Born to Lose (60 page)

But what is this thing that time cannot kill but only your mocking can kill? I'll tell you but it reveals how weak I really am and always have been. I'm not ashamed of this for my weakness is you, Diane. I love you. You no longer love me? But what if you did? You can't murder memories. Live life in the present, Diane, but don't deny we once loved greatly and equally.

The evil within me drives me to act like a devil, a madman, a beast. I admit these things. I have wronged you but I love you. What difference how many girls I have fascinated? You are the only girl I have ever loved. I'll love you past death.

Leave me my memories. Let me love you and the kids. I'm not so insane as to expect you visit me or let the kids visit, but you know our kids represent the joys of our love. Why deny that our kids are our kids? We have our happy memories. We have our kids.

I have lost you and lost sight of our kids. My heart bleeds, my blood screams, but Diane, can't we declare a truce? I started the war between us. You ended it. You have conquered me. Can't you tolerate me to the extent that you occasionally write and let me know about you and the kids?

Diane, they keep me caged around the clock. They won't even let me out of my cell for exercise. I pace this cage. I stalk it. I hate it and hate all these people, all these pigs, all these cowards. Every day, every hour, every minute that my hate is not burning my mind, I think of you and our kids.

Diane, nourish my memories or kill me outright. Please write.

. . .

It was early, 4:00 A.M. on Wednesday, December 6, 1978, when Hoss re-inforced blue shoestring with a strip of denim, then fashioned the length into a noose.

Some prisoners would lose track of time, but Stanley always knew what day it was. He was also aware that ever since the morning he'd stabbed Geno Spruill he'd been held in isolation: 2,311 days. Door Welded Shut. Of that incident he'd written to reporter Tony Klimko, “I could have killed Geno then but decided to let him live just to show him God is white.” This was one thing he might miss—the intermittent correspondence he'd taken up with Klimko, or KDKA's Bill Burns, and a select few other media personalities. Burns once wrote that the quickest way for someone to make a rep in prison is to “become the man who kills Stanley Hoss.” Stanley liked that. “You know,” he'd told inmate Gergel, “like, the king is dead, long live the king.”

As a marked man, why then, Hoss reasoned, couldn't he be released to population? He knew the administration wanted him dead, so this was a way to do it. But no one would play along, nor would the prison system forgive him for Peterson, even a little. He'd never get out of isolation, not until he was found some time in the next century sitting on his bunk as a skeleton.

His pleading letter to Diane had brought no reply. Even if one arrived that day or the next, its very delay showed him what small importance he had, how little he'd become.

Never an untidy cell-keeper, Hoss gathered the few items he had—a book or two, a pile of yellowing newspaper clippings, prison garb—and put all neatly in a corner with a note in his careful penmanship requesting that his “last effects” be sent to a woman who'd been a recent visitor, one who, like the others, had read about him and wanted to meet him. It was to her, just the day before, that Hoss had spoken of suicide. By the end of the visit, she thought she'd talked him out of it.

At 7:50 A.M., a guard came by on his rounds. When he peered into the cell, Hoss nodded but said nothing. Once the guard continued along Hoss knew he'd have enough time unobserved, uninterrupted. He dipped his finger in a small container of red paint he'd hidden away and wrote a message on the wall.

“I cannot deny this urge to die, to put an end to what has been this agony called life.”

Once done, he tied the makeshift rope to his cell bars, slipped his head in the noose, then—unrepentant, secrets held within—prisoner #P-0310 dropped to his knees and fell forward.

Over his long run of crimes, spanning more than a decade, Stanley Hoss's very name became synonymous with a danger, something very bad. In western Pennsylvania, boys played “Cops and Hoss” rather than “Cops and Robbers.” When darkness descended over yards, fields, and woods, mothers called out back doors for their children, warning them not of the boogeyman but “Time to come in or Stanley Hoss will get you!” His transformation from killer to dark legend had begun.

How did Hoss die? The coroner's report said, “asphyxiation by strangulation.” His death was listed as a suicide, but that didn't stop wide speculation, theories. His longtime mistress, Jodine Fawkes, believed he was “officially murdered,” while his ex-wife Diane does “not for a minute believe he took his own life”—if only because “he loved himself too much.” General barroom talk, along with conspiracy theorists, wishful thinkers, and lovers of a good mystery all pegged the death as an “administrative hit”—a theory unfounded, of course. One thing was for sure, though: no sympathy was expressed for the inimical Hoss.

Asaline Peterson has always believed divine intervention ultimately rights all wrongs. When visited by the press the day Hoss died, Asaline told of her trust in God, “but these past five years have been terrible. I remember Hoss in those horrible courtroom scenes, not man but animal, with no insides. I have never been in prison but I think I know what life is like there. My life now is just like being in prison.”

Life was as hard for her son, Walter Jr. In the years following his dad's death, Walter Jr. lost boyhood joy and his grades slipped. “Mom,” he would say, “the man only got ten years … maybe someday he'll come back and get me.” No child should bear such worry, but Walter Jr. eventually improved. Same for Asaline, but her improvements were marginal, her happiness never to approach what she'd had with her husband by her side. An unremitting anguish forced her from her job in 1976. Her sparkling
personality had disappeared, replaced by skittishness and paranoia, her person beset with dramatic weight loss, then gain, and back again. There were periods when the melancholy would lift, but Asaline was never again whole. Despite her relative youth, Asaline did not remarry but stuck close to Mt. Olive Baptist Church—and the church stuck by her. Except for spells of exceptional debilitation, Asaline was the church organist for sixty years. It was as close to peace as she got. She is now eighty years old and loves her Lord and her church.

There was, though, that prideful moment when “Pete's” son, Walter Jr. became a Pennsylvania state trooper. He serves today.

As of October 3, 2010, Reverend William Callaway had reached the notable milestone of serving Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Clairton, Pennsylvania, for forty-eight years.

. . .

A clandestine funeral? No one had heard of such a thing, but that was the arrangement made for Stanley Hoss.

J. R. Sewicki of Sewicki Funeral Home accepted Hoss's body for “the mother's sake.” He, along with local police and the Stocklein family (owners of Lakewood Cemetery, where Hoss was to be buried), worried over the likelihood of disruption, an unseemly following, or the carnival atmosphere publicity might bring, with Hoss's body being honored by all the wrong people. In the supreme irony, therefore, it was in the strictest secrecy that the region's most famous criminal was quickly mourned and buried. After being transported to Sewicki's for a predawn viewing—attended only by Hoss's mother (his father having died the previous March)—the coffin arrived at Lakewood by 7:00 A.M., and by 7:30 A.M., Stanley was laid in the ground beside his sister Betty—“Together Forever.” None of his women and none of his children attended.

In 1982, Steven, Stanley and Diane's second child, was nineteen years old. On probation for stealing, Steven met a certain James “The Indian” Harkins, nearly thirty years his senior. It was Harkins who told the teenager about the “toughest criminal of 'em all—your ol' man.” Steven rel-ished hearing all the stories about the father he'd barely known.

The two became friends and teamed up for a four-month crime spree, Harkins as driver with Steven wielding the gun for numerous armed robberies. The pair threatened store clerks with death and beat and bound at least one homeowner. Caught and convicted, Steven was sent to Western Penitentiary to serve ten to twenty years. Counselor Tom Conner completed a classification summary on Steven. Conner remembered Hoss's
boy as “cocky, full of himself, and he made the statement, ‘Do you know who my ol' man is?'” Yet, of course, Steven's crimes, including escape, have taken an enormous toll; it has taken him twenty-eight years to be released from prison. Free for a year, he violated parole: back in the slammer.

Stanley and Diane's first-born son, Stanley the third, never turned to crime and was never incarcerated—except in his own mind. Taunted mercilessly as a boy, ridiculed as “the killer's kid,” this Stanley turned inward, withdrew. Diane said he could never distance himself enough from what his father had done. Stanley has seen psychiatrists over many years; counseling has been a regular part of his life. According to his mother,

He's had a hard time coming around, like he wears the mark of Cain. In some ways I think Stan damaged Stanley even more than Steven. I always felt Steven had a choice, but with Stanley it was as if a wave overwhelmed him, nearly drowned him. Keep in mind, of my children, Stanley was nearly eight when his father killed the policeman, and all that followed. Stanley
knew
his father, loved him as boys will love their dads. So yes, Stanley's world was turned inside out.

Steven was six when the big crimes happened. He remembered his father less than Stanley but still was affected.

Diane pulled out an old prison letter filed in a shoebox to read a passage about Steven. “Stan wrote this,” Diane explained, “after I'd complained how rambunctious and troublesome Steven could be: ‘We both always could see that Steven is just like me but don't beat him, Diane. The cops beat me all my life and it just made me worse.'”

Diane sighed. “Maybe it's true that it's just in your makeup to go bad. I remember when Steven was arrested for the robberies there was a big story with the headline: Like Stanley Hoss, Son Was ‘Born to Lose.'” Diane gave a resigned laugh. “Yeah, just like Stan's tattoo said. Could that be it then? Just a roll of the dice, that despite a mother's efforts her son will grow up to be a criminal?”

In 1993, Diane married her long-time boyfriend, Ron, who was a good man to her and her children. “My three girls have no memory of Stan. All they ever knew was Ron. We had our little place out in the country and we were happy for a long time.” But not forever.

At the unlikely age of fifty-eight, Ron began “drugging.” It was not long before addiction ruled his waking hours. “I begged him to stop,” said Diane, “held his hand, encouraged rehab. He cried, said he was helpless and
afraid but wouldn't or couldn't quit.” It got so bad Diane eventually had to move out to live with her daughter, LeAnn. Diane persisted in trying to help, but in January 2008 Ron put a bullet in his head.

Stanley Hoss's fifteen-year-old bride, now sixty-seven, has had her share of sorrow and hardship. With her name change and the passing years, few know who she is or her story. Diane still resides in the Pittsburgh area.

Jodine Fawkes was the other central woman in Hoss's life. From their meeting when she was “fifteen going on sixteen,” Jodine stayed committed to Hoss until 1973, several years after he'd been imprisoned, but, she explained, “that's when I really faced reality and knew I had to make some changes in my life.” She once received a letter from Hoss, saying, “I'm not asking God to forgive me of nothing that I don't feel I need forgiven about. My parents created me, not God.”

His words scared Jodine. “Maybe he was possessed by an evil spirit. I had our two boys to raise. I had to let go.” Jodine married another, but when the union collapsed after seventeen years, she entered the workforce for the first time. She has been gainfully employed ever since. Perhaps most important to Jodine, she also found her way to the Lord: “I am better with Him in my life.” Her two sons by Hoss, Stanley (called “Stuche” by friends) and Michael, have made their way as law-abiding citizens. Although Hoss's wife and mistress lived separate lives, Jodine recalled a chance meeting with Diane. “I asked her for five minutes,” recalled Jodine, “and told her I was so sorry for intruding in her life. Diane was gracious and said, ‘If it wasn't you, it would have been someone else.'”

Of the several inmates who revealed pertinent information regarding their roles in this story, Rayford “Georgia” Buoy, who took a beating in the Allegheny County Jail in the 1960s and in late 1973 attempted to warn Lt. Peterson of a plot against him, is approaching fifty years on his life sentence. John “Radio” Keen, convicted of several murders inside prison, will remain locked up, as he has lived since he was hardly more than a boy. Keen earned his reputation as an aggressively dangerous convict. However, a few years ago he told the author, “but I'm done with all that. I'm a better man now, rehabilitated. Can you tell the people of my change?” I told him I would. Having completed thirty-six years in prison, John Gergel continued to serve his “letters,” … L-I-F-E.

. . .

In 1994, the
Cumberland Times-News
ran a front-page story: “Young Mother, Child Murdered 25 Years Ago.” While Linda Peugeot's body, along with that of her child, lies undiscovered, one of her high school classmates,
Leo Mazzone, made it to baseball's big time and then became the pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves. “Linda was our class choice as Most Likely to Succeed,” Mazzone was quoted as saying. “Our society needs people like Linda Peugeot, and she was taken from us in the worst way.”

Gerald Peugeot lives in western Pennsylvania. He is a private man who's adopted a near-hermit existence. Years after the murder of his wife and daughter, he remarried and had twin sons, but the marriage dissolved. Despite efforts from a sister and other relatives to develop closer ties, Gerald for the most part remains estranged from family.