Catherine Pelonero - Absolute Madness: A True Story of a Serial Killer, Race, and a City Divided

Copyright 2017 by Catherine Pelonero

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Jacket design by Rain Saukas

Jacket photograph by Robert S. Bukaty

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1983-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1984-2

Printed in the United States of America

For my Father

Salvatore J. Pelonero

Buffalo, New York, Police Department, 19682002

United States Marine Corps, 19621967

Heres health to you and to our Corps

Which we are proud to serve;

In many a strife weve fought for life

And never lost our nerve.

If the Army and the Navy

Ever look on Heavens scenes,

They will find the streets are guarded

By United States Marines.

CONTENTS

NOTE TO THE READER

The portrayal of people and events in this true story was at all times done as accurately as possible, drawn from primary sources and a wide variety of records and supplemental source material that was corroborated and cross-referenced to whatever extent possible. Dialogue is taken either directly from written records, in which case original spelling and punctuation have been left intact, or is constructed from recollections of persons who were present when conversations took place. A list of sources and references is included at the end of the book.

In some instances, pseudonyms have been used or names omitted to preserve privacy.

PART ONE

THE .22 CALIBER KILLER

Racism is mans gravest threat to manthe maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Chapter 1

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1980

THE GUNSHOTS WERE so loud, one of the witnesses said later, and so fast, the four cracking pops coming rapidly one after the other, it sounded as if someone were setting off firecrackers on her front lawn. Kids around here sometimes did that, especially around the Fourth of July. But July had come and gone. It was now late September and the nighttime summer shenanigans had ceased, returning the neighborhood to its normal after-dark quiet.

Looking out the window she could see nothing but her own startled reflection, due to the lights inside and the darkness beyond. She took a few quick steps, opened the door, and stepped out on the porch, the light from her home spilling onto the small front lawn. The yard was silent, undisturbed, empty except for the faded lawn ornaments and a fresh G O B UFFALO B ILLS! sign staked in the grass. She saw no pops or flashes of firecrackers, no group of rowdy kids. At first she saw no one at all, until her eyes were drawn to light and movement in the distance.

The light came from the tall overhead lamps in the parking lot of the Tops grocery store directly across the street from her house, brighter and casting a wider beam than the aging streetlights that lined the block. The movement came from a single person, a slight figure who suddenly darted through an opening in the fence that separated the parking lot from her street, Floss Avenue. The manshe had the impression it was a malewore a dark hooded jacket. As he emerged from the fence, he ran across Floss Avenue in her direction. Veering to his left, he pulled the hood tighter around his head as he ran up Floss toward East Delavan Avenue, disappearing past darkened houses.

It all happened very quickly.

The witness, whose name was Barbara Wozniak, and who didnt realize at the time that she was in fact a witness to something of importance, remained at her door for a moment longer, staring in the direction where the man had run. Nothing happened. There was no one around; all was quiet again. Directly south of her home sat Genesee Street, a main thoroughfare that ran all the way from downtown Buffalo through the east side of the city and out to the suburbs. Even Genesee Street seemed unusually still. Then again, it was 10:00 p.m. or close to it on a Monday night, a school night, and it had been raining on and off for hours. Hardly the kind of weather for strolling or sitting on the porch. The peaceful stillness that had now returned was more typical than the odd popping sounds and the figure running off into the dark.

Barbara assumed he was some kid who had set off firecrackers in the parking lot and she didnt give it much thought, particularly with the silence that followed. The rising crime rate around the neighborhood had made residents a bit more alert, but this seemed inconsequential. She went back inside, closing her front door against the drizzle and the dark, and returned to watching Monday Night Football with her brother.

By the time the sirens shrieked and the news vans arrived, Barbara Wozniak had all but forgotten about the firecrackers, and she didnt make a connection between the figure in the hoodie and the sudden commotion in the Tops parking lot.

Despite what Barbara Wozniak would eventually tell them about the loudness of the gunshots, police were not finding anyone at the scene who had heard them at all.

The entrance to the Tops grocery store was less than fifty feet from where the Buick Century sedan was parked. Lieutenant William Misztal and patrolman Warren Lewis pulled into the parking lot in car L12E at 9:50 p.m., no more than two or three minutes after hearing the call from dispatch. Lieutenant Misztal and Officer Lewis were assigned to precinct 12. The shooting had occurred within the boundaries of the neighboring sixteenth precinct, but Misztal and Lewis had responded because of both the serious nature of the call and the location in particular. This Tops market regularly employed off-duty police officers as security guards. Misztals first thought was that this must be an officer-involved shooting; either a police officer had shot someone or been shot himself.

Alvin Pustulka was waiting in the parking lot and waved the blue and white police cruiser over to where the Buick Century was parked, by the fence that divided the lot from residential Floss Avenue. Pustulka was a police officer out of a precinct in South Buffalo but worked security at this Tops on the east side of the city as a second-front job. As Pustulka explained to Lieutenant Misztal, he had not been involved in the shooting, nor had he witnessed it. A young man had run into the store and told him that someone had been shot outside.

Despite having been just inside the store entrance, Al Pustulka had not heard any gunshots or anything else out of the ordinary before the young man had rushed in to tell him of the shooting. He had seen this same young man exit the store only a minute before and had therefore been a little suspicious, wondering at first if this was some sort of a ruse to get him outside. Pustulka had followed the young man to the green Buick Century where he observed the victim, another young male, sitting in the drivers seat. Seeing that the young man in the Buick had indeed been shot, Pustulka had rushed into the store and told the manager to call 911 before returning to the lot to stand watch over the victim, who was unresponsive.