Michael D. Marks, 48, who faces homicide and other charges
in the death Jan. 29 of Freda Dale, 89, of Peters, is believed to be working
with up to seven other men, who impersonate utility workers to enter the homes
of elderly people and rob them.
Over the last few months, those men have shuttled across
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they preyed on so many elderly people that
police in Philadelphia and its suburbs along with New Jersey state troopers
formed a task force to stop them.
Among the men are Marks' sons, Adam Marks, 23 and Sonny
Marks, 27, who, with their father, skipped bail after they were arrested in
February in New Jersey.
They vanished before Washington County authorities were able
to charge the elder Marks with homicide, attempted robbery, burglary and
aggravated assault in Dale's death and the beating of her husband, Shannon
Dale, 91.
Now, investigators suspect the Markses, who've listed
several addresses over the years, have fled to another state where they could
target new victims. That fear yesterday prompted Washington County District
Attorney John Pettit, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala
Jr. and police to detail the complex interstate investigation that led them to
the Markses.
"We are dealing with transient people. They are very, very
mobile," said Pettit, who plans to prosecute Michael Marks for second-degree
murder. "This group gets together to do their evil, splits up and gets back
together."
Neither Adam nor Sonny Marks are charged in the break-in in
which Freda Dale died of a heart attack after being bound with duct tape.
Both, however, are charged or named as suspects in break-ins in McCandless,
Shaler and White Oak and numerous others towns in Eastern Pennsylvania and New
Jersey.
Michael Marks' wife, Fatima, has been identified as the
owner of a black Ford pickup truck that numerous witnesses have identified as
a vehicle used by the fake utility workers.
That truck, police said, is the vehicle in which Michael
Marks and three others drove to the tiny village of Venetia in Peters at 12:15
p.m. Jan. 29, backed into the Dales' driveway while Shannon Dale was clearing
snow and identified themselves as gas company workers.
One of the men told Dale that a new gas line was to be
installed nearby, distracting him so that the others could slip into the
house.
When Dale went back to the house and tried to close his
door, the man who'd spoken to him pushed past him, hit him on the head and
shoved him to the kitchen floor, police said. The men bound the Dales' arms
and legs with duct tape and ransacked the house.
Unable to find cash, Michael Marks and at least one of the
others punched and slapped Shannon Dale and twisted his fingers while
demanding valuables, police said in court papers. The intruders also stabbed
Dale's legs several times and tried to push his left eye out of its socket,
police said.
Freda Dale died during the attack, and her death was ruled a
homicide. A home health-care worker discovered her body and her injured
husband about three hours later.
Investigators suspected immediately that the attack had been
committed by an organized band of criminals. That suspicion grew after they
learned that a similar home-invasion assault on two elderly McCandless women
had occurred at almost the same time.
In that case, sisters Elizabeth Barnes and Helen Widziewicz
told police that four men got into their home on Knoll Street and roughed them
up after claiming to work for an electric company. Like the men who attacked
the Dales, these burglars appeared to be Hispanic, spoke a foreign language
and talked on two-way radios while they ransacked the house.
Also that day, a group of men got into a Shaler man's home
by pretending to check his water lines. In each case, police filed information
about the burglaries on computer networks shared by law enforcement officers
around the country.
Those cases caught the attention of police in southeastern
Pennsylvania where police had joined forces to investigate a rash of markedly
similar burglaries. Task force investigators from those departments began
swapping information with their counterparts in McCandless and Peters.
They got a break Feb. 11, when a delivery truck driver
spotted the black Ford truck in Berks County, where several home invasions had
been committed that day. He contacted police, who traced the truck to the
Palmyra, N.J., house where the Markses were living.
Investigators began watching the house and, on Feb. 21,
followed Michael, Adam and Sonny Marks when they got into another vehicle and
talked their way into an 84-year-old woman's home in New Jersey. Police
arrested them for burglary and criminal trespass, then forwarded their mug
shots to other communities where similar crimes had occurred.
When Shannon Dale was shown the photos a month later, he
identified Michael Marks as one of his attackers and indicated that he was
anxious to testify against him, Pettit said. If convicted, Marks faces a
mandatory life sentence.
"[Dale] is strong willed, clear of mind and anxious to come
to court," Pettit said.
McCandless police also charged Adam Marks with robbery,
burglary, simple assault and conspiracy after Elizabeth Barnes identified his
photo as one of the men who attacked her and her sister.
Sonny Marks is charged with burglary, criminal trespass,
theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy in a break-in Feb. 11 in Berks
County. He does not face local charges, but Zappala said the Markses remain
suspects in the Shaler break-in and in another home invasion in White Oak.
But as investigators prepared to charge Michael Marks with
the attacks on the Dales, he and his sons disappeared, forfeiting the $25,000
bonds that each had posted to get out of jail in New Jersey.
A $13,000 reward, which may increase as the investigation
continues, is being offered for information leading to their arrests and
convictions. Anyone with information about them is asked to call
1-888-727-6542.
Shannon Dale, who is recovering, did not attend yesterday's
gathering of law enforcement officials. But Freda Dale's son, Don Hamilton of
South Strabane, came to hear what investigators had to say, and peered at the
photograph of the man being sought for killing his mother.
"This news today is beautiful, just beautiful," he said, a
grim smile on his lips. "There's a long road ahead of us, but we're finally on
our way to justice."
http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030507dale0507p1.asp
