NEW KENSINGTON, Pa. — The four men who locked up Steve Szarewicz for murder all changed their stories at one point or another, but Szarewicz is still behind bars. He has been there for almost 43 years.
A jury convicted him of murdering 25-year-old Billy Merriwether, who in 1981 was shot twice in the back of the head and once in the chest, leaving his body face down along a country road in western Pennsylvania .
There were no fingerprints, no eyewitness statements and no DNA evidence linking Szarewicz to the scene. The case rested on the words of four prison informants who all testified that Szarewicz confessed to them, and three of the four recanted their confessions. Another inmate told the court that the fourth witness against Szarewicz had made up his story to settle a score.
Nevertheless, in 1983 a jury in Pittsburgh found the informants’ testimony credible enough to convict Szarewicz, despite the doubts they expressed to the judge about the lack of physical evidence.
Today, the conviction is still under appeal, with Szarewicz asking the state Supreme Court to reduce his life sentence to 10 to 20 years.
A national database Of the more than 3,400 exonerations since 1989, more than 200 have involved prison informants playing a role in the wrongful convictions.
When courts overturn convictions based on informant testimony, it’s usually because prosecutors made a deal with the witness and didn’t reveal it, says professor Bruce Antkowiak, an attorney at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and a former defense attorney and prosecutor .
“Our legal system places the issue of credibility at the altar of a jury,” Antkowiak said.
Merriwether’s problems mounted when he was murdered. He was unemployed and living on government assistance, known as someone who would “fight at a moment’s notice,” an acquaintance told investigators at the time.
There were reports that some boys in his New Kensington neighborhood, who had ties to organized crime, chased him because they thought he had stolen from them.
Merriwether also had problems in his romantic life. Both he and his girlfriend were married to other people. And his girlfriend’s father — a now-deceased local mobster named Mitch Roditis — was convinced that Merriwether, who was black, was dating his white daughter.
Around 7 a.m. on the morning Merriwether was killed, a dog walker about 23 miles northeast of Pittsburgh reported hearing a single explosion that sounded like a gunshot. A moment later three more sounded. A nearby road crew saw a car drive by with two men inside. They drove away and then drove away, leaving Merriwether’s dead body behind.
Prosecutors laid out a simple theory about the crime: It was a $5,000 murder for a hitman. They argued that Roditis, who was never charged, led Szarewicz and two other men to kill Merriwether because he was dating Roditis’ daughter.
The murder case “wasn’t a prize,” former Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Chris Conrad recalled in an interview this spring. “It wasn’t one where you come in and get confessions and fingerprints and just great physical evidence.”
Much of Szarewicz’s focus was on the prison informants, three of whom were related.
In September 1982, witness Dave Cannon wrote a letter saying that it would not be right for Szarewicz to go to prison and that Cannon was only willing to testify because he thought it might help him get out of prison.
During the trial, Cannon changed his story again and testified that he wrote the letter because he was afraid of Szarewicz. Contacted by The Associated Press by phone in March, Cannon stood by his statement that Szarewicz had confessed to him in the Allegheny County jail.
Eight months after Szarewicz’s conviction, another informant who testified against him, Ernie Bevilacqua, wrote in an affidavit: “I lied about everything I said about Steve and I would go to court to help him and say what really happened.”
Years later, Bevilacqua said he only recanted because he was afraid of Szarewicz, his friends and fellow inmates.
The third informant who made a mistake in Szarewicz’s case was Rick Bowen.
About six months after Szarewicz was sentenced, Bowen approached attorney Pat Thomassey at the Westmoreland County courthouse. Thomassey later signed an affidavit saying that Bowen “indicated to me that he had in fact lied in the case against Steven Szarewicz in order to make a deal for himself and avoid being prosecuted for various crimes.” Bowen later denied the exchange.
The fourth informant scheduled to testify against Szarewicz, Kenny Knight, did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment. When police first interviewed him about Merriwether’s murder, he didn’t question Szarewicz, even when asked. He later said he was afraid of Szarewicz and withheld information because he didn’t want to get involved.
In a 1992 court proceeding, a judge declared the credibility of the witnesses “as low as the belly of a snake.” Prosecutor Maria Copetas did not defend them, saying they “at one point recanted, then retracted their recantations and then refused to testify in court.”
These days, Szarewicz devotes time to his business. He has a job as a prison janitor that pays about $75 a month, walks regularly and participates in Bible study.
He hopes for a break.
“If I didn’t have my faith, I’m sure I probably wouldn’t be alive to fight another day,” Szarewicz wrote a few years ago. “Is anyone shocked by this clear abuse of the system? If so, please help?”