Born to Lose (34 page)

One afternoon in the summer of 1958, Diane was walking along a dusty road near Tarentum. “There were a couple of boys behind us but we didn't pay them attention. After they caught up, we walked along and talked. I liked the one. He told me his name was Stan Hoss. He seemed older than me a little. Once we got to Main Street, we sat at a counter in a drug store. He bought me a hot dog and a cherry coke. By the time we left the store, I was in love with him.” Stanley the lady-killer.

In rural Cherry Valley near Saxonburg on rainy October 3, 1959, Magistrate Walter E. Flick presided over the wedding vows of Stanley and his fifteen-year-old bride. The Hoss family welcomed Diane with open arms. Diane's family thought Stanley was no good.

Just up the road from the magistrate's office was the one-story stone Hoss house. The newlyweds moved in there with Stan's family after the ceremony. The water was from a well; the bathwater was shared. By the next autumn, Stanley and Diane, Stanley's brother, Harry, and his parents had all taken up residence in the old Carson farm, in its day a wonderful place. However, Officer Dick Curti, who'd been involved in the Defino rape investigation, remembered when the Hosses lived on the Carson farm. “There might as well have been a Keep Away sign in the front yard. Even from a distance, the old house looked forbidding, spooky. The yard around it was untended. It just wasn't the place you'd walk up to to borrow a cup of sugar.”

By this time, Stanley's three half-sisters and one full sister, Betty, had married and moved away, so at least there was plenty of room at the farm for those who remained—and for a new generation. On the last day of November, 1961, Diane gave birth to their first child, a boy, named Stanley Hoss III after his grandfather and father. Over the next decade Diane gave birth to another child every couple of years.

“Though Stanley's dad took to drink pretty heavy,” Diane told Agent Marsh,

I'll say his parents were good people. How they catered to Stanley, though! He was a spoiled brat, viewed himself as Mr. Wonderful. He never wanted to get his hands dirty and was fussy about his appearance. I must say, though, Stan is a good-looking man. Most called him Stanley or by his Polish nickname, Stasiu, but I called him Stan, same as did his sister, Betty, who fawned over him something sickening.

As for my marriage, it was good in the beginning, meaning the first few months. I didn't get hit around much, but that's because Stan once beat me up early and that was enough. After that, I was careful when I saw a certain look in his eyes, but sometimes, too, he'd squeeze hard my wrist or forearm to make a point. Sex? He just used me when he wanted. I didn't feel he really loved me, but still he'd say, “If you ever leave me, I'll kill you.”

It was the winter of '62 to '63 when I learned of other girls. I was pregnant then and didn't know what to do. In the end, I didn't do anything. There was no money and no place to go.

Starting a year after we were married, Stan was in and out of jail. He was never in long, usually for a couple days or a week. But when he'd come home, I was expected to welcome him like nothing happened. Because Stan abandoned himself to leisure and crime, we were on welfare. It was embarrassing to me, but Stan didn't care, and it went on. He never wanted to fit in society. He made money anyway he could with gangsters. I recall more than one mob guy, Mannarinos and all, playing cards in my living room. Stan wasn't Italian, so I suppose he wasn't a bona fide mob member, but they all schemed together.

Agent Marsh didn't know if this information would help in finding and prosecuting Stanley, but his job was to relay anything he got. Minutes before, when Diane had mentioned her husband's sister, Betty, she became animated, a little angry. Marsh let it pass, but Diane's emotions were too odd a reaction. He'd revisit the subject.

“Diane, is Betty someone Stan relies on?”

“She's meaningful to him, yeah. They are to each other. Betty is one of those Nordic-looking beauties. She's nice to me, can't say she's not, but her and Stan adore each other. Those two can sit together and talk like there's no one else in the room. He loves her.”

“Of course,” said Marsh, “but you're not saying … ?”

“I don't know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. As a woman, I have suspicions. But I don't want to speak more on this. I don't know, and that's it.” Marsh made his notes but changed the subject.

“Diane, did Stan, or would he, ever torture animals or insects?”

“No, never!” Diane said vehemently.

“Was there anything in Stan, you know, a cruel streak which might have you believe he could rape or hurt women?”

“Yes, he could,” Diane said simply.

“How does he view authority figures?”

“Stan doesn't like anyone telling him what to do. He has a hate for the law.”

“For anyone else?”

“Yes, for negroes. He hates them, too, maybe more than the law.”

“Do you love him now?”

“No, I don't.” Diane saw no reason to inform Agent Marsh she was three months' pregnant. And it wasn't Stan's.

“Before all this trouble, Diane, did you ever think that Stan could kill?”

“Yes,” was the flat response.

Yes. Stan the killer.

During the hour that Marsh was interviewing Diane, Agent John Porter was doing the same with Jodine Fawkes in the next town over. Porter knew Jodine ran hot and cold, helpful and unobliging by turns. Their contact over time had brought them to a first name basis, and Jodine began,

You'd think this strange, John, but I didn't know Stanley's personal business, but I sensed he did things against the law. He never talked to me about what he did, 'cept one time he told me a story about him and a buddy a few years back getting accused of breaking into Adam's Meat Market in Gibsonia. You seen their sign, “Nobody Beats Adam's Meats.” Well, his buddy's backseat is filled with meat. They take it to his buddy's house. The guy is married and his wife hits the roof. She'll have nothing to do with this. She throws him out and is going to testify against her husband and Stanley, but before this gets too far she said it was all a mistake. Said she didn't see anything, and the case was thrown out. When tellin' me this, Stanley gives me one of his smirks and says, “See honey, I'm innocent after all.”

Like Diane and Stan, Jodine Fawkes was born into poor circumstances. Her father was a coal miner who “had some drinkin'” that brought about his early demise. Years later, she'd lose a brother from the same cause. Jodine managed to get to eleventh grade before dropping out. She helped her mother around the house but was otherwise jobless.

“I was fifteen when I met Stanley at the Torena Dancehall,” Jodine told Agent Porter. “For the longest time, he said his name was Bill Wallace. I
didn't know he was married for about a year.” [This may not be perfect truth as Hoss's wife, Diane, had told Agent Marsh, “I knew all the Fawkes girls. Jo was wild.”]

“What was he like?” Porter asked.

“Stanley was a gentleman. We hung out and had fun. We didn't have sex till six months, maybe. I was a virgin at the time. He drove a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria, licensed and inspected. It was a beautiful car. I never seen him with nothing new. My dad died in '66 but my mom didn't take to Stanley. She said she could see through him and for me to get away, but I was in love and we were happy together.”

Porter encouraged Jodine to continue about her life with Hoss. Sometimes to know the woman is to know the man.

“You know how styles change? I kept up with the hairdos and miniskirts but Stanley stayed the conservative dresser,” Jodine said. “Jeans and regular shirt or white T-shirt. No bell bottoms for Stanley. Hair was kept shorter, always clean-shaven and neat-looking. He never wore tennis shoes but usually a dress shoe, even with his jeans. He always exercised and lifted weights. He looked good, the type of guy who could capture a girl's heart. He did mine. We just laughed and talked together like boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Did you go places?”

“Not really, I mean like other couples who went bowling or to the movies. We never had much money, so our entertainment was simple. We'd go to the Venus Diner on Route 8 and get pie à la mode and coffee. He loved that.”

Jodine's mother was in her chair in the small living room, watching television. She said little more than, “I told my daughter more than once about Stanley, but do young girls listen to their mothers?” She paid no further attention to the FBI man questioning her daughter in the kitchen.

“So you and Stanley went merrily along?”

“Yes and no,” replied Jo.

I loved him very much for a long time, but Stanley's not an easy man. He's demanding, you know, how to dress or wear my hair. Sometimes when I'd tire of him I'd tell him I didn't want to see him no more. He'd get mean, scared me some. He'd never hit me like across the face but he'd squeeze my hand till he hurt me. It was a threat. Stanley always told me, “If I ever see you with anyone, I'll strangle you.” He'd terrorize any guy who was interested in me. Once he threatened to blow up my house. If I would leave him he'd get me back. After a while I just accepted it. And look at me now … I've had three death threats already, people saying I turned in Stanley for blood money.

“We're checking all that out, Jo. It's baloney, crank calls, but we'll be around the house as long as needed.” Changing the subject, Porter asked, “Your kids, how are they?”

“My kids are none of your business,” Jodine said defiantly, without reason.

“I know, I was just wondering when they were born?”

“I won't tell you the day or month, but my first was born in 1967, my second this year.”

“That's Stanley and Michael, right?”

“Yeah, that's right,” Jo said, resigned to answer all these questions.

Porter said carefully, “You know Stanley and Diane's first son is also named Stanley.”

“Yeah, I know. When I first got pregnant, and I think he did that to me on purpose, he decided on the name Stanley, then saying to me, ‘Now my name will go on forever.'”

“He was proud, then?”

“Hell, yeah. He was always playing with Stanley Jr. holding him. He'd like pictures taken of all us together.”

“Michael, too?”

“Stanley was locked up when Michael was born … over that bullshit rape charge, so he saw Michael only once.”

“Oh, when was that?”

Here Jodine felt she slipped up. The Fawn Township cops knew that Jodine, with baby Michael, had met with Hoss after his workhouse escape out at Punch Painter's place, but she sensed the FBI was unaware of this meeting, and she didn't want any more threats about “harboring a criminal.”

“None of your business,” Jodine said. “I just remembered, Stanley never met Michael.” Porter let it go.

Michael was sleeping, but Stanley Jr. toddled over to his mother. Jodine picked him up, and in reflection said to Porter, “Come to think of it, Stanley was in lockup when Stanley Jr. was born, too. He pulled in a gas station, then took off without paying. Stanley was in jail occasionally. When he didn't show up after a time, I knew he was in jail. Then I'd get a letter. It's funny, one time he went to jail he wrote me and said, ‘Be home in six months, so it won't be long.' This was Stanley's thinking: ‘Six months ain't nothing. You take care of the kids and wait for me, be back soon.'”

“But you put up with this?”

“I guess I did.”

Porter sipped on a Pepsi while Jo carried Stanley Jr. to another room with his toys. When she returned, Porter asked how they were fixed for money.

“We hardly had any. When he had some, he'd give me a little. When he didn't, he didn't. He didn't work, at least much. Maybe a job or two, but he always got fired. Said the boss made him do all the work. Stanley said he couldn't be around people telling him what to do. 'Course he does do some grave-digging.”

“Do you know his family … mom, dad?”

“Very well. Like I said, we went few places. My company with Stanley was to his sisters and to his parents. We spent all our time with his family, visit, watch TV, play board games.”

“How did you get along with them?”

Stanley's sisters, brother, and dad accepted me right off, but his mom brought me to my senses all the time about how Stanley had a wife and I shouldn't see Stanley and this shouldn't go on. But overall she welcomed me.

Stanley has a good family. They're in a small place off of Wildwood Road. House is always clean, good meals. The mom and sisters are clean women, attractive women. I mean, he comes from a good source. His mother is very respectable, likes conversation. Father is quiet. Around the house he'd sit and smoke, maybe listen in but wouldn't chime in much. Still, when visiting all together, it was always, “Hi, come on in, let's make some coffee.” Him and his brother Harry are close, would hug one another. Sisters are lively and happy. A lot of laughter. The family seemed to really enjoy each other's company.

The phone rang in the living room. Jodine trotted over so her mom wouldn't have to get up. Jodine held out the receiver, “John, it's for you.”

Porter listened to a brief report of Agent Marsh's interview with Hoss's wife. Porter also heard some strange comments about Betty. Maybe he could follow up?

Sitting back down, Porter said, “Jo, Stanley seems to really care for you.”

“He does.”

“Stanley's brother Harry is in Chicago, but where are the girls, his sisters?”

“Well, the twins—they're half sisters to Stanley—they married and both wound up in California. Mary Jane, we call her Pumpkin, she's around. Betty's married and lives not far from her parents.”

“Isn't Bill Matecka Betty's husband?”

“Yeah, good guy, a mechanic.”

“Jo, is Stanley closer to Mary Jane or Betty?”