The Washington County man convicted of the 1977 stalking, rape and strangulation of a West Allegheny High School student remains of interest to investigators still stumped by a series of murders that occurred in the region nearly 30 years ago. David Robert Kennedy, 50, of Cecil, was convicted Monday and sentenced to life in prison for the death of Debbie Capiola, 17, one of seven young women who died in and around Washington County under similar circumstances between 1976 and 1978. Capiola was abducted on St. Patrick's Day 1977 on her way to the bus stop near her home in Findlay. Her body was found near a strip mine just over the border in Washington County. Three other women died in Washington County, one in Allegheny County, one in Fayette County and one near Wheeling, W.Va. "There is nothing (Kennedy) is currently considered a suspect in, but that doesn't mean we aren't still looking," said Cpl. Beverly Ashton of the state police Cold Case squad in Washington and Fayette counties. DNA testing traced a semen stain found on bluejeans wrapped around Capiola's neck to Kennedy. Authorities also used DNA technology to link James Francis "Silky" Sullivan, 58, with the 1978 rape and beating death of Linda Mae Covach, 28, in Fayette County. Sullivan, who was arrested a few days after Kennedy in December 2000, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2002 and is serving a life sentence. Ashton said DNA evidence has linked unknown men to the 1976 strangulation of 21-year-old Susan Rush in Washington County and the 1977 rape and strangulation near Wheeling of Roberta Ann Elam, a 26-year-old postulate nun. Those cases remain unsolved, as do three other cases from that era. Mary Irene Gency, 16, of North Charleroi, Washington County, was raped and beaten to death in February 1977; Brenda Lee Ritter, 18, of North Strabane, Washington County, was raped and strangled in May 1977; and the partially clad body of Barbara Jean Lewis, 30, was found in May 1977 in a trash container in Churchill, not far from her Penn Hills home. "There is no direct link (from Lewis) to Kennedy that we know of at this time," said Allegheny County police Assistant Superintendent James Morton. A 19-year-old man was arrested for Gency's murder four months after her body was found but was released after a judge ruled that prosecutors did not have enough evidence. "There is nothing that specifically links Mr. Kennedy to Mary Gency's death. ... There is nothing that specifically links (him) to Brenda Ritter's death," Ashton said. "That doesn't mean that he is a suspect or that he's been excluded. There is no evidence one way or the other." Ashton said Kennedy's job as a civilian mechanic for the Air Force Reserves often took him on the road. "He did an awful lot of traveling during the last couple of years, and we've made contact with authorities in various areas," she said. Ashton said DNA from Kennedy and some of the victims has been placed with CODIS, the Combined DNA Indexing System that allows crime labs in many states to match DNA profiles from unsolved cases to the DNA from convicts and cases that were solved. She said investigators are awaiting future advances in DNA technology before submitting evidence from Gency and Ritter for analysis. Kennedy's attorney, William Manifesto, said: "Any suggestion that (Kennedy) was involved in any of those other cases would be inappropriate and incorrect. There was a series of investigations done a few years ago, as I recall, and there was absolutely no basis to suggest that he was involved at all." "There is no common thread to any of them," said Manifesto. He said Kennedy, who has no prior criminal record, is considering appealing his conviction for Capiola's murder. Lawrence Likar, a retired FBI agent who is now head of the criminal justice department at La Roche College, said it is normal for detectives to look for additional victims of a person involved in a premeditated crime such as stalking. Likar, not commenting directly on Kennedy or the unsolved cases, said serial murderers and rapists generally have a history of criminal behavior. "You don't just wake up one morning and decide to stalk, rape and murder a person," he said.

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