Robinson Twp. man pleads in fiancee's shooting death

A Robinson Township man pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder in the shooting death of his fiancee after originally claiming the victim had agreed to a mutual suicide pact.

Allegheny County Judge Lester Nauhaus sentenced Michael Oravec, 28, to a maximum term of 20 to 40 years in prison in the slaying May 2, 1999, of Rhonda Jo Reller.

Reller, 32, who had met Oravec during his business trip to Seattle, had moved to Robinson to live with the defendant in the apartment complex on Chestnut Ridge Drive, where the body was found. She was shot in the head.

The defendant, an employee of Sargent Electric on Liberty Avenue, had left a message on a co-worker's voicemail telling him Reller's body could be found in the apartment and to call police.

Police found Oravec with his wrists slashed, and he was hospitalized for surgery and treatment of his injuries.

Oravec had told Allegheny County Police detectives that he and Reller had agreed to a suicide pact because of an abortion she had two months before the shooting.

After the victim was shot, the defendant claimed the gun jammed when he tried to shoot himself.

But Assistant District Attorney Christopher Connors said investigators submitted the gun to the county Department of Laboratories, where Dr. Robert Levine, a firearms expert, determined that it was in operating condition and that no mechanical failure had occurred.