Faces of evil: Pennsylvania's most infamous criminals (2024)

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Faces of evil: Pa.'s most infamous criminals

Here's a look at some of the most infamous criminals in Pennsylvania history. Let us know in the comments below if there's anyone else you think belongs on this list.

Editor's note: Thispost has been updated to add information on additional criminals.

AP Photo/file

Gary Heidnik

Dubbed the "House of Horrors" killer, Gary Heidnik murdered two women in his North Philadelphia home, where he held six victims in chains, raping them and using electrical shock on them during 1986 and 1987.

Those who survived said he kept them half naked in his basem*nt, feeding them dog food laced with human remains.

He was arrested after one of the captives escaped and alerted police.

In 1999, he became the last person to be executed in Pennsylvania.

'Lobster Boy'

Grady Stiles Jr., was born with a genetic abnormality that made his hands resemble lobster claws. He worked in the carnival as an attraction dubbed "Lobster Boy," and married Mary Teresa Stiles who, at 19, had run away from home and joined the carnival. They had three children – two born with their father’s deformity — and the story goes, Grady Stiles turned into a nasty drunk.

His deformities made him unable to walk, but from all accounts, he had tremendous upper body strength that he used to beat and torture his wife and children. He once delivered a beating that caused his pregnant daughter to miscarry.

In Pittsburgh in 1978 he shot and killed his oldest daughter’s boyfriend. He was convicted of the murder, but sentenced to just 15 years probation because of his health concerns.

With the beatings escalating, Mary Stiles paid a neighbor $1,500 to shoot and kill her husband. In 1994, a jury convicted her of conspiracy to commit murder and she was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

JASON COHN

Mark Spotz

Convicted murderer Mark Spotz is escorted out of the Cumberland County Courthouse in Carlisle, on May 9, 1996.

Mark Spotz killed four people in a four-day murder spree that began with an argument with his brother over a gerbil.

He killed his brother, Dustin, in Clearfield County on Jan. 31, 1995. Accompanied by his 17-year-old girlfriend, he then shot and killed June Ohlinger, 52, of Schuylkill County and stole her car. Spotz and his girlfriend then carjacked Penny Gunnet of York County at gunpoint and stole her cash credit cards and jewelry. Police later found Gunnet’s body beneath her abandoned car.

Spotz and his girlfriend separated – she would surrender to police – and Spotz abducted his final victim, Betty Amstutz, 70, near her Harrisburg home and killed her in North Middleton Township before surrendering to police. Amstutz, a retired Lutheran deaconess, was shot nine times.

Spots today is on death row.

Sundance Kid

His crimes took place in the Wild West, but Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, who would be known as the Sundance Kid, was born in Mont Clare, Pa.

He headed west, however, when he was 15, and got his nickname from his first crime – stealing a horse in Sundance, Wyoming.

He spent a few years in jail and, according to some biographers, tried to go straight, but within a few years of his release was robbing trains and banks with his gang, The Wild Bunch. He eventually fled to South America, and there’s disagreement over whether he died there in a shootout, or later returned to the U.S. His exploits were romanticized in the classic movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

AP Photo/Pennsylvania State Police

Charles Roberts IV

On the morning of Oct. 2, 2006, 32-year-old milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV drove about a mile from his home to a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Lancaster County.

He ordered the boys from the school, then barricaded himself inside with 10 girls ages 6 to 13. He tied them up and opened fire, killing five girls and injuring five, before committing suicide.

Pa. Department of Corrections

Howard Miguel Roberts

Harvey Miguel Robinson is one of the youngest serial killers in history, being just 18 when he was arrested and charged with the rape and murders of three people in Allentown: Joan Burghardt, a 29-year-old nurse's aide; Charlotte Schmoyer, a 15-year-old newspaper carrier; and Jessica Jean Fortney, a 47-year-old grandmother.

He also raped and brutalized a woman who escaped; he returned to her home several nights later and tried to break in, which led to his arrest. He also raped a 5-year-old, choked her and left her for dead.

Mark Moran/AP Photo/The Citizens' Voice

Hugo Selenski

Hugo Selenski was found with the remains of five bodies in his northeastern Pennsylvania yard in 2003. A dozen years later, a Luzerne County jury convicted the 41-year-old career criminal in the strangling deaths of pharmacist Michael Kerkowski and the pharmacist's girlfriend, Tammy Fassett.

The jury yesterday concluded he killed the couple during a 2002 robbery and buried their bodies behind his house.

Elmo Noakes

It became known as the “Babes in the Woods” murders.

Elmo Noakes and his niece, Winifred Pierce, left California with Noakes’ daughters and headed to Pennsylvania in 1934, arriving there with no money and no job. Investigators believe Noakes killed his daughters, Norma Sedgewick, 12; Dewilla Noakes, 10, and Cordelia Noakes, 8, on Nov. 21 rather than let them starve.

Their bodies were found Nov. 24, 1934 in Cumberland County near what is today the entrance to Pine Grove Furnace State Park. On the same day they were found, Noakes shot and killed Pierce and then killed himself in Blair County.

In this photo taken November, 1934, the "Babes in the Woods" are carried out to waiting hearses at 148 South Hanover Street.

Clark Van Orden/AP Photo/Times Leader

George Banks

At the time of the shootings, George Banks was on leave from his job as a guard at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, after locking himself inside a guard tower on Sept. 6, 1982 and threatening suicide.

On Sept. 25, 1982, he went on a shooting spree in the Wilkes-Barre area that left 13 people dead: four girlfriends, his three sons and two daughters, three other relatives and a bystander. He then engaged in a standoff with police for more than six hours.

In 2010, a judge ruled that he was mentally incompetent and therefore could not be executed. He remains on death row.

Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

Joseph D. Miller Jr.

Steelton serial killer Joseph “Joey” Miller was sentenced in June to his two additional life terms in prison for killing two women in 1986 and 1990 — two of five women he killed in Dauphin and Perry counties in that period. His victims were:

• Kelly Ann Ward, killed in 1986, her body was found in 1997 but not identified until 2015
• Selina Franklin, killed in 1987
• Stephanie McDuffey, killed in 1989.
• Jeanette Thomas and Kathy Novena Schenck, killed in 1990.

Two other women survived attacks by Mille. In one case, a Harrisburg woman survived after she was stabbed in the head 25 times with a screwdriver and left for dead in a wooded area in Perry County. Another survivor said Miller raped her, bound her in duct tape, beat her on the head with beer.

He is serving five life prison sentences.

Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

Jerry Sandusky

Sandusky spent 30 years at Penn State, most as assistant football coach under legendary coach Joe Paterno. In 1977, he founded The Second Mile, a charity devoted to helping children with absent or dysfunctional families. He retired from Penn State in 1999, but had emeritus status that allowed him access to Penn State facilities.

In 2011, following a two-year grand jury investigation, Sandusky was charged with sexually assaulting 10 boys over a 15-year period.

Penn State was rocked by Sandusky’s arrest and charges filed against three administrators accusing them of failing to report suspicions of that abuse to authority. Within days, Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier had been fired. Penn State would soon face crippling sanctions from the NCAA. Arguments over who failed the children Sandusky victimized continue to consume many university alumni.

Rich Schultz/AP Photo

Eric Frein

Eric Frein, authorities say, ambushed two state police troopers outside the Blooming Grove state police barracks on Sept. 12, 2014, killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson and seriously wounding Trooper Alex Douglass.

A manhunt ensued, with Frein eluding police time and again in the densely wooded region of the Poconos. During this time, Frein was added to the FBI’s “10 most wanted list.” The specter of a cop-killer at large caused a local municipality to cancel Halloween trick-or-treating, and hunting season was suspended.

Forty-eight days after Dickson was killed, Frein was captured by police. He awaits trial.

AP Photo

Ira Einhorn

Known as “the Unicorn Killer,” Ira Einhorn rose to fame in the 1960s and 1970s as a counterculture guru. Then his girlfriend, Holly Maddux, disappeared. Eighteen months later, in 1979, her mummified body was found in a steamer trunk in Einhorn’s second-floor Philadelphia apartment. Einhorn claimed he’d been framed.

Days before his trial, he ran, escaping to Europe and eluding his pursuers for two decades years. In 1993, he was convicted in absentia of Maddux’s death.

PATTI SAPONE/AP Photo/The Star Ledger

Adam Leroy Lane

Darlene Ewalt was talking on the phone with a family friend on her backyard patio in West Hanover Twp. on July 13, 2007 when someone slit her throat. Before he was arrested on July 30, 2007, police say Adam Leroy Lane had killed another woman. A third victim survived an attack.

In a search of Lane’s truck, Massachusetts police found a spotting scope, black clothes, a DVD titled “Hunting Humans” about a serial killer stalking another serial killer, and two hunting knives. One of the knives was stained with Ewalt’s blood, police said. Police said Lane, a father of three daughters, would park his rig in towns along the East Coast and roam the streets looking for prey.

Amy Sancetta/AP Photo

Nicodemo Scarfo

Nicodemo D. “Little Nicky” Scarfo is the former head of the Philadelphia-South Jersey mafia. Called a psychopath by some, he was known for ordering people killed simply for being disrespectful. Biography.com says that under his rule, more than 20 mob associates died. He was convicted on multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, racketeering and drug trafficking and went to federal prison in 1989. He is scheduled for release in 2033, when he is 104.

Scarf is seen here handcuffed along with reputed associates Joseph Ligambi, left, and Francis Iannarella, center, as they enter Philadelphia City Hall for their sentencing hearing, April 6, 1989.

Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams, May 17, 1988 Susquehanna Twp. Bernard Williams used a hammer to brutally beat state Rep. William Telek, left, to death, stealing about $100 in cash and the stateman's car. Telek's death is believed to be the first murder of a state legislator. Williams is serving a life sentence without parole. More:http://ow.ly/lthzH

Editor's note: This slide has been updated with a new image.

The Blue-Eyed Six

Blue-Eyed Six, 1878 Lebanon County After taking out life insurance policies amounting to $8,000 for Joseph Raber, an impoverished elder neighbor in the summer of 1878, a group of six men arranged Raber's murder. The group became known as the Blue-Eyed Six after the local media noted that all six men had blue eyes.

Hex Hollow murder

It was a story that was frontpage of the Harrisburg Telegraph and The Patriot for weeks at the end of 1928, and captivated people throughout Pennsylvania. Powwow doctor Nelson Rehmeyer had been brutally murdered in his home in Stewartstown by three men who, after runs of bad luck, decided Rehmeyer had put a hex on them. They broke into his home intending to destroy his "spell book" and break the hex. They didn't find the book, but they did find Rehmeyer and killed and mutilated his body. They then fires around his body, hoping to burn any evidence of their crime. But the fire never spread and days later the body was discovered. Confessions poured forth shortly after.

Martin Appel and Stanley Hertzog

On June 6, 1986, 28-year-old Martin Appel and 29-year-old Stanley Hertzog entered the First National Bank of Bath in East Allen Township.

They didn’t demand money or brandish weapons. They just started shooting.

The robbery took just four minutes. When it was done, three people were dead, two were wounded. The robbers fled with about $2,200 in cash.

They were soon captured and today are serving life sentences. The case was the subject of a book, "The D-Day Bank Massacre," authored by Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli.

JENNIFER E. BEACH/ AP Photo

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting and killing police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981 after Faulkner pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. A jury found that Mr. Abu-Jamal had shot Faulkner in the back and then, as the officer lay bleeding, shot him four more times. Abu-Jamal was shot in the chest by the officer.

In the years that followed, while on death row, Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, proclaimed his innocence and gathered an international following of supporters who wanted him freed.

When an appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal, finding jurors had received potentially misleading instructions when they sentenced him to death, prosecutors dropped their pursuit