speedy trial so not to obstruct programs and rehabilitation. “But the state believes,” Mason explained, that “one who is under the death sentence doesn’t fit the definition of one who is serving a sentence. With a death sentence, there is no concern for prisoner rehabilitation. Lastly, there is no ‘Term of Imprisonment,’ here, as a death sentence is not a term of imprisonment.”
Speaking for the defense, Louis Fatkin partially conceded Mason’s point about rehabilitation but countered, “It doesn’t matter because, in all criminal prosecutions, every man has a right to a speedy trial. Our client resists postponement. The act is an important guarantee to prevent oppressive incarceration prior to trial.”
Fatkin’s partner, John Robb, now jumped in. “The Pennsylvania case may get reversed. Nobody knows. Our client submitted three times for a speedy trial. Though under death, Mr. Hoss is currently serving ten to twenty years on another charge, rape, I believe. We believe there is no necessity for any postponement.” Then Robb said something that played into Mason’s hands: “It is not inconceivable that the death sentence may be set aside in Pennsylvania, but assuming that to be so, then I think Mr. Hoss has the right to a speedy trial.”
Was this a blunder? If taken at Robb’s word, why should not Getty order a continuance, with the case to resume if or when Hoss’s death penalty was overturned?
Mason had the last word. “As we’ve all agreed, we have before us a novel question under the act. There have been no previous cases on this subject that we could find, but we think it only reasonable to ask for a continuance until Mr. Hoss’s Pennsylvania death sentence has been adjudicated.”
“Thank you kindly, gentlemen, for your able discussion of the issues,” said Judge Getty. “I’ll study the statutes, then render a decision as soon as I have opportunity to do so.”
. . .
As Hoss waited to hear the result of his stratagem, he occupied some of his time writing letters.
Dear Diane,
I’m putting more weight on. I stick to my 1,000 pushups a day to pass the time. I never thought I’d see the day, but I stopped drinking coffee. What I was getting was like dish water. I don’t know what happened in Maryland. The 11th of January came and went and I haven’t heard anything. Diane, I know some time this month is your birthday. I know it’s near Washington’s Birthday. Can you tell me?
Are you reading about Lubresky pinning the shit on me?
Without the man he’d hoped to be the star witness in his behalf, Tom Lubresky went on trial for the workhouse escape. After several attempts by his attorney, Wendell Freeland, to delay prosecution, Lubresky was called to answer on January 13, 1971. Lubresky had believed all along that his buddy Stanley would lie for him, but Hoss told officials he did not want to testify as he might incriminate himself. So Lubresky proceeded to lie on his own. The thirty-year-old’s blue pinstripe suit did little to cultivate respectability. He looked like a career ditch digger at a funeral.
In addition to presiding at Hoss’s trial for Zanella’s murder, Samuel Strauss had been the judge who had sentenced Lubresky to the prison term he was serving when he escaped with Hoss. Now Strauss watched the jurors listen to Assistant District Attorney Michael Fisher introduce workhouse witnesses to explain how Hoss and Lubresky had pulled off their escape: the skylight smashed, the iron bars sawed and bent. Fisher avoided using Hoss’s name for fear of improperly influencing the jury, only to watch Lubresky’s own attorney, Wendell Freeland, admit that Hoss had been Lubresky’s fellow escapee. On the stand, Lubresky described first meeting Hoss while lifting weights in the workhouse yard. Lubresky’s next words made clear why Freeland wanted Hoss’s name linked to his client’s: “Stanley made me! On that night,” stuttered an aggrieved Lubresky, “Stanley called me to his cell an’ pulled a gun, said, ‘I’m escapin’ an’ you’re comin’ with me.’ He held me at gunpoint an’ even hit me in the head, then took me straight to that skylight. I guess he picked me ’cause I was strong an’ tall enough to do what he wanted.”
“You’re at gunpoint by the skylight,” said Freeland. “What then?”
“Stanley had these sheets an’ made me tie ’em into a rope. He made me climb down first to see if they’d hold. I went down scared, but when Stanley was on his way down I ran to the riverbank. He yelled at me, ‘I’ll get you, I’ll kill you.’”
Lubresky went on to claim that an unidentified friend had driven him to Indiana, Pennsylvania, where he hid out with an elderly woman, and that he’d wanted to give himself up—but only to the one person he trusted, a cousin of his who was a policeman in New Jersey. “The old woman gave me money to get to New Jersey,” explained Lubresky. “I was in a bus station in New York City when I called my wife. She told me Stan killed a cop and a manhunt was goin’ on. I was too afraid to return, an’ went to Boston an’ worked as a carpenter for a while before goin’ to California. I couldn’t stand the pressure no more. That’s why I shot up the bar in Burbank, so’s to get arrested.” Freeland thought Lubresky’s performance was good. All that was needed was Kleenex so his woebegone client could dab his eyes.
The jury members, however, were unswayed by the theater in the courtroom. After an untaxing deliberation, they found Lubresky guilty of prison breach. Freeland told Strauss he would appeal, but if that failed, his client faced ten years in prison.
. . .
Meanwhile, back in Maryland, Judge Getty had not yet ruled on the continuance, so on January 21, 1971, just days after the 180-day speedy trial period expired on January 18, 1971, Hoss’s attorneys filed a motion for a dismissal of the kidnapping charges. Stanley wrote to Diane, “I got a shot. Society has rules. I’m playing by them.”
Then, joyous news for Hoss.
I received an order from the Attorney General of Penn’a. the other day. It said all men now on death row are to be taken out of solitary confinement and returned to general prison population. Next month it’ll be a year in solitary. It’s been pure hell on me.
Governor Milton Shapp agreed, for it was by his direction that Pennsylvania’s condemned were to be removed from death row. For the time, capital punishment remained on the books, but all knew Shapp opposed this sanction.
Born Milton Shapiro, Shapp had changed his name in the late thirties to avoid anti-Semitic prejudice. World War II and revelations of the Holocaust influenced Shapp profoundly. When a successful business career granted him financial independence, Shapp entered politics in the Kennedy era. His stature rose in Pennsylvania, and the 1970 elections resulted in a Democratic Party sweep that gave Shapp the governorship. In this influential position, could he not relieve suffering where he found it?
The late sixties had already brought several initiatives at prison reform, which Shapp embraced. Once he won the governorship, his liberal philosophy began to influence the general tenor of state government, and although it was the attorney general who oversaw the Bureau of Corrections, it was Shapp’s beliefs that trickled down through the attorney general’s office to Hoss and his kind. “On Sunday [February 21, 1971],” Hoss wrote to Diane, “I was taken off death row two days ago and put in population with other guys. I saw a movie for the first time and can do so many things. Today I lifted weights from 5 to 9.”
By the end of the month, Hoss was working in the tag shop making license plates, the best-paying job in the prison. His workday ran from 8:00 A.M. To 3:30 P.M., but he often worked overtime till 10:00 P.M. Sometimes it was close to midnight by the time he showered.
I really like it when I can be out like this. It’s hard to believe how things are changing in here. I heard that in April we’ll be able to buy TV sets to keep in our cells. I was asked to lift weights for the team.
A few days after Hoss’s 28th birthday, he wrote to Diane to say it would be best for them to forget one another. “I don’t know how to say goodbye but it’s the only way you’ll be free of the Hoss name.”
But Diane was not freed, nor was the public.
On March 24, a couple months after Hoss’s defense counsel submitted its motion for a dismissal of the Peugeot charges, Judge Getty responded. He wrote that Hoss’s defense had not been in any way prejudiced by a slight expansion of the rule, under the Interstate Detainer Act, mandating that a trial be scheduled within 180 days of a prisoner’s request for a trial, Getty noted that since Hoss was under sentence of death in Pennsylvania, he wasn’t going anywhere. Getty well knew that while the 180-day rule was firm, it was clay, not stone, and was malleable enough to allow a delay for good cause: an auto accident incapacitating the prosecutor, the illness of a defense attorney, pertinent developments … such unforeseen complications happen every day. And hadn’t Hoss paradoxically engineered his own delay by his demand for bogus witnesses? Still, referencing sixth amendment influence, Getty ruled—to Mason’s surprise—that Hoss was entitled to a speedy trial, although not to an immediate one. Getty denied the motion to dismiss the charges but ruled that the case was to “proceed within a reasonable time.” In Getty’s mind, this was, in effect, issuing a continuance. As a consequence, a new trial date for the Peugeot case was set for the month of May, two months hence.
At the same time, back in Pittsburgh, the papers reported that Hoss’s Pennsylvania attorneys, Snyder and Baxter, had argued before the state supreme court that Hoss’s cop-killing conviction be overturned.
No contact with Diane was apparently too much for Stanley. After five weeks, he wrote again. “Did you see on TV about your famous husband? One day about my trial in Maryland and the next day about a retrial here. How about Rich Zurka? Now he knows what it is like to be in jail.”
For Hoss’s partner in rape to draw a jail term, Kathy Defino had gathered her remaining strength to go to court again, and again Judge Strauss was on the bench. Zurka was tried as an accessory before and after the rape. It came out that the date of the rape was also Zurka’s birthday and that Hoss had joked that Kathy was his present. Kathy said on the stand that while Hoss assaulted her, Zurka hid the auto. When Zurka returned he’d made advances but had refrained from assaulting her after she told him she was sick. Zurka was convicted and in April was sentenced to a term of 11½ to 23 months. Kathy hoped her ordeal was now over.
On the exact day Zurka learned his fate, Hoss’s defense counsel in Maryland, not to be outdone by the Pittsburgh attorneys’ fervor to save Stanley from perceived injustices, fought Judge Getty’s refusal to dismiss all charges in the Peugeot case. Their motion to the Court of Special Appeals necessitated that Hoss’s May trial date be cancelled pending outcome of the appeal.
Hoss’s prison day was busy, but he still carved out time to hate. Referring to a man Hoss felt had slighted him in some way, he wrote Diane, “I’ll tell you, Diane, if I ever get out again the first thing I’m going to do is kill that punk and all his kids. I dream about how they look when I shoot them in the face.”
Aside from concerns about Stanley on the psych front—visits with a psychiatrist were routine for inmates in long-term isolation—prison authorities were making other efforts on his behalf. The dental department made him a three-tooth upper plate. Further, since Stanley had always felt his ears were too large, by midsummer he found himself in the prison hospital, getting his ears reduced in size at taxpayer expense. “You should see me now,” he wrote Diane. “My face and head is all wrapped up like a mummy. I will say they bring in some of the best plastic surgeons there is in Pittsburgh.” He was thrilled with the results once the bandages were removed, writing to Diane, “Everything turned out beautiful. I’m going to get my whole face done.”
If Diane was not visiting him, Jodine was, at least sporadically. Stanley had always told Diane that he’d broken it off with Jodine, saying some callous things along the way: “The only reason I stuck with Jodine is because of the boys. I owe her nothing.” Stanley was lying, of course. He wrote Jodine and she wrote him. That’s how it would be for a while.
Hoss’s relations with his family were becoming more strained, however. Although Hoss’s mother may have missed her son terribly, regular visits by the Hoss parents began to wane, maybe because of the mother’s delicate health or because of the father’s “six pack a night.” In any case, it is a tall order to routinely visit a prison, given time and expense constraints alone. Stanley understood this not at all. If he wanted visits, why shouldn’t his family spend their days providing them? Meanwhile, Hoss worked his job, hit the weights, and hung out with a white clique.
Like most other white prisoners, Hoss was overwhelmed, but personally unintimidated, by the large black prison population. Nevertheless, testing of the new inmate to establish his place in the inmate hierarchy was inevitable. One day in August, Hoss was confronted by a well-muscled black ruffian with an established rep, and his sidekicks. The encounter was probably intended as a typical prison yard gambit, usually not going beyond the taunt for status and bragging rights, but the prize was bigger this time because of the target, the biggest name in the Big House.
Sitting on a crate outside the tag shop, Hoss saw them coming: five blacks with an insolent approach. The leader, whose street name was JoJo, got close enough that his shadow touched Hoss, and stood there shirtless, hair in a large “afro,” with his rangy arms folded in front—an insulting stance, as if Hoss could be cowed by his mere presence. Making to talk to his friends, who spread out behind him, JoJo drawled, “I guess they’re lettin’ baby-killers out in the yard these days.”
Hoss raised himself from the crate with exaggerated slowness, which gave JoJo his first pinprick of nervousness. Facing the taller man with a few feet still between them, Hoss stared with his cold green eyes. “You talkin’ to me, Sambo?”
JoJo, rep on the line, had just been insulted in front of his friends. Hoss’s posture and eyes showed no fear. Locked in a stare-down, JoJo blinked.
A fist, with all the barbell lifts and pushups behind it, crashed into JoJo’s cheekbone. He went down in the same square foot he’d been standing in. Then Hoss kicked him in the face. JoJo’s friends stood still but a glance their way was a challenge: Anyone else? Leaving their leader unconscious and bleeding, they walked away.
Word spread. The whites thought Hoss, baby killer or no, had done an excellent job; the blacks took the incident as a warning: beware of Stanley Hoss. JoJo could not humiliate himself further by snitching. At the prison hospital, getting stitched up, he told officers he’d fallen on a curb. Called to the major’s office, Hoss said he didn’t know what anyone was talking about. Nothing was done. JoJo was being his usual piece of shit … but Hoss bore watching.
This incident was but one of many. Even when Hoss was isolated on death row, the tension in the prison had increased. Blacks were cautioned, “Unless that guy talks to you, it’s best to leave him alone.” Even on the row, locked in his cell essentially round the clock, Hoss on three occasions received misconducts for disobeying orders, intimidation, and threats. The little he had—a newspaper, mail privileges—was taken in punishment for a set period of time. On death row the smallest things are important, yet Hoss would risk all by acting out. It was this type of man who was a “custody problem,” one who’d accept any privation to get his point across. Hoss simply didn’t care.
On September 19, exactly two years after Hoss’s bullet pierced Officer Zanella’s heart, Hoss picked his spot carefully and “bloodied another nigger.” Everyone knew but no one was talking.
. . .
The UPI headline was a thunderclap: “Court Spares Hoss’s Life.” The murder of a police officer, with no question as to who did it … how could this be?
All along, Snyder and Baxter had harped about infringements of their client’s right to a fair trial. In a “spaghetti on the wall” approach, they hurled all sorts of objections at the courts to see what would stick. Eventually their motions worked their way as high as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which studied the litany of complaints one by one. The seven-man court viewed the facts and circumstances in “a light most favorable to the commonwealth”—until the very end, that is. The court dismissed defense objections about pretrial publicity, voir dire, and Miranda concerns. A defense challenge that Hoss’s statement, “If I could have gotten into my car, there would have been some dead Waterloo cops,” was irrelevant also failed to convince the court, which ruled that it revealed Hoss’s belligerent frame of mind when arrested and might have existed when Officer Zanella had tried to apprehend him and died in the attempt. To anyone reading the court arguments, it looked as though the defense was “reaching” as the state’s supreme court rejected each motion in turn.
Yet the heart of the defense’s appeal concerned the sentencing phase of the trial, when the prosecution had put on the stand six witnesses testifying about Hoss’s alleged abduction of the Peugeots. The defense cried foul, and it was here the supreme court paid the most attention. Still, it noted again that under the Split Verdict Act, the jury had the right to hear of Hoss’s prior convictions, confessions, or admissions to aid them in fixing penalty. For the prosecution, then, so far so good.
Then the supreme court qualified its view. Not all such evidence could be presented, only the most reliable. “The testimony of Agent Dunn of the FBI,” it ruled,
mentioned the federal kidnapping indictments against the appellant, Stanley Hoss. Appellant contends this evidence is inadmissible. The jury heard testimony of six witnesses which related aspects of the alleged kidnapping, and one witness who informed of pending federal indictments. The admission of this evidence violated our rule.
In a capital case where a man’s life is at stake, it is imperative that the death penalty be imposed only on the most reliable evidence. Prior convictions of record, and constitutionally valid admissions and confessions meet this standard of reliability; piecemeal testimony about other crimes for which the appellant has not yet been tried or convicted can never satisfy this standard.
Accordingly, the conviction of murder in the first degree is affirmed, but sentence of death is vacated.
The accused of this country are due fair trials but not necessarily perfect ones. Agent Dunn’s testimony regarding pending indictments for kidnapping was a natural outgrowth of Hoss’s admissions and confessions of those very kidnappings, which was perfectly allowable testimony. But the Supreme Court fixed on Dunn’s dozen-word sentence—“Mr. Hoss faces two kidnapping indictments, one in Pennsylvania, one in Maryland”—as judicial error, an error grave enough to overturn Hoss’s death sentence.
It was over. The death sentence was converted to life in prison for the murder of Officer Joe Zanella, and the dumbfounded public was treated to interviews with tweed-coated legal scholars arguing that unless legal principles protect us all, we are all in peril.
Wrote Hoss, “Diane, I live another day.”