Hunters death remains unsolved

Andrew J. Kachonik holds onto a bag filled with the shotgun pellets that struck his son's heart, killing him, one year ago while he was archery hunting in a farmer's field next to their property.

Andrew J. Kachonik remembers that last wave he gave his 39-year-old son, Steve.

It was just after 3 p.m. Nov. 12, 2005, and Kachonik, now 73, was working in his yard on that crisp, autumn afternoon, when Steve drove past in his truck. The father acknowledged him by raising his arm.

As usual, Steve was headed with his bow and arrows to his favorite buck hunting spot in the woods, about 600 yards from the Loyalhanna Township home along Route 981 where he was born and raised.

Steve loved that land so much that his father subdivided three acres from the 40-acre property for his son to build a house.

"That was the last time anyone here saw him alive. I believe within an hour he was shot dead out of his tree stand," Andrew Kachonik said.

Everyone knew where Steven Kachonik was headed that day.

"Steve was a creature of habit. When he wasn't working or spending time with our children, he loved the outdoors," said his ex-wife, Amy Bertolino.

"He had hunted since he was a young boy," she said.

"We were neighbors when we were young and I knew him my whole life. He was a very hard worker and just great with our two children, Stephanie, 10, and Nicholas, 9," Bertolino said.

Bertolino said the most soul-wrenching thing she's ever had to do was tell the children how their father died.

"It was horrible. Steve was in the middle of building a house and the kids were looking forward to living there. And now when we drive up to visit Steve's parents, they can hardly stand to look at it," Bertolino said.

Steven Kachonik died from a single blast to his heart fired from a 12-gauge shotgun. The blast knocked him 15 feet from his tree stand to the ground.

No arrests have been made. Despite a $50,000 reward offered by the family, tips have been far and few between, state police Trooper Brian Gross of the Kiski barracks reported.

"It's been a while since we had one. But we're still actively pursuing it," Gross said.

Despite an exhaustive search that included a state police helicopter and infrared sensors the evening he disappeared, firefighters did not discover the victim's body until 7:20 the next morning, a Sunday.

"At first someone tried to tell me he fell out of his portable tree stand, but I knew better," Andrew Kachonik said.

"His head was leaning up against a log beneath the tree stand. Another tree had fallen over that tree, and it was in the perfect shape of a cross," Kachonik said.

Andrew Kachonik and his wife, Mary, believe their son knew his killer. Strangers rarely wander into these woods.

Mary Kachonik said her son usually hunted from a permanent tree stand he built, near where he parked his truck. But this time Steve walked with a portable tree stand hundreds of yards away, crossing a cornfield and entering the woods on a neighbor's property where he had permission to hunt.

"I bet somebody was in his tree stand. I think whoever shot him, knew him," she said.

"That is one secret I wish Steve had shared with me ... whoever was after him," Andrew Kachonik added.

Four months before the shooting, someone had placed a steel cable "about head level" along an all-terrain vehicle path on the family property where Steve frequently drove, he said.

"The person even went to the trouble of painting it camouflage," Andrew Kachonik said.

Steve spotted the cable before he hit it.

The younger Kachonik, an all-conference running back in the 1980s at Saltsburg High School, grew up with five brothers and two sisters. He worked in construction for a Fayette County company owned by a brother.

Nicholas and Stephanie Kachonik, with the assistance of their mother, have created a Web site for people to leave information on the slaying or messages for his family.

It can be accessed at wemissourdaddy.com.

"We're hoping that it being archery season again ... someone will remember something," Bertolino said.

Anyone with information on the shooting can telephone state police in Kiski at 724-727-3434, or in Greensburg at 724-832-3288.