ThursdayDecember 17, 2015Reading, Pennsylvania

$1.00

KANE, SISTER, ALSO GOT OFFENSIVE EMAILS, PROSECUTOR CLAIMS State, A3

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BERKS BALLET THEATRE

PICKS OUT A PLUM
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READING EAGLE
readingeagle.com

Few will notice

Fed rate hike
of 0.25 percent

Executing Justice
DEATH PENALTY PERSPECTIVESPART FIVE OF FIVE

Victim cant forget, but he forgives

Expert calls bump almost

inconsequential to most people
Th e A s s o c i at e d P r e s s

WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve decided Wednesday to raise its key interest rate
by a quarter-point to a range of 0.25 percent
to 0.5 percent. What that means for us:
The rates that most people pay for mortgages, auto loans or college tuition arent
expected to jump anytime soon. The Feds
benchmark interest rate has limited inuence
on those things.
But the Feds move will raise short-term
borrowing costs for banks. And that, in turn,
is intended to prod banks to boost certain
other rates. Rates on credit cards and home
equity loans and credit lines, for example,
will most likely rise, typically by the same
amount as the Feds increase. The increases
could appear as soon as one or two months
after the Feds action.
Also, Americans with adjustable-rate
mortgages will probably face a higher rate at
the date of their next adjustment.
Auto-loan costs may rise as well, economists said, though not as fast as the short-term
rate the Fed controls.
Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at
Bankrate.com, calculates that for a $25,000,
ve-year car loan, a one-quarter percentage
point increase would boost monthly payments
by precisely $3.
The interest rate impact on the typical
household from a quarter percentage point
move is almost inconsequential, he said.
Most people wont even notice.
And most people buy homes for reasons
that have little to do with a slight rise or fall
in mortgage rates, McBride said. They tend
to buy when they feel nancially secure or
experience a major life change, such as having children.
Rate hike: Why the Federal Reserve decided to
increase short-term interest rates. A9
No surprise here: Area experts are underwhelmed by the expected rate increase. A10

READING EAGLE: SUSAN L. ANGSTADT

The lone survivor of a brutal attack

on his family argues against executing
the killer of his loved ones.

your family get killed.

Bobish was 12 when family
friend Mark Duane Edwards
squeezed two rounds off in
the kitchen shortly after 5:30
in the morning on April 14,
2002. Bobish could not see
his father behind Edwards,
but he heard his dads body
hit the oor.
Then Edwards turned his
handgun on Bobish and red
off a round. Bobish reexively

By Nicole C. Brambila
Reading Eagle

NDIANA, Pa. Larry RJ Bobish Jr. can recount

in horrifying detail the grisly events 13 years ago
that left his parents and pregnant sister dead.
The 26-year-old narrates his life story with all the
detachment required to cope with helplessly watching

put his hands up to protect his

face just before a .22-caliber
bullet pierced his hand, entering his left ear. He collapsed
on the couch where hed been
sleeping as Edwards went
to the back of the house to
search for drugs and to shoot
his mother and sister.
His sister, Bobish said,
didnt die right away.
When Edwards returned,
[ See Victim >>> A4 ]

Larry RJ Bobish Jr., now

26, holds a
picture of his
late family. All
three, his father, mother and sister,
were killed by
a family friend
in 2002.

Our opinion: Its time to abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania B8

TODAY
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A mistrial concludes the

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Wyomissing-based Gaming and Leisure is high on

its Pittsburgh-area casino
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Amber Weaver of Lebanon County bends wire

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He reigned over the King Frost parade, was the

voice behind Go, Phillies, Go, owned funeral
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43 55

Index
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CLASSIFIED
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TV TONIGHT

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2015 READING EAGLE COMPANY

A4

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015

READING EAGLE, READING, PA.

Executing Justice

Victim cant forget, but he forgives

[ From A1 >>> ]
a dazed and bleeding Bobish
tussled in the living room
with the attacker, who was
bigger and stronger. Edwards
stabbed Bobish at least four
times, piercing his lip and back
and slashing Bobishs neck.
Bobish fell on the couch,
this time pretending to be
dead. He could feel Edwards
cover him with a blanket
before setting the house on
re.
A little more than two years
later, a jury in Fayette County
sentenced Edwards to death
for the murders of Larry A.
Bobish, 50, Joanna M. Bobish,
42, Krystal Bobish, 17, and her
unborn son in North Union.
I remember it all, Bobish
said.
That he hasnt forgotten is
common among those who
share the horror of a loved
one being murdered. They
cant forget. They dont forget. Those chilling moments
forever will stay with them,
with Bobish. But unlike the
majority of victims survivors in Pennsylvania who say
they want to see their loved
ones killer executed, Bobish
doesnt.
Im not going to get my
family back, he said. I know
that. Theres no point punishing someone else when its not
going to make this better.

It was too late at that point,

Bobish said.
Before he blacked out again,
Bobish could hear the faint
sound of ambulance sirens in
the distance. And then he was
own by medical helicopter
to a hospital where he would
spend the next several days in
and out of consciousness.
I dont think about that
too often, he said. I keep
my mind distracted.

Removal from death row

He had no idea the danger

Two days before the murders, Edwards had stolen
drugs from the elder Bobish
at gunpoint.
Bobish said his father had
warned him Edwards might
return. And if Edwards did,
his father told him he should
hide in the basement or run
to a friends house.
A mechanic known for
his paint and bodywork but
sidelined by a knee injury, Bobishs father turned to selling
drugs to support the family.
He sold wet, a dangerous
drug cocktail made with liquid
PCP. Bobish said his mother
and sister were addicts.
Mark and Kristi Altrogge
adopted Bobish in 2005. Kristi

Larry RJ Bobish Jr., top, was

12 when he survived a gruesome attack by family friend
Mark Duane Edwards, above,
that killed his mother and father, Joanna and Larry Bobish,
right, and his pregnant teenage sister.

Altrogge said she believes the

elder Bobish had a premonition about the deadly events
to come, giving to a relative
some old family photos and
a request to take care of his
children if anything should
happen.
Those photos are all that
Bobish has from his childhood. Everything else burned
in the re.

I think he had no idea the

danger he was putting his
family in, said Kristi Altrogge,
60.
Underneath the blanket Edwards placed over him, Bobish
passed out.
He awoke some time later
to the sound of crackling re
and breaking glass, his house
engulfed in flames. Bobish
said he stumbled out of his

home and into the morning

chill, then crawled to the
driveway, all the while yelling for help.
I was warm, but it was cold,
he said.
He lay with his back to the
fire until an off-duty state
trooper stumbled upon his
cries and attempted to break
down the front door to get the
rest of the family out.

Two governors Ed Rendell and Tom Corbett have

signed death warrants for
Edwards, the last one in 2014
before Corbett left office.
Edwards, 33, was to be executed Jan. 13.
A little more than two
weeks later, Edwards received
a stay of execution and in
March after nearly a decade
on Pennsylvanias death row
Fayette County Judge James
Wagner Jr. overturned his
death sentence. Wagner resentenced Edwards to life in
prison without parole, nding
the convicted killer had an IQ
of 75 or less, which indicates
an intellectual disability.
Two years before a jury
sentenced Edwards to death,
the U.S. Supreme Court found
that the execution of the intellectually disabled was unconstitutional.
More than 400 people
have been sentenced to die
in Pennsylvania since capital
punishment was reinstated
in 1978, yet only three have
been executed, none against
their will as all gave up their
appeals.
Consequently, victims
families describe feeling victimized all over again by a dysfunctional system in which
the condemned continually
appeal their death sentences,
in some cases for more than
three decades.
Edwards removal from
death row for Bobish was a
kind of closure.
Its more of a relief that its
over, he said.
Gov. Tom Wolf in February issued a suspension on

READING EAGLE: SUSAN L. ANGSTADT

Larry RJ Bobish Jr., center, with his adoptive parents Mark and Kristi Altrogge in front of their home in Altoona.

executions despite the states

de facto moratorium by the
courts. The commonwealth
hasnt executed anyone since
1999.
In his announcement, the
governor cited a number of
long-standing issues with the
states death penalty system.
Among those concerns are
the states high reversal rate
on sentences and the number
of exonerations (Pennsylvania
has had six); its cost (estimated
at $350 million); and fairness
(the majority of those under a
sentence of death are black).
If Pennsylvania fixed all
those things, its a heavy lift,
said Kathleen Lucas, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty in York.
Formed in 1997, the group
has more than 10,000 members across the commonwealth working to end capital
punishment.
Lucas added, Im not convinced all of that is xable.

I believe in forgiveness
Bobish was 14 when he
wrote a letter forgiving Edwards during the killers trial.
Though his adoptive mother
helped Bobish with the letter,
the Altrogges said he was not
coached in any way and that,
frankly, the boys sincerity
had surprised them.
I believe in forgiveness,
said Bobish, noting he had
harbored anger toward Edwards.
An attorney collected the
letter but never gave it to Edwards or the court.
Bobish, his family said,
wasnt happy when the jury
sentenced Edwards to death.
He did not want Marky to
die, Kristi Altrogge said.
Bobish hasnt spoken to
Edwards since that fateful
morning. But if Bobish were
to speak to Edwards, he said
hed tell him that there is
forgiveness in God. And hed
tell Edwards that he forgives
him, too.
Im at peace with whats
happened, Bobish said. Its
not something I (am) holding
against him.
The Reading Eagle sent a
letter to Edwards at the State
Correctional Institution at
Greene on Nov. 2 seeking
comment, but did not receive
a response.
Doctors tried unsuccessfully twice to remove the bullet that had lodged near the
base of Bobishs skull. It has
since migrated to his lower
back, a sometimes painful
reminder of that murderous
morning. So, too, is the calcium on his brain from the
head trauma he suffered that
Bobish believes contributes to
the painful migraines he still
sometimes gets.
The Altrogges still cant believe he survived.
For a long time he never
talked about it, said Mark
Altrogge, 65, who is the senior pastor at Saving Grace
Church in Indiana, about 60
miles east of Pittsburgh.
The couple met the boy
while he was still in protective custody.
Because Bobish fell behind
in school, Kristi Altrogge began homeschooling him. And
then later, Bobish asked if the
Altrogges would adopt him.
How do you say no to a
child whos just lost his whole
family? Kristi Altrogge said.
How are you going to say no
to that? He was looking for
a home.
Mark Altrogge explains that
taking in Bobish is the true
religion the author of James
writes about in Chapter 1,
verse 27: Religion [ >>> A5 ]

READING EAGLE, READING, PA.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015

A5

Executing Justice

The superintendent of a prison that houses many death row inmates says
his line of work isnt as dramatic as Hollywood would have people believe.

[ A4 >>> ]
that God our Father accepts
as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and
widows in their distress and
to keep oneself from being
polluted by the world.

Hope and a future

Bobish attended church
for the first time with a
friends family a few weeks
before the murders.
At church, someone
asked if he was saved. Bobish didnt know.
I had no clue what it
meant, he said.
Bobish remembers praying to be saved. And he was.
He was the only one in his
family who survived the
brutal murders. And he was
plucked out of North Union
and placed in a family he
could call home.
There wasnt a future
there or anything where I
could prosper, Bobish said,
a reference to Gods promise in Jeremiah 29:11 that
the Lord has plans to give
him hope and a future.
Bobish has never been
to the gravesites, although
he has returned to North
Union to visit family. Much
of his extended family in
North Union wanted to see
Edwards executed, Bobish
said.
Bobish knows he has a
different mindset.
I forgave him, so I dont
want him punished for it,
he said. And I dont want
his family punished for it.
Today, Bobish works two
jobs trying to build his own
rental business.
As weird as it is, Im in a
way better situation now,
Bobish said. I feel like
God brought me here on
purpose.

Movie depiction of death row is off the mark

By Nicole C. Brambila
Reading Eagle

Robert Gilmore spends his

days behind razor wire.
As the superintendent of
the State Correctional Institution at Greene in Waynesburg,
Greene County, he oversees a
staff of roughly 700 employees and more than 1,700 prisoners. The maximum security
prison in western Pennsylvania houses eight in 10 of those
under a death sentence in the
commonwealth.
I came up through corrections, said Gilmore, who was
promoted to superintendent
at Greene in March 2014.
He started his career in
1990 as a corrections officer
at SCI Graterford, which also
houses death row inmates in
Montgomery County.
Within three years, he had
worked his way up to sergeant.
Other promotions followed
in various institutions. He
served as an emergency preparedness coordinator and intelligence captain and major
of the guard, among others.
Ive just always had an interest in law enforcement,
Gilmore said. I grew up in
a law enforcement family. It
was my natural career path.
Despite his various duties,
the prisoners whether
low-risk and nonviolent or a
condemned inmate in solitary
are similar.
I didnt find it any more
challenging working on this
unit than any other, he said.
The interaction with prisoners is the same.
U n l i k e H o l l y w o o d s
treat ment of prison life in
blockbusters such as The

Robert
Gilmore,
above, is superintendent
of the State
Correctional Institution
at Greene in
Waynesburg,
Greene County, right, where
most Pennsylvania death
row inmates
are housed.
READING EAGLE: SUSAN L. ANGSTADT

Shawshank Redemption or
The Green Mile, corrections staff at Greene rotate
in and out, and none spend
long stretches on death row,
Gilmore said.
Its not at all what you
might see on TV, he said. Its
not at all how its portrayed.
Gilmore described the unit
as clean and orderly.
You dont get a sense of uneasiness, he said.
The staff levels are higher
on death row, a closed unit,
with two correctional officers
escorting inmates in and out
of a cell, in which inmates
spend 22 hours a day. Being
this staff-intensive is expensive, adding an estimated
$10,000 in yearly costs for
each capital inmate.
Gov. Tom Wolf in February
issued a moratorium on executions until a report study-

ing the states death penalty is

Pennsylvania reprieves
complete, saying the system
In February, Gov. Tom
was unfair, dysfunctional and
Wolf announced a controcostly. When announcing the
moratorium, the governor cit- versial moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania,
ed a Reading Eagle analysis of
vowing to give temporary
the cost, estimated at $350
reprieves until a statewide
million.
According to the Pennsyl- report on the death penalty
vania Department of Correc- system is complete.
According to the states
tions, as of Dec. 9, Secretary
Department of Corrections
John Wetzel has signed 14
death warrant notices, includ- Secretary John Wetzel has
signed 14 death warrants for
ing one from Berks County for
13 inmates, one from Berks
34-year-old Albert Perez.
County, as of Dec. 9.
Perez, who was sentenced
Although 13 reprieves
to death for the 2007 strangulation deaths of his ex- have been issued, Wolf has
granted only two. The other
girlfriend and her 5-year-old
11 were issued by the courts.
daughter, was scheduled to
be executed April 17. The U.S.
Source: Pa. Dept. of Corrections
District Court for Eastern
Pennsylvania, however, issued a stay of execution for
Gilmore said he did not
Perez on March 31, according have an opinion on the govto state corrections officials. ernors moratorium. And he

said he hasnt heard whether

the temporary reprieves have
had any effect on prisoner
morale.
To date, Wolf has issued
two reprieves one to York
Countys Hubert Michael, 59,
and the other to Michael Ballard, 42, out of Northampton
County. The others have been
issued by the courts.
Still, Gilmore described the
interaction prison staff has
with inmates as responsive,
which goes a long way toward
reducing tension.
The more we communicate with our offenders, the
more on top of things that we
are, Gilmore said. Its that
simple.
Gilmore added, We expect
cooperation and they expect it
on their end and they get it.
Contact Nicole C. Brambila: 610-3715044 or nbrambila@readingeagle.com.

Contact Nicole C. Brambila: 610371-5044 or nbrambila@readingeagle.com.

Executions continue to dip across the country

Executing Justice

Only 28 occurred
in 2015. The drop
reects waning
public condence
in the system.

About this series: A ve-day

look at Pennsylvanias controversial death penalty system from the perspectives of
those it touches victims
families, a prosecutor and
defense attorney, judges and
the condemned.
Sunday: The widow of a slain
Reading police officer shares
her pain, and the convicted
killer apologizes.
Monday: A defense attorney
shares why he opposes the
death penalty.
Tuesday: A former prison
chaplain talks about a convicted killers nal hours before execution.
Wednesday: An exoneree
makes peace with the 16
years he lost in prison, 10 on
death row.
Today: A murder victims son
extends forgiveness to his
familys killer.
Online at
readingeagle.com:
View an interactive timeline of Reading
police officers killed in the
line of duty since 1900.
Watch a video about the
death penalty in Pennsylvania.
Listen to reporter Nicole
Brambila and photographer Susan L. Angstadt talk
about the series in a WEEU
interview.
Read our previous coverage on the death penalty.

ANNUAL DEATH SENTENCES & EXECUTIONS

States in 2015 executed the fewest number of inmates since 1991,
while juries sentenced just 49 to death.

PEAK: 315
IN 1994 & 1996

350

DEATH SENTENCES

By Nicole C. Brambila
Reading Eagle

Only 28 executions were

carried out nationwide in
2015, the fewest in nearly a
quarter-century.
The last inmate scheduled
for execution this year in
Pennsylvania, Antyane Robinson of Cumberland County, was granted a temporary
reprieve Wednesday by Gov.
Tom Wolf, in keeping with the
moratorium he announced
this year.
The executions conducted were done by six states
Texas (13), Missouri (six),
Georgia (ve), Florida (two),
Oklahoma (one) and Virginia
(one). Pennsylvania, which
has the fth largest death row
population in the nation, has
not had an execution since
Gary Heidnik received the
needle in 1999.
The U.S. had added 49 new
death sentences, the fewest
since 1973, after the U.S. Supreme Court halted executions nationally.
The death penalty declined
by every measure this year,
said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center
in Washington, which tracks
capital punishment data.
Dunham, formerly a Pennsylvania appellate attorney,
added, One has to ask the

300

250

232

200

150

PEAK: 98
IN 1999
100

50

EXECUTIONS

49
28

1976
80
85
Death Penalty Information Center

90

95

2000

05

10

15

READING EAGLE: GARY VISGAITIS

To read the full report, go to http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/YearEnd2015

question, does the death

penalty continue to serve any
meaningful public purpose?
The center on Wednesday
released a year-end report on
capital punishment.
Among the ndings:
Ninety-three percent of
the executions occurred in
four states.
Three states accounted
for more than half of all new
death sentences Texas (14),
Florida (nine) and Alabama
(six). And one California
county Riverside County
accounted for 16 percent of

all death sentences in 2015,

more than those imposed by
any state except Florida.
Racial minorities comprise 57 percent of death row
inmates.
Twenty-five percent of
all U.S. death sentences were
imposed by judges after a jury
could not unanimously recommend death.
Eighteen death penalty
states, including three that
had executions in 2015, did
not impose any death sentences.
This all comes as public

support, roughly 60 percent,

for the death penalty was at
close to a 40-year low.
Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams blamed
the declining trend in Pennsylvania on the courts and the
protracted appeals process.
Although three who abandoned their appeals have been
executed in the state in the
modern era, no one has been
put to death against their will
since 1962, when Elmo Lee
Smith was electrocuted.
Prosecutors are very frustrated by the judicial mora-

torium that has been put on

the death penalty, Adams
said. Furthermore, we realize that people are not being
executed.
We also realize that the
mountainous number of appeals that take place in these
cases are very, very wearing
on our resources. I think
those factors have contributed to seeking the death
penalty less.
Others cite the growing
concern over the application
of the U.S. death penalty system and an increasing lack of
condence in it.
Frank R. Baumgartner, a
political science professor at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author
of The Decline of the Death
Penalty and the Discovery of
Innocence, said waning support has driven the sentencing
and execution decline.
The reason for the drop in
public support?
We think that DNA evidence
about exonerations technically most of the exonerations
have not been through DNA
has transformed the public
debate about the death penalty, in that you cant trust the
government to get everything
right, said Baumgartner, noting that for every nine executions one person is exonerated
from death row.
Pennsylvania has had six
death row exonerations.
When you start talking errors, that has really shattered
peoples faith in the death
penalty system, Baumgartner said.
Contact Nicole C. Brambila: 610-3715044 or nbrambila@readingeagle.com.