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The 2014 Year In Review

By Messenger Staff 17 min read
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Roberto M. Esquivel|Herald-Standard

A natural gas well site permitted to Chevron and located in Dunkard Township, Greene County, burns after an explosion on Feb. 11.

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In this September 2012 photo, Jason William Roe of Daisytown is led from a Greene County courtroom following a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Lou Dayich. Roe was charged in the shooting death of Cordele Edward Patterson of Grindstone. A Greene County judge ordered Roe to serve a madatory life sentence without parole first-degree murder on Jan. 29.

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Lana Kay Roe is escorted by Chief Deputy Sheriff Joe French into a courtroom at the Greene County Courthouse in Waynesburg. Roe was found guilty by a Greene County jury of first-degree murder for her role as an accomplice in the death of 38-year-old Cordele Edward Patterson, as was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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A gas well site permitted to Chevron and located in Dunkard Township exploded in the early morning hours of Feb. 11, resulting in a fire that claimed the life of a worker, Ian McKee, 27.

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Bill DeWeese

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A panel of Superior Court judges issued an opinion on April 21 affirming the sentence of Scott Baker (pictured on right) who pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife in 2009 and soliciting his 12-year-old son's help to pull it off.

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A crew with the demolition company Noralco Corp. of Pittsburgh began working in late June on the demolition of the former People’s National Bank building on High Street in Waynesburg.

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John Lohr

PART ONE OF TWO

As another year winds down, the Greene County Messenger is taking a journey back in time to review the biggest local news stories that occurred in 2014.

Throughout the year, there was never a shortage of big news that impacted the small rural corner of the Commonwealth, and the Messenger was there to cover it all every step of the way.

Join us as we review the most memorable news stories that grabbed Greene County’s attention this past year, a comprehensive look back at what happened in our communities and neighborhoods over the past twelve months.

The 2014 Year in Review will be published in two installments. This week, we focus on the biggest news stories that occurred in the first six months of the year.

(NOTE: The following articles are presented in chronological order. They are NOT listed by order of importance or precedence.)

Roe gets life sentence in Greene fatal shooting

Greene County Judge William Nalitz on Jan. 29 ordered a Washington County man to serve a mandatory life sentence without parole for first-degree murder, plus 2 to 4 years in prison for aggravated assault.

Jason Roe, 33, of Daisytown was found guilty in November 2013 by a Greene County jury of fatally shooting his friend and neighbor, Cordele Patterson, 38, after luring Patterson to a hunting cabin near Spraggs in Wayne Township on August 14, 2012.

Roe was also found guilty of aggravated assault for shooting his wife, Lana Kay Roe, 41, in the face with a shotgun. Jason Roe declined to comment prior to his sentencing.

The guilty verdict was determined Nov. 15, 2013 following five hours of deliberation.

During Jason Roe’s trial in the fall of 2013, it was stated that Jason Roe took Patterson to the remote cabin the day before the shooting and left him there, then returned the next day with his wife, after stopping on the way to purchase a shotgun.

Arriving at the cabin, Lana Roe allegedly called Patterson outside. Patterson came out with a cell phone, cigarettes and a lighter, Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers said in her closing argument at the trial. Jason Roe told jurors that he shot Patterson in self-defense.

Chambers contended that Jason Roe believed Patterson had some of his possessions, including weapons. The Roes testified that Patterson had stolen four Jeep-loads of belongings from them which Jason Roe said they found in Patterson’s trailer. Chambers argued that the items had been given to Patterson by Lana Roe while the couple was separated.

Jason Roe’s first blast from the shotgun struck Lana Roe in the face and Patterson ran back into the cabin, where he was shot several times with the shotgun and died.

In April, a Greene County jury found Lana Roe guilty of first-degree murder for her role as an accomplice in the fatal shooting.

Lana Roe was sentenced by President Judge William Nalitz to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the mandatory term for murder in the first degree. She was also given time served for making a false burglary report, of which the jury also found her guilty.

Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers argued during her trial that Lana Roe falsely accused Patterson of burglarizing the Roes’ home days before the murder. The false report was made on the night Jason Roe moved back into the home, following a brief separation during which Lana Roe said she was trying to split from her abusive husband for good, according to testimony.

Chambers contended the Roes drove out to the cabin with Jason Roe seething because he believed Patterson had robbed him. Chambers told jurors that Lana Roe knew her husband intended to kill Patterson, and that by doing as Jason Roe instructed and going into the cabin to coax Patterson out, she was just as guilty as her husband who pulled the trigger.

According to Chambers’ closing arguments, the fact that Jason Roe shot Lana Roe in the face before chasing Patterson into the cabin and killing him could be attributed to her not squatting down fast enough when she gave her husband the signal to fire on the victim.

Gas well explodes in Dunkard Township

One of the biggest Greene County new stories this year occurred in the early morning hours of Feb. 11 when an explosion rocked the Lanco 7H Marcellus shale well pad in Dunkard Township near Bobtown and resulted in a fire that continued through the week and the death of a worker.

Ian McKee, 27, of Warren, a field technician for Cameron International and a contractor working at the well, was killed in the explosion and a co-worker was injured.

The Lanco 7H gas well exploded, caught fire and then ignited the adjacent 6H well. The fire from the wells burned periodically for five days. The fire would go out but then reignite when escaping gas came into contact with superheated equipment near the well heads. The wells were capped on Feb. 23 and 25.

Chevron, which leases the Lanco 7H well on Water Tank Road, said that crews from Wild Well Control of Houston, Texas, were able to cap the wells after working at the site for more than a week.

The Lanco 7H well was permitted to Chevron in January 2012 and drilled two months later, according to Greene County statistics.

In March, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited Chevron Appalachia for allegedly failing to prevent the explosion and fires, the release of natural gas and other hazardous substances, and hindering state emergency crews from accessing the site.

The well site that exploded was cited in December by the state Department of Environmental Protection for laying a production pipeline without proper permits, according to DEP data.

According to DEP Office of Oil and Gas Management Compliance Reports, Chevron Applachia LLC was issued a violation Dec. 9 for “failure to comply with terms and conditions of permit.”

More specifically, “the operator had constructed a production pipeline across the well pad and access road, without approval with a major modification to the permit,” the inspection comments said.

Chevron was issued a DEP notice of violation Dec. 19.

DEP officials said the violation at that site was not related to the wells.

DeWeese released from prison

Former state Rep. Bill DeWeese was released from state prison in Retreat in northeastern Pennsylvania on March 2 after finishing his sentence for political corruption.

The 63-year-old former House speaker and minority leader was serving a 2½- to 5-year sentence for using public employees and taxpayer resources for political purposes. He was eligible for parole because as a first-time, nonviolent offender he must serve only 75 percent of his minimum sentence.

DeWeese will be subject to special monitoring and restrictions until the end of his maximum sentence in 2017, according to the state parole board.

DeWeese, an ex-Marine who had a penchant for bow ties and a grandiloquent speaking style, served 35 years in the House, including many years in Democratic leadership and one term as speaker.

He was among 22 House lawmakers and staff members — 13 Democrats and nine Republicans — who were convicted or pleaded guilty to corruption charges as a result of an investigation by the state attorney general’s office that began in 2007.

A Dauphin County jury convicted DeWeese of conspiracy, conflict of interest and theft in February 2012 for using his position to persuade or force employees to illegally perform campaign work and misusing public resources for political purposes.

Judge Todd Hoover called DeWeese “the instigator” of illegal campaign activities in the House Democratic caucus. In April 2012, he sentenced DeWeese to prison, fined him $25,000 and ordered him to pay nearly $117,000 in restitution.

DeWeese kept his House seat for more than two months after he was convicted, deferring his resignation until the day he was sentenced because the constitutional ban on felons serving in the state Legislature is not triggered until a sentence is imposed.

Back in his Greene County district, voters nominated DeWeese for re-election in the April 2012 primary and he stayed on the ballot until a state judge ruled four months later that his conviction and imprisonment made him ineligible for re-election.

DeWeese’s official portrait hangs among those of other House speakers in a corridor on the main floor of the Capitol. It is not far from the portrait of John Perzel, a Philadelphia Republican who was charged in the same investigation, pleaded guilty to similar charges and was paroled from prison last month after serving a sentence identical to DeWeese’s.

Two former lawmakers convicted in the scandal — former Rep. Mike Veon, D-Beaver, and former Rep. Brett Feese, R-Lycoming — remain in prison and will not be eligible for parole before June 2015, according to the parole board.

Superior Court upholds Greene County man’s murder conviction

A panel of Superior Court judges issued an opinion on April 21 affirming the sentence of a Greene County man who pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife in 2009 and soliciting his 12-year-old son’s help to pull it off.

Scott Baker, 42, of Nemacolin pleaded guilty after seven days of trial testimony in December 2011 to a general count of criminal homicide, and admitted to strangling and slashing the throat of 30-year-old Melissa Baker.

Greene County President Judge William R. Nalitz handed down a mandatory term of life imprisonment after a jury heard the facts of the case and decided his degree of guilt.

Scott Baker appealed to the Superior Court in 2012, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial, as well as the admission of certain pieces of evidence and the instructions given to jurors.

In an opinion authored by Superior Court President Judge Emeritus Kate Ford Elliott, the panel of judges — including Elliott, Judge Jacqueline O. Shogan and Senior Judge Eugene B. Strassburger — rejected each of Scott Bakers challenges.

The judges first pointed out that challenges to sufficiency of evidence are not properly argued before the appellate court. No relief is due when an appellant questions whether the evidence was sufficient for jurors to consider, only when the questions deal with the weight of the evidence, Elliot noted.

“Nevertheless, we find the Commonwealth provided sufficient evidence to prove each element of first-degree murder,” Elliott wrote.

To convict a defendant of first-degree murder, prosecutors must prove that a human being was unlawfully killed, the defendant was responsible for the killing and the defendant acted with malice and a specific intent to kill, Elliott wrote, and through both direct and circumstantial evidence, the prosecution proved all three.

At trial, District Attorney Marjorie Fox successfully argued that Scott Baker recruited his son from a prior relationship, Nathaniel Baker, to use as an alibi in his plot to kill Melissa Baker, whose 20-month-old son, Brett Baker, was present during the murder.

During the trial, Nathaniel Baker testified that his father told him that his stepmother was going to “disappear” and then formed a plan to kill her while Nathaniel Baker went to the bathroom at her mobile home. Nathaniel Baker also said his father kept him home from school on that day and instructed him to tell the police that they were at home all day when the killing occurred.

During his testimony, Scott Baker said he “blacked out” after arguing with his wife, and when he came to, he was on top of her with his forearm around her neck. Contrary to the prosecution’s claims, Scott Baker maintained that he didn’t recruit his son to help him plan his wife’s murder because there was no plan.

The Superior Court also disagreed with Scott Baker’s contention that he was not able to form intent because he was using alcohol prior to the incident. The appellate judges found that the prosecution correctly argued that his use or abuse of alcohol was not a valid defense against the homicide charge.

“The mere fact of intoxication does not give rise to a diminished capacity defense,” the court’s opinion stated.

In addition to the life sentence for first-degree murder, Baker was sentenced to consecutive sentences of 10 to 20 years for criminal solicitation to commit homicide and 1 to 2 years for intimidation of a witness, as well as two concurrent 3- to 6-month sentences for tampering with evidence and criminal solicitation to commit tampering of evidence.

In a dissenting opinion filed along with the court’s affirmation of sentence, Strassburger wrote that while he concurred with the other jurists that the majority of Scott Baker’s claims on appeal did not entitle him to relief, he did not believe sufficient evidence was presented to convict the defendant of intimidation of a witness.

While Scott Baker argued that the prosecution did not establish proof of any force, threat, intimidation or other means of causing Nathaniel Baker to act, the Superior Court found that there was no requirement that prosecutors establish that a threat was actually made. A father telling his 12-year-old son to do something, especially one who is “an imposing physical figure,” is intimidating, the court found.

Strassburger disagreed, writing that the father instructed his son and his son complied, but that was not enough to support a conviction for witness intimidation in light of established case law.

“While (Scott Baker’s) conduct in using his young son to assist him in committing murder may have been reprehensible, this alone does not support appellant’s conviction,” Strassburger concluded.

Scott Baker is currently serving his sentence at the State Correctional Institution at Albion in Erie County.

Historic Waynesburg building demolished

Despite efforts by concerned residents to prevent the demolition of the former People’s National Bank Building on High Street in downtown Waynesburg, crews began tearing down the structure on June 23.

Dozens of spectators watched from the front of the county courthouse as crew members from the demolition company Noralco Corp. of Pittsburgh used heavy equipment to begin the demolition. The work took about a month to be completed.

The building’s demolition was the subject of much public discussion and some controversy, as several residents had publicly voiced their opposition to the demolition.

On March 6, Waynesburg University issued a press release announcing that it had purchased the six-story building and property located at 57 E. High St., which had been vacant for more than 20 years and was once the home of People’s National Bank and the county offices. In that release, the university claimed it was looking at options for the building but was “committed to the long-term safety and prosperity of the borough of Waynesburg.”

The release stated that “with falling glass and brick, (the building’s) current rundown state resulted in the borough closing the alley that runs alongside the building. Over the years, many potential developers have evaluated the redevelopment potential of the building. In each instance, they ultimately walked away.”

The university applied for a demolition permit, and on June 4, the application was approved by K2 Engineering, Inc. of Uniontown, Waynesburg Borough’s engineer, according to borough officials.

In a letter written and distributed to various media outlets earlier this month, Mary Beth Pastorius, president of Pastorius Historic Properties Inc. of Waynesburg, stated she was informed that the university had applied for the demolition permit, and because she believed that issuance of the permit was imminent, she was pleading with borough council and the leadership of the university to “stop this madness and begin engaging in open, cooperative town-and-gown relations with the wider business community to develop a plan for adaptive reuse of the People’s Bank building.”

“Tearing down this structurally sound, modern steel frame building makes no sense, especially when the university has not been required to reveal its plans for the site,” she wrote in the letter.

Pastorius’ letter also stated that four years ago she walked through the building with, among others, architect Ken Kulak and structural engineer Frank Avbel, and they assessed the building to be structurally sound.

Pastorius also stated that the university’s claims of no one being interested in rehabilitating the building was untrue.

“I know two reputable developers who were quite interested in this building two years ago but were told by a borough official, ‘Hands off, the university wants it,'” the letter states. “This is in addition to the plans proposed last fall by (former building owner) John McNay and Marty Padezanin. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation continues to be interested as well…Quite frankly, People’s Bank has not been given a fair chance at adaptive reuse.”

To urge the Greene County commissioners to take action to prevent demolition, Pastorius was joined by David Farkas, director of Main Street Programs for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and Lisa Schwarz, a concerned resident, to voice their concerns regarding the matter at a commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, June 19.

At the meeting, Pastorius said the building is “a contributing building in the Waynesburg District of the National Register of Historical Places,” and she asked the commissioners to consider several actions, including: Sending a letter to the university to ask them to halt demolition plans immediately and begin working with the county, borough and community to explore options for adaptive reuse and rehabilitation; instructing the county planning commission to begin reviewing all commercial developments and major alterations to buildings in downtown Waynesburg; and asking the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) to send a letter to the university warning of requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requiring review before altering a contributing building in a National Register District.

Pastorius concluded her comments at the meeting by stating that “demolition is not a solution to vacant or blighted buildings because it destroys the tax base and discourages economic revitalization. Downtown Waynesburg has already lost too many buildings. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and tell the university ‘No.'”

Commissioners also heard comments from Farkas and Schwarz, who both echoed and supported Pastorius’s concerns and urged the commissioners to take action. Farkas talked about Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s interest in the area and in looking into ways to help foster restoration of historic assets in downtown Waynesburg.

Later that same day, the university issued a press release stating that the building was in a severely run-down physical state and that the significant costs of required improvements were prohibitive.

It also claimed that estimates of renovating the building would be at least three times the cost of building a new building with all modern safety and code features.

Carmichaels man gets up to 20 years for child sexual assault

A Greene County judge sentenced a Carmichaels man in June to up to 20 years in jail for sexually assaulting a boy repeatedly over the course of four years.

John Robert Lohr, 57, pleaded guilty in February to involuntary deviate sexual assault of a person under 16, corruption of minors and indecent assault, and no contest to sexual assault before President Judge William R. Nalitz.

Lohr was sentenced on June 20 to 10 to 20 years in prison for the involuntary deviate sexual assault charge. The sentences for the other charges were ordered to run concurrently.

Lohr is a former member of the advisory board for Greene County Children and Youth Services.

The victim, now in his early teens, testified at a preliminary hearing last fall that Lohr gave him energy drinks to keep him awake during the assaults, which occurred at various places in Carmichaels and West Virginia. He testified that he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times between October 2009, and Aug. 14.

The Greene County Messenger does not identify victims in sexual assault cases.

The teen testified he always told Lohr no, and on many occasions tried to physically fight off the abuse.

He told the court he was afraid that he or another family member would be killed by Lohr. He testified that Lohr routinely threatened to kill him or his family if he disclosed the assaults.

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