32 years after son’s slaying, parents still ask why
For Lavern E. and Donna Wolfe of Uniontown, every day of the past 32 years has been spent wondering. Wondering why their 17-year-old son Jay was in the wrong place and the wrong time and paid with his life. Wondering why someone would kill a young man just growing into adulthood. Wondering why, 32 years later, the person or persons responsible for Jay’s death have not been brought to justice.
“I resent how someone comes into your life, kills your son and upsets your whole family,” Donna said. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.”
Memories of Jay are found all over the Wolfes’ South Union Township home. Much of the artwork he created as a teen-ager hangs on the walls of their home.
Today marks 32 years since Earl Jay Wolfe was found shot to death, slumped over the wheel of his car, along Bennington Road in Hopwood. Police believe he was trailing a dark-colored Lincoln Continental that circled his family’s trucking business in the East End of Uniontown.
His family and police believe Wolfe was unintentionally caught up with men keeping lookout on the home of jeweler Stanley A. Warzinski while others were inside robbing the home. Warzinski was found beaten and burned, his body trapped under a refrigerator, two days after Wolfe’s murder.
“I know that Jay was following that car to get the license plate number, and when the people realized they were being followed, they stopped, got out, shot him once in the eye and twice in the head,” Donna said.
Jay had found out he was accepted to Penn State University just hours before his death, his parents said. A family friend was the first to come upon the car, its windows shattered and Jay barely clinging to life.
The Wolfes, both 74, have received and pursued a number of leads over the past three decades with the help of the state police. They’ve even gone inside prison walls to meet with inmates who claimed they had information to help close their son’s case.
They are convinced they know the three people responsible for their son’s death, and have placed their faith that their work and that of the police will lead to this case finally being closed.
“To this day, when people find out who we are, they ask us if it was our family involved in that double murder,” Lavern said. “People remember this case more than any unsolved murder in Fayette County.”
Donna said, not long after her son’s death, she had a vision of him, glowing and raising his arm.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry Mom, I’m happy,’ and then he went away,” she said. “I was at peace then and I felt that he was in heaven and was happier than we were, so we had to get our acts together and go on living.”
But moving on wasn’t easy. Donna, Lavern and their two other children, Mark and Nancy, all struggled with Jay’s death in their own way.
“Nancy slept beside us for two years, she was so afraid that something would happen, and Mark, he blamed himself for the longest time,” Donna said.
Donna and Lavern moved to Florida for five years before returning to Fayette County in 1993, but thoughts of Jay’s murder and the still-unsolved case remained.
“The good Lord never gives you more than you can bear and adversity, if you are living right, makes you stronger,” he said. “The Lord has made us strong enough to go through these trials and tribulations since Jay was killed.”
Jay’s graduating class at Laurel Highlands High School remembered him by purchasing an eagle replica that still hangs in the school’s library. Members of the Church of the Brethren in Uniontown, where the Wolfes are active members, helped to remember Jay by erecting a hand-hewn cross that still stands the church’s sanctuary.
Several young people benefited from a scholarship fund that was established for a brief time after Jay’s death, his parents said.
While they’ve endured countless rumors and tips from the unlikeliest of sources, the Wolfes remain steadfast in their belief that their first-born son’s untimely killing will not go unpunished.
“We’ll get closure someday,” he said. “With God’s help, we’ll make it, one way or the other.”
Wolfe’s family is still offering a reward for information that will solve the decades-old case. Anyone with information on the case can contact Trooper Daniel J. Venick, who handles cold cases, at the Uniontown state police barracks at 724-439-7111.
Editor’s Note: Herald-Standard staff writer Jennifer Harr contributed to this story.