Hitman found dead in jail cell
A Chicago-area contract killer committed suicide late Tuesday at the Allegheny County Jail, only hours after a federal jury convicted him of interstate murder for hire.
The body of Eugene DeLuca, 69, of Oak Lawn, Ill., was found in his cell shortly after his removal from the mental health unit, where he spent 24 hours on a suicide watch, a jail official said. DeLuca was convicted Monday in U.S. District Court on a charge of interstate murder for hire and faced a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Capt. Ron Pofi, of the internal affairs unit of the jail, said DeLuca and other prisoners facing life sentences often spend time in the mental health unit as a precaution.
During the trial, White Oak electrician Larry Skiba testified he paid $25,000 to DeLuca to kill used-car salesman Robert Cooper, 69, of McKeesport. Cooper died Oct. 8, 2000, of five gunshot wounds while seated in a car parked at Olympia Shopping Center in McKeesport.
Skiba testified he wanted Cooper killed to collect on $90,000 in insurance policies. Skiba claimed Cooper was already a marked man because he knew about the robbery of late La Cosa Nostra associate Primo Mollica, who controlled gambling in the Monongahela Valley.
DeLuca denied any role in the Cooper slaying. He blamed the slaying on Skiba.
Pofi said DeLuca had made a statement following his conviction that he might hurt himself. Authorities did not elaborate on the statement.
The jail's psychiatrist, though, cleared DeLuca to return to the general population after 24 hours of observation.
"He was acting normally," Pofi said. "There were no signs he was going to hurt himself."
The cell he occupied had no cellmate.
A jail guard making routine checks found DeLuca hanging from a torn bed sheet that he had wrapped around the grate of an air vent, Pofi said.
The coroner's office ruled the death a suicide. Investigators for the U.S. Marshal's office, the county sheriff and the county police found no evidence of foul play, said jail Warden Ramon Rustin.
Pofi said DeLuca left behind a package for his daughter, Gina Pegg, of Baltimore. The package contained rosary beads and Christmas cards that family members had sent DeLuca.
DeLuca, an informant who helped Chicago-area law-enforcement authorities bust up high-stakes gambling enterprises, left a note asking officials to contact his daughter, authorities said.
Pegg could not be reached for comment. DeLuca's attorney, Charles Porter Jr., did not returns calls for comment.
DeLuca's death was the first suicide in the jail this year. Two inmates killed themselves in 2004.
