Dec 30, 2018 11 min read

1. Child-sex report rocks Catholic Church

A shocking statewide grand jury report that was made public in August identified 99 priests as child predators in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, two months before the resignation of a former bishop in the city

In all, the more-than-800-page report, based largely on files seized from within the church, listed 301 predator priests in six dioceses in Pennsylvania and more than 1,000 child victims over the past several decades. The grand jury believed that the real numbers are higher that what was revealed in the report.

Pope Francis in October accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl as archbishop in Washington, D.C., after Wuerl was mention in the report that accused church leaders of covering up the abuse, with some of the complaints being aired while he served as bishop in Pittsburgh.

The allegations also involved priests who served parishes in Washington and Greene counties, and they indicated a “systematic cover-up” by church officials, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.

A priest who served at Sts. Mary and Ann in Marianna, Richard Zula, was entangled in one of the more bizarre cases, in which priests were accused of grooming boys for sex and giving them gold crosses that marked them as such. Zula was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty in the case in 1990. It involved instances of wild parties with drugs and alcohol at the Marianna church.

Among those named was the Rev. John Bauer, who was accused of wrestling with minors and giving alcohol to them while on a trip when he was serving at Immaculate Conception Church in Washington in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Bauer denied the allegations against him in the grand jury report and continued to serve in the priesthood, most recently at St. Hugh’s Catholic Church near Carmichaels.

“If there was one scintilla of doubt of sexual abuse, I would have left the priesthood,” Bauer told the parishioners gathered at the church for Mass one day after the release of the report.

But, he was placed on leave just two weeks later in August when new allegations of sexual abuse surfaced.

– Scott Beveridge

2. Rain, rain won’t go away

2018 has been one of the rainiest years on record.

Heavy rains led to severe flooding and mudslides in Washington and Greene counties, and resulted in the death of an Upper St. Clair woman.

On June 21, Wendy Abbott, 64, was found dead in McLaughlin Run Creek in Bridgeville after she was swept away by floodwaters from powerful storms that dumped nearly four inches of rain on parts of Western Pennsylvania.

Washington County experienced its wettest year on record, and Greene County was closing in on record-setting rainfall.

As of Dec. 24, 55.28 inches of rain fell in Washington County, setting a record according to existing data, said Accuweather senior meteorologist Tom Kines. Annual average rainfall in the county is about 38 inches.

“If it seemed like a wet year, you were right,” said Kines. “I will say there were a lot of weather systems this year that were overachievers, that don’t normally bring the rains they did. This year, they did.”

In Greene County, about 55 1/2 inches had fallen through Dec. 21, according to Lee Hendricks, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh. Rainfall amounts were approaching the record rainfall of 58.06 inches in 2003, which far exceeds the annual average annual rainfall of about 37 inches.

– Karen Mansfield

3. City officer arrests jail captain

While many people were enjoying the Memorial Day holiday weekend, video surveillance silently captured a series of seemingly unprecedented events at the Washington County jail.

Washington police Officer Joseph Moore arrived at the jail with a prisoner whom he had charged with driving under the influence. The defendant recently had had brain surgery, and, after conferring with a jail nurse, Capt. Wendy Harris refused to accept the man as a prisoner unless he was first cleared by a doctor at Washington Hospital. Moore responded by placing Harris, the sole female captain on the jail staff, under arrest and handcuffing her. The Observer-Reporter broke the news of the confrontation, and a followup story was accompanied by video surveillance images the newspaper obtained through a request made under the state’s Right-to-Know law.

The city police chief placed Moore on administrative duty the same day the video appeared online, and Moore later resigned from the force. Charges against the prisoner were dismissed at the magisterial level.

Harris filed suit against the city and Moore, and in federal court, Moore filed a counterclaim alleging that Harris had actually detained him at the jail, keeping him from responding to a call about an armed man. According to the court’s online docket, Moore is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages for “pain and suffering; fright, horror and shock; emotional trauma, and economic” loss.

No trial date has been scheduled.

– Barbara S. Miller

4. Worker killed in Neighbor Health crash

The aftershock of a bizarre series of events that unfolded in the city on June 6 – when a West Virginia man plowed his Jeep through a wall at Washington Health System’s Neighbor Health Center in Washington – will continue to be felt in the new year.

The impact killed Kimberly Dollard, a 57-year-old receptionist from Amwell Township who was supposed to be off that day, less than a week before a wedding she was going to attend in Mexico. An elderly patient’s injuries were severe enough that he was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. City police filed charges a little less than six months later against Chad Spence, 44, of Weirton, saying Spence hadn’t offered an explanation for what had occurred but that authorities had ruled out a medical or mechanical reason for the accident. Spence has been ordered to stand trial in the case, which includes criminal and vehicular homicide among the charges.

The month after the crash, WHS officials dismissed an unspecified number of workers over what a spokesman described as improper access to patient records. The representative wouldn’t confirm whether those firings were related to the early June crash.

– Gideon Bradshaw

5. Lamb pulls off upset over Saccone

The world in general, and American political junkies in particular, had their eyes on Southwest Pennsylvania in March.

The special election to fill out the term of disgraced U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District pitted Republican Rick Saccone against Democrat Conor Lamb. Saccone, a state representative from Elizabeth with firm conservative bona fides, entered the race a solid favorite given the largely right-leaning makeup of the district, which included portions of Washington, Greene, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties.

However, Lamb, a 34-year-old former Marine and federal prosecutor, managed to pull out a 755-vote victory in the March 13 special election, winning 49.8 percent of the 228,830 votes cast to Saccone’s 49.5 percent, mostly on the strength of votes from southern Allegheny County. Despite campaign stops on behalf of Saccone by President Trump, the president’s lingering unpopularity with the larger electorate almost certainly helped push Lamb over the finish line. The outcome was viewed by analysts as a harbinger for a rough midterm election season for Republicans nationally, which proved to be the case.

Not long after his victory, Lamb announced that he would be competing in the newly created 17th Congressional District against Republican incumbent Keith Rothfus. That district, which included a larger slice of Allegheny County, proved to be even more congenial to Lamb, and he won a convincing victory over Rothfus in the November general election. It was the only congressional race in the country pitting two incumbents.

After his narrow defeat, Saccone hoped to take a second bite at the apple, competing for the Republican nomination in the newly drawn 14th Congressional District, which included Washington, Greene and Fayette counties and a portion of Westmoreland County. However, he was bested by state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, who won an easy victory in November over Democrat Bibiana Boerio.

– Brad Hundt

6. Ogden buys Observer Publishing Co.

A family-run business dating to the Teddy Roosevelt administration had a rough final ride and relinquished the reins.

Observer Publishing Co., the purveyor of news since 1902, became news itself after shareholders decided to sell all of its assets to Ogden Newspapers of Wheeling, W.Va. – effective Oct. 1. Thus ended 116 years of Northrop family control.

The purchase enabled Ogden to take over publication of the Observer-Reporter daily newspaper, the weekly Almanac and numerous special-interest magazines; the operations of Reimagine Mainstreet, a digital advertising agency; and production of local events.

Owned and operated by the Nutting family, Ogden publishes more than 40 daily newspapers and numerous weeklies and has a magazine division. The company is now responsible for maintaining its predecessor’s tradition of covering all of Washington and Greene counties, several Monongahela Valley communities in Fayette and Westmoreland, and municipalities in southern Allegheny. Ogden retained OPC headquarters in downtown Washington.

Tom Northrop, president, publisher and fourth-generation OPC shareholder, said continuing to publish was the impetus behind the board’s decision to sell.

“It is increasingly difficult for an independent company to go it alone,” he explained. “We chose Ogden because we believe they’re in the best position to continue our mission for generations to come.”

– Rick Shrum

7. Cook emerges with narrow win over Toprani

Former Washington County district attorney Steve Toprani, a Democrat, chipped away at Republican Bud Cook’s election-night margin of 94 votes, but after counts of both absentee and provisional ballots and litigation in Common Pleas Court, the challenger was never able to overcome the incumbent’s 11-vote lead out of nearly 20,000 cast in the 49th Legislative District race. Toprani, of Monongahela, won his home county while Cook, a West Pike Run Township resident, prevailed across the river in Fayette.

One month and four days after the Nov. 6 election, Judge Gary Gilman turned aside Toprani’s petition as deficient. Toprani chose not to appeal Gilman’s ruling, and on Dec. 23, he conceded. State legislators will be sworn in Jan. 1, and the candidate who ran under the slogan “Rehire Bud Cook” will take the oath of office for a second, two-year term.

– Barbara S. Miller

8. Landslides hit area development

A June landslide in the Majestic Hills development was the first of several to wreak havoc in North Strabane Township this year. The initial slide fell onto Forest Lane Drive, closing it for months and causing three Majestic Hills Drive homes to be evacuated and later demolished. While the township and homeowners tried to seek repairs from the developer, Joe Denardo with Majestic Hills LLC, another slide happened on Bentwood Drive in September followed by another major slide on Oakwood Drive in October. The township has spent $3.3 million in public funds to make repairs and stabilize the hillsides in the development and plans to recover the money from DeNardo. Some of the homeowners whose homes were demolished have filed lawsuits against DeNardo, the township and the home builder, Ryan Homes. Ryan Homes has filed a federal lawsuit against DeNardo, who has been cited for several alleged DEP violations regarding the development.

– Katie Anderson

9. Man opens fire at district judge’s office

A gunman opened fire Sept. 19 inside a packed district judge’s office in Masontown while trying to kill his estranged wife. Patrick Dowdell was shot dead by a police officer after he had injured his wife, Crystal, and three other people waiting for hearings inside the Masontown Municipal Complex, including another police officer who confronted the gunman. Court documents revealed an abusive relationship in which Dowdell had threatened to kill his wife a month earlier when she demanded a divorce, prompting her to obtain a protection-from-abuse order against him. Sgt. R. Scott Miller, the injured Masontown police officer and a Cumberland Township resident, was the first officer to encounter Dowdell inside the municipal complex. Both Miller and the officer who killed Dowdell, German Township police Cpl. John Lingo, along with several other first responders, were later honored for their bravery in preventing a tragedy.

– Mike Jones

10. Pair of murder-suicides in area

Two teenage siblings woke up in their Peters Township home Sept. 23 to find their parents dead from a murder-suicide. Washington County Coroner Tim Warco ruled that Kelly Ann Bryan, 44, died of strangulation and her husband, Craig Alan Bryan, 48, died of a self-inflicted knife wound to the neck. Earlier in the year, a Cecil Township couple and their unborn baby died in a murder-suicide at their Southpointe Town Center apartment. Naader E. Rizk shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend, Michelle Krek, before fatally shooting himself March 29.

– Katie Anderson