Sex, cocaine snared Konias on lam in Fla.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- The six weeks he spent in Florida were a mix of debauchery and depression for Ken Konias Jr., the security guard accused of killing his partner and stealing $2.3 million from their armored car.

Konias, 22, of Dravosburg told a stripper that he wanted to start a new life with her in Jamaica. Yet he confessed to a housemate that he had nothing to live for, according to interviews with those who knew him here.

"I liked him," said Cathy, 31, a prostitute who claimed she traded sex last week with Konias for about $800 worth of cocaine. "He was nice to me."

Konias is in a federal detention center in Miami awaiting transport back to Pittsburgh for prosecution. His mother, Renee Konias of Dravosburg, declined to comment.

It makes sense that Ken Konias, living on the run with about $2 million, would seek out the company of people with whom he would not form long-term relationships, said Andrew Scott, a former police chief in nearby Boca Raton who provides police consulting.

"You're just trying to survive," Scott said. "What's the best way for him? You pay, do what you need to do, and there's no attachments."

Investigators believe Konias immediately drove to Florida after the Feb. 28 slaying and robbery in a tan Ford Explorer, which is missing. He used cabs to get around this town located about 10 miles north of Fort Lauderdale.

Konias used a fake name and had fake identification, Pittsburgh police Lt. Daniel Herrmann said. Konias found a girlfriend with the stage name Summer, either at a strip club or through a pimp he met through a cab driver, investigators said.

Summer rented a room in a one-story house on S.W. Eighth Street in the city's Cypress neighborhood, a poor area populated by drug dealers, the homeless and prostitutes.

Konias told Shewona Flowers, who rents a room in the house, that he met Summer during a stay at a rundown hotel nearby. She stayed with him for a while, then he moved in with Summer about two weeks ago.

Konias and Flowers often sat together in the trash-filled front yard while he drank Miller Light beer and snorted cocaine, she said. He made frequent trips to a nearby storage unit. Roommates believed he once owned a home but lost it to foreclosure, theorizing that the storage unit contained his belongings.

Police said he stored cash there. Investigators said they recovered about $1.3 million in cash when they arrested Konias.

"He said he had nothing to live for. (But) he was polite," Flowers said. "He was always trying to wash the dishes and clean up. I said, 'You don't have to do that stuff. Leave it alone.'"

Investigators believe the people there knew Konias had obtained his money illegally, Herrmann said.

One day, Konias and Summer had a "misunderstanding," Flowers said, and they yelled at each other in the hallway. She left the house and did not return, except once: When she broke in through a back window and stole money -- Konias claimed it was $30,000 -- in a black duffel bag, Flowers said.

"I said, 'What are you doing with $30,000? That's crazy,'" she said. "He said he was leaving town, that's why he had it."

The Tribune-Review called Summer's cellphone but her voice mail was full. Her roommates said they did not know her real name.

Herrmann said a prostitute told a friend, whose name police would not release, about Konias. That man said he Googled some of the details about the fatal armored car robbery and found news accounts with Konias' photo. He called police on Monday night.

"This is how most unsophisticated fugitives get caught," said Larry Likar, chairman of the department of Justice, Law and Security at La Roche College who spent 23 years with the FBI. "He had money and no control and immature fascinations, so he bought women and drugs."

Although many in the neighborhood wondered why someone with millions of dollars would move to a crime-ridden street like Eighth, Flowers said that in many ways it was the ideal hideout because nobody here asks questions.

"Why ask when there's no need to know?" she said.

Staff writers Margaret Harding and Jill King Greenwood contribunted.