Lawrence Co. Cars Being Fire Bombed

New Castle (KDKA) - Auto owners in Lawrence County have reason to be on edge.

Some people are firebombing cars and - in some cases - using Molotov cocktails.

Police are searching for a connection between the crimes.

The results are the same - damaged automobiles.

New Castle Schaefer Automotive Services has been in business for 50 years. Recently, police were called to the business because a car was said to have been burned on the property.

One victim told KDKA's Ross Guidotti that his vehicle suffered superficial damage, but that he and his cars are in hiding.

He also said that if the firebomb would have hit the car in the right spot, this could have been a catastrophe.

They used a Molotov cocktail - a bottle of vodka with kerosene or gasoline in it with a rag sticking out of the end.

New Castle investigators continue to look at the fires.

There is no word on any suspects.

http://kdka.com/topstories/Lawrence.County.fire.2.385289.html

Police make drug arrests at local motels

By Debbie Wachter Morris
New Castle News

Shenango Township police patrolling New Butler Road motels arrested five people this week.

Four allegedly were caught with drug paraphernalia in rented rooms at the Eldorado and Shenango motels, police said. One driver leaving the Eldorado allegedly had a stolen semiautomatic handgun under the seat.

In some cases, management told police the tenants with drug paraphernalia were in rooms others had rented, and that two of the men actually had been refused room rentals because they had stayed there previously and stole towels, washcloths and pillow cases. The manager told them they were not allowed back.

They are Antwan Johnson, 41, of Clarksdale, Miss., and Adrian C. Jones, 23, of Louisiana. Police said neither has a permanent local address.

Johnson and Jones, both charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and defiant trespass, are in jail.

Johnson was wanted on a bench warrant and awaits trial for allegedly having shot at someone on Halco Drive in November. He told police he was displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Police Wednesday charged Craig A. Pierce of 1005 Beech St., after pulling him over in a gray Nissan sedan when he left the motel around 1 a.m. Tuesday. The car, where the stolen gun was found, had a broken tail light, a cracked windshield, its registration plate was covered and the inspection sticker had expired.

The car is registered to a Beaver Falls resident.

Police charged Pierce with receiving stolen property, carrying a firearm without a license and driving while his license is suspended.

Police returned to a room at the Eldorado with Pierce in a cruiser. Johnson and Jones were in the room, which a woman had rented, they said.

Police searched it and seized five used hypodermic needles, a digital scale containing suspected cocaine residue, a package of plastic bags and two razor blades with suspected drug residue and more than $750 cash.

In a separate incident, Police went to the Shenango Motel around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday to investigate a suspicious car with the driver’s side door open.

They learned the driver, Aaron Pallerino, 51, of 2062 Moravia St., had rented a room. They knocked on his door and while talking to him, officers saw drug paraphernalia and crack cocaine on the dresser, they said.

Pallerino tried to hide the items, and a woman, later identified as Crystal E. Lowe, 26, of 923 N. Liberty St. went into the bathroom, according to police. Pallerino told police he did not know the woman’s name. She gave police a false name, they said, but later was identified.

Pallerino and Lowe are charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and false information to law enforcement authorities.

Patrolman Robert Sipe said the police have been paying special attention to the motels.

“New Butler Road has the only motels in Lawrence County and we get a lot of drug traffic through there,” he said, adding the problems have moved from the city.

Patrolman Jason Domenick said prostitution also is a problem at the motels. “That’s a main reason, along with drugs, why we’re keeping an eye on it,” he said. “It’s really busy out there at night.”

Eldorado manager Jay Patel said that when someone wants to rent a room and produces a license and identification, “it’s not on anybody’s forehead what they’re going to do.”

He said that whenever the police approach him with a problem, they help each other and work together.

http://www.ncnewsonline.com/archivesearch/local_story_181090937.html

Hearing Postponed: Donald Conti

Hearing postponed

NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A hearing to determine if Donald Conti can remain on the Lawrence County Housing Authority was postponed. Conti was to appear Monday in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court. County commissioners have asked for his removal since Conti pleaded guilty to gambling charges earlier this year. Tom Bashara, the attorney handling the matter for the county, said the hearing was canceled because Judge J. Craig Cox is involved in a trial. A new date hasn't been set.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2006/apr/26/hearing-postponed/

Teens Injured In New Castle Shooting

New Castle (KDKA) - A shooting in Lawrence County sent two teenagers to a Pittsburgh hospital this afternoon, but investigators are still trying to get to the bottom of what exactly happened.

Emergency crews confirmed that two young men -- an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old – suffered gunshot wounds; both were flown via medical helicopter from Jameson Hospital to UPMC Presbyterian.

Police are on the scene now.

Authorities are not releasing the victims' names or conditions at this point.

http://kdka.com/topstories/New.Castle.Shooting.2.382017.html

Attempted Child Abduction

New Castle (KDKA) -

Police in Lawrence County are looking for a woman suspected of an attempted child abduction.

New Castle Police tell KDKA that a 9 year old boy was in a convenience store in Union Township last weekend when they claim a woman followed them to a nearby park.

The woman allegedly tried to grab the boy from the back seat of the family's car.

Next, the woman tried to again abduct the boy--this time--when he was on the playground.

The woman got away.

Anyone with information is asked to call police.

http://kdka.com/topstories/attempted.child.abduction.2.378540.html

Public Corruption - Gary Felasco

Gary Felasco

Action Date: September 29, 2005
Location: New Castle, PA

On September 29, 2005, Gary Felasco, the treasurer of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, was ordered to stand trial on charges he pocketed about $47,000 in tax payments. Felasco was charged with theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received, embezzlement, misapplication of entrusted property and violating the state's ethics act. Felasco allegedly diverted tax money to his personal use and hid the thefts by preventing delinquent property-tax notices from being sent to the people whose payments he stole. The state Attorney General's Office said Felasco used some of the money to pay his own delinquent taxes, buy a van and rent hotel rooms in a neighboring township where authorities have said they received complaints about a sex club Felasco allegedly helped organize.

http://frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=1566

Deaths believed tied to drugs, prostitution

2 women might have been killed by someone stalking drug dens

NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Women so desperate that they will climb into a stranger's car for $20 are getting extra attention from detectives and beat cops.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette
	New Castle police Chief Thomas Sansone says his department raided this former crack house at 421 Waldo St., which doubled as a place of prostitution. His officers also have stepped up neighborhood patrols since the August homicides of two women who may have been prostitutes.

Police have stepped up neighborhood patrols because they believe a killer may be stalking prostitutes who congregate around New Castle's drug dens.

The high alert began around Labor Day, after the bodies of two women were found 60 yards apart in a wooded area of Taylor, a New Castle suburb. Pennsylvania State Police have labeled both women, Mandy Sue McLaren, 24, and Tammie K. Mullins, 36, as prostitutes who became homicide victims.

Dr. Karl E. Williams, a forensic pathologist who performed autopsies on McLaren and Mullins, said neither was shot or stabbed.

But he agreed with the police assessment that the dumping of their bodies, like litter in the brush, seemed to be the work of a killer. Williams said he was doing further testing on tissues to determine how the women died.

In New Castle, McLaren and Mullins were well-known to city police. Both had been accused this year in theft cases. Mullins struggled with drug addiction. McLaren had a felony record, having served five years in jail for third-degree murder in the starvation of one of her twins. The 8-month-old boy died when McLaren was 17.

Despite those troubles, neither woman had a record for prostitution or related crimes, such as loitering. Given this history, New Castle police Chief Thomas Sansone said, he was puzzled by the state's assertion that they were selling themselves on the streets.

"We never arrested either of them for prostitution," he said. "I can't speculate why the state would say that."

Though Sansone said he was not convinced that the women were prostitutes who were killed by a customer, neither could he dismiss the possibility. So he has ordered his 35-member department to spend more time in neighborhoods where the drug and sex trades converge.

"If they were prostitutes, and if customers were picking them up, it's certainly a possibility that they were killed that way," Sansone said.

Pennsylvania State Police officers said street-level sources described McLaren and Mullins as prostitutes who frequented the Big Run apartments, a public housing complex on New Castle's South Side. Neither woman was ever a public housing tenant, said Robert Evanick, executive director of the Lawrence County Housing Authority.

But investigators said McLaren might have stayed for a time in a publicly subsidized apartment that was the listed address of a woman named Stacy Lynn Kendall. Kendall, 19, received a wave of media attention in July after her arrest on suspicion of selling herself to men who were 83 and 71 years old. Police said she charged them $6 and $4.

Perhaps 10 to 15 women in this town of 25,300 people regularly sell their bodies to pay for their next hit of crack or heroin, Sansone said. Most of the prostitution trade is tied to crack houses, which New Castle police were focused on even before the deaths of McLaren and Mullins.

Sansone said his officers had raided four crack houses in the past 30 days. Each building was boarded up after city inspectors hit the owners with building-code violations.

One of those crack houses was at 421 Waldo St., where a prostitute says a customer raped her in April or May. The woman did not report the alleged assault until Aug. 31, the day the bodies of McLaren and Mullins were discovered in the woods south of the city.

State police have arrested Michael R. Tackett, 34, of West Pittsburg, a New Castle suburb, in the rape case.

State Trooper Joseph J. Vascetti filed an affidavit outlining the allegations against Tackett. It says Tackett cruised Long Avenue in his silver pickup truck early one spring morning and met a 31-year-old woman. He told her to follow him to the house on Waldo Street, where he would pay her for sex. She agreed.

But, the woman told police, she reneged when Tackett insisted on anal sex. She said Tackett threw her face-down onto a couch and forced himself on her. At various points during the rape, she said, he pulled a handgun and put her in a choke hold.

Another woman, this one 19, told Vascetti that Tackett had pulled a gun on her the night of Aug. 25. The woman said they were in his truck and he demanded oral sex. She said she refused and was able to get away. He has not been charged in that case.

State troopers used warrants to search Tackett's house and truck and to obtain samples of his hair, blood and saliva. Since then, they have said they do not consider Tackett a suspect in the deaths of McLaren or Mullins. He is free on bail.

Perhaps the only certainty about the homicide case is that McLaren and Mullins died at different times.

Lawrence County Coroner Russ Noga estimated that Mullins' body had been in the woods three to four weeks before it was found. In contrast, McLaren's body was there two to four days.

Mullins' husband, Jeffrey, reported her missing Aug. 5, a few days after he said he last saw her. Sansone said Jeffrey Mullins had told her to leave their home because of her habitual drug use. Even when they lived together, she often disappeared for a few days at a time, Sansone said.

Jeffrey Mullins reported her missing this time because she did not cash a government benefits check as soon as it arrived, Sansone said.

No missing-person report was filed on McLaren. Police are checking tips that she was seen getting into a pickup truck Aug. 26, five days before her body was found.

Even with two unsolved deaths hanging over the town, police have no expectation that prostitution will lessen. Sansone said women who court strangers to pay for their addictions want nothing to do with his officers or their warnings.

First published on September 11, 2005 at 12:00 am

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/569382-85.stm#ixzz0PrztxYFq