Convicted murderer Malcolm Kysor, who escaped from prison in a garbage can, may have slipped through a manhunt in the Erie area with the help of an outside accomplice, state police said yesterday.
“There is no way he could of got past us, unless he had transportation, and assistance to flee the immediate area with such speed. Officers said.
Other local officers from the Mercer County Correctional Facility that is State Run say that often those who live near a jail are not in danger of an escape prisoner, they rairly stay close to the jail.
Tips have came in, but they are now fewer, “We suspect hes hold up in a safe location, if here were moving around, with all of the press coverage, we would have spotted him or someone would have spotted him and called.” Officers also said their leads are running less and less, and no new information is coming in, however, leg work is paying off, and as always, were watching known places he may have gone based on mail he got and calls he made prior to the escape.”
Mr. Kysor, 53, had been in prison for the last 24 years and was never supposed to get out. He had served his life sentence in maximum security prisons until April. Then administrators of the state Department of Corrections gave him a “promotional transfer” to the medium-security prison just 20 miles from Erie, his hometown.
He escaped Sunday from the State Correctional Institution Albion by hiding in an oversized garbage can. Surveillance video shows that a fellow inmate abetted Mr. Kysor by covering the garbage can, then shoving it from a loading dock onto a pickup truck.
Prison employees, though, did not notice the video until after Mr. Kysor had been hauled out of prison with the day’s trash.
Cpl. Mark Zaleski of the state police said Mr. Kysor also may have had help from someone outside the tall prison walls.
Mr. Kysor has not been connected to car thefts, break-ins or robberies in the Erie area, an indication that he no longer is nearby, Cpl. Zaleski said.
Helicopter and door-to-door searches for the fugitive have been abandoned. Instead, police and the FBI have shifted their focus to people who knew Mr. Kysor and might have helped him get away.
His criminal record in Erie dates to 1978. Mr. Kysor’s first crimes were for simple assault, open lewdness and corruption of minors, according to court records. Soon, his violent behavior escalated.
A jury found that Mr. Kysor beat a man to death with a golf club in 1981. His conviction for murder did not come until 1987, just as he was about to be paroled from prison in a theft case.
Jurors found that Mr. Kysor killed Barney Fenton, 40, of Pierpont, Ohio, after they crossed paths on a busy road.
Mr. Fenton’s son, Jeff, said in an interview yesterday that Mr. Kysor’s escape had rattled him. Jeff Fenton lives in Ashtabula, Ohio, about 40 miles from the Albion prison.
Jeff Fenton, now 38, said trial testimony revealed that his father picked up Mr. Kysor when he was hitchhiking. Barney Fenton was on his way to play in a tournament at Conneaut Shores Golf Course. Jeff Fenton said witnesses testified that his father and Mr. Kysor ate together in the restaurant at the golf course.
Barney Fenton vanished after that. Mr. Kysor soon became a suspect in his disappearance. Police stopped Mr. Kysor for a traffic violation while he was driving Mr. Fenton’s car.
Court records show that Mr. Kysor was charged in 1981 with drunken driving, theft and receiving stolen property — crimes that eventually put him in prison.
In 1982, as those cases moved through the court system, two 14-year-olds happened upon Mr. Fenton’s skeletal remains near Millcreek Mall in Erie.
As Mr. Kysor sat in prison, serving his four- to eight-year sentence for theft, Erie prosecutors built a murder case against him.
He finally went on trial in January 1987. Jeff Fenton was 17 then. He said he attended the first two days, until the testimony became too much for him to handle.
Jeff Fenton said Mr. Kysor admitted killing his father, but said he acted in self-defense. Jurors did not believe his story.
Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, Mr. Kysor was housed in maximum security prisons in Pittsburgh and then Fayette County until last spring. Then he received his promotional transfer to Albion, a less secure prison with 2,300 inmates.
Prisoners, even those serving life sentences, can earn transfers closer to their home area, Susan McNaughton, press secretary for the Department of Corrections, said yesterday.
Now police suspect that Mr. Kysor may have wanted to be close to home so an old connection could help him break out of prison. So far, it is only a theory that someone on the outside aided Mr. Kysor in his escape, Cpl. Zaleski said.
But investigators said they have proof that fellow inmate John Gromer helped Mr. Kysor. After Mr. Kysor hid in the garbage can, Mr. Gromer, 26, of Philadelphia, covered him with a box and plastic bag, police said.
The surveillance video shows Mr. Gromer pushing the can onto a pickup truck, police said.
Erie County prosecutors will decide whether to charge Mr. Gromer in the escape.
If Mr. Kysor is caught, he will resume his life sentence, probably in a more secure prison than Albion. Even so, he has been charged with escape, the latest felony on his long rap sheet.
Mr. Kysor is described as a white man who stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. He has brown hair and eyes and tattoos on his arms, chest and abdomen.
The reality, “He has nothing to lose by escaping, he is dangerous , people should use extreme caution if you spot him, and call 911 immedietly.”

The Associated Press Is Reporting High Stakes Slots Area Coming.

A special room with high-limit slot machines has opened at The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in Washington County.
The high-limit room contains only machines that accept bets between $1 and $25.
The main casino floor isn’t changing. It contains more than 1,700 machines that accept bets from a penny to $25.
The high-limit room provides more privacy for gamblers who want to play only the high-limit machines.
The Meadows earlier this year received approval to add 78 high-limit machines: eight $25 machines, eight $10 machines, 20 $5 machines and 42 $1 machines.
The temporary casino will operate until a $155 million permanent casino opens in 2009, complete with a 200-room hotel and luxury spa.

Officials at the Erie Downs Location say this is also coming to that location as well, but no date has been set for the install of the room or machines.

Currently Erie offers racing, and gaming on video slots, as they wait for approval for table games to compete with West Virginia and news York Locations.

Ohio Meanwhile has no legal gambling and has outlawed games of skil in recent weeks.

West Virginia’s two Northern Panhandle casinos appear likely to expand their gambling options once more before Christmas.
The West Virginia Lottery Commission, which oversees operations of Mountaineer Casino, Resort and Race Track in Chester and Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center, determined this week that Dec. 20 would be the earliest the two facilities could begin offering blackjack, craps and roulette.
The locations will become full-scale casinos on that date if they satisfy regulators with their operation of two test nights, on Dec. 17 and 18. Table games will be offered on those dates by invitation only, as private events benefiting charity.
Both casinos added poker rooms to their video slot operations on Oct. 19 and found them to be popular, generating a combined $536,000 in revenue at the two locations by the end of October. Officials of Mountaineer and Wheeling Island are counting on the other table games generating more revenue than poker, and helping to steer customers away from Pennsylvania’s new slots parlors.
Mountaineer plans to have about 50 of the new table games, with a range of minimum bet limits at different tables, and Wheeling Island intends to have 44 tables.

A former strip club owner convicted of federal tax charges was found last evening in his home after an apparent suicide attempt.
Curt Kosow, whose trial ended with guilty verdicts on eight of nine counts against him, told the federal agents who found him in his North Side apartment that he had taken 30 sleeping pills, said his court-appointed defense attorney, Patrick Nightingale.
Mr. Kosow, whose trial began Oct. 29 before U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab, didn’t show up in court yesterday when the jury returned with its verdict.
Judge Schwab issued an arrest warrant for the man who owned the club formerly known as Bare Elegance.
According to Mr. Nightingale, federal agents went to Mr. Kosow’s apartment about 7 p.m. and saw that the lights and television were on, but no one answered the door. Peering through a window, they saw Mr. Kosow face down on his bed.
They forced entry and called paramedics. Mr. Kosow was coherent enough to walk to the stretcher, Mr. Nightingale said.
He was taken to UPMC Presbyterian hospital, where he was admitted. After he is released, he will likely be moved to the medical unit at the Allegheny County Jail.
No sentencing date has yet been set.
Kosow has ties to the Mercer and Youngstown area according to a source who’s girlfriend worked for him as a prostitute, and dancer in several local clubs as recently as 2001.
We can not confirm from the management of Headliners that he played a legal role in the operation, but several independant sources have told us he was a silent partner in this and other operations in Pittsburgh, Murrysville, Youngstown as well.

The Pirates’ ticket prices for next season will remain the same.
Again.
For the sixth consecutive year, team president Frank Coonelly confirmed yesterday when asked, a dugout box seat will cost $35, an infield box seat $27, the bleachers from $14 to $9, and the upper deck from $16 to $9. Season tickets, as the team had already announced, will remain the same, too.
No other team in Major League Baseball has gone so long without a price increase. Detroit has kept prices level since 2002, the last year the Pirates had a price hike, but the Tigers announced last month that most of their seats would cost $2 more across the board in 2008.
The Pirates have had 15 consecutive losing seasons, but not even extended failure has stopped other teams from raising prices. The Kansas City Royals, out of the playoffs for 22 years, announced a 15 percent increase last month.
“We are extremely proud that we offer our fans one of the most affordable, fan- and family-friendly experiences in all of professional sports,” Coonelly said.
He said the timing for an increase now, with entirely new management at the helm, was not right.
“We will, at some point, need to raise ticket prices to stay competitive. But our singular focus has been and will be on changing the culture of this organization to one in which our fans will again be proud.”
Some might recall that the Pirates’ most recent price hike came after they went 62-100 in their inaugural season at PNC Park in 2001. That was met with great public derision, a backlash that possibly resonates among some in the team’s front office to this day.
Coonelly, who took his post in September, dismissed that as a factor.
“History did not drive my thinking,” he said.
The Pirates’ average ticket price of $17.07 was sixth cheapest in the majors last season, according to the most recent survey by Team Marketing Report. The major-league average was $22.69, and the most expensive average was the Boston Red Sox’s $47.71 in Fenway Park.
The Pirates also are steering clear of an industry trend to raise prices for select games, a practice known as premium pricing. The Cleveland Indians, for example, are raising prices 38 percent on 31 home games, including opening day, visits from the high-profile New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox and all weekend games beginning in mid-June.
With the Yankees visiting PNC Park June 24-26, their first trip to Pittsburgh since the 1960 World Series, the Pirates might have seized on the opportunity to begin premium pricing for what are sure to be three sellouts.
The subject was raised, Coonelly acknowledged, but shot down.
“We chose not to put a premium on any of our great games next year,” he said. “In fact, we gave our loyal season-ticket holders the opportunity to purchase additional tickets to the Yankees games.”
If a season-ticket holder pays an account in full by Feb. 8, that customer can buy additional tickets for the Yankees series before they go on sale to the general public.
Season tickets are on sale now. Individual game tickets will go on sale in early March.