Did you know?
The ominous headline “Turnpike ‘Mania’ Killer Sought” greeted the readers of the Uniontown Evening Standard 60 years ago today.
In late July of 1953, terror struck on the western end of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
That “maniac” had shot and killed two truckers on quiet stretches of the turnpike as they were sleeping in their trucks.
Drivers across the state became alarmed. Police authorities had no leads.
One of the victims was a 26-year-old from Duncannon, Pa., who was found with a bullet wound in his head near the Irwin Interchange. The other man, from Bowling Green, Va., had pulled his vehicle off the roadway near Donegal, and he, too, met his death while still in his truck.
Three days after the second shooting, another truck driver was shot near Lisbon, Ohio, which is only about 20 miles away from the final stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That time, though, the intended murder victim, 34-year-old John K. Shepherd of West Alexander, Pa., survived and was pictured on the front page of the Aug 3., 1953, edition of the Evening Standard.
“Police guard turnpike, killer pattern studied,” was the bold headline that day.
The “Phantom” killer had struck at three-day intervals. The police thought, at the time, it was a pattern worthy of study. In the end, it was not.
Two days later, a 41-year-old Philadelphia man was reported to have confessed to a priest that he had been the “Phantom Killer.”
But the police were skeptical. In fact, it was also reported that a 28-year-old man in Youngstown, Ohio, claimed, “I shot them because they deserved it.” His claim was also discounted.
The following day, a front-page bulletin indicated that a confession by a 34-year-old man didn’t produce an arrest. But, instead, he was held in custody, because, according to the one police official, “He is a dangerous mental case.”
The confessions, and the discounting of them, obviously did little to allay the fears of the state’s drivers across one of the nation’s first great post-depression era superhighways. Truckers began arming themselves. Families were forced to use extreme caution to avoid the terror that had lurked along the dark stretches, as they drove between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
On Aug. 11, 1953, it was reported on the front page of the Evening Standard that the state police investigation had “broadened” into Fayette County.
As it turned out, state troopers were “warm,” yet not by design.
On Oct. 12 1953, it was reported that the mystery of the “Phantom Killer” was all but solved.
“Wable, turnpike suspect, captured in New Mexico,” read the Evening Standard’s front page headline.
A 24-year-old farmhand from Ohiopyle, John Wesley Wable had been captured near Albuquerque, N.M., after a high-speed chase that resulted from a gas station holdup.
Wable, it was reported, was suspected of committing more violent acts back in Pennsylvania — the cold-blooded murders of two truckers and the attempted murder of another.
It was also reported that when he was arrested in New Mexico, Wable was still wearing the pants of his victim from Lisbon, Ohio.
That fact had been confirmed by one of his cellmates, who shared a cell with him in Fayette County Prison, after he’d been arrested in Cleveland for the theft of a rental car in August. (NOTE: It was widely reported that Wable had confessed to local authorities about the murders while he was in jail, but that he’d been released, because they thought he was a “crackpot.” But that report was later refuted.)
It was alleged that Wable had told his cellmate at the time that he’d murdered the two truck drivers. But he was still released.
It was later alleged that the murder weapon had been in the possession of Wable’s girlfriend in Cleveland. A watch owned by one of the victims was also discovered to have been pawned by Wable – and also in Cleveland.
Police reported that ballistic tests on the weapon proved it had been used in the highway shootings.
Wable went on trial for murder in Greensburg in early March of 1954.
He took the stand in his own defense and repeatedly (over nine hours of testimony) denied any connections to the shootings.
But, on March 15, it was reported that the jury deliberated less than four hours and that Wable only blinked his eyes when a guilty verdict was delivered.
“Wable Electrocuted,” said the headline on the front page of the Uniontown Morning Herald on Sept. 25, 1955.
Wable was pronounced dead at the Rockview State Penitentiary at Bellfonte, Pa., at 10 p.m. the previous night.
The man who sent shockwaves across two states, and without any apparent motives, died calmly in a “death chair.”