Jury hears taped confession of '82 killing
Jason...@virgin.net
Jury hears taped confession of '82 killing
Friday, February 26, 1999
By Johnna A. Pro, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
On a warm, rainy spring night 17 years ago,
Marcia Jones jumped out of a
car and, in a moment of teen-age anger,
sneered at her best friend with whom
she had quarreled.
"I'm going to tell your mother you didn't
stay at my house tonight," the
16-year-old Jones threatened, furious that
Diane Rump wouldn't stay out all
night partying as the girls originally had
schemed to do.
With that, she turned on her heels and
stormed off, straight into the arms of
two men who were looking for someone to
molest.
Within an hour, Jones, of Mount Washington,
would be dead, fatally stabbed
by the men who had repeatedly choked, beaten
and raped her, then feared
she would identify them.
"I stabbed her in her face and neck area - to
make sure she was dead,"
Anthony J. Fiebiger said in a taped
confession to police. "I said we would
have to kill her."
Fiebiger, 35, who was charged along with
Joseph Morton of Lincoln Place, is
on trial for Jones' death May 21, 1982.
Morton has yet to stand trial.
The killing went unsolved until last year,
when Fiebiger confessed as he was
admitting to another killing.
A tape of Fiebiger's confession was among the
evidence that jurors heard
yesterday in the courtroom of Common Pleas
Judge David S. Cercone.
Prosecutors are seeking a first-degree murder
conviction and the death
penalty.
Defense attorneys Robert Stewart and William
H. Difenderfer concede that
the jury will convict Fiebiger, but they hope
to spare him the death penalty by
arguing that Jones' death occurred during the
commission of rape, making him
guilty of second-degree murder, which carries
a mandatory sentence of life in
prison.
Jurors were expected to begin deliberations
today.
According to the taped confession, Fiebiger
and Morton, after raping Jones,
propped her up next to a tree in Grandview
Park, went to Fiebiger's home in
Mount Washington, got a knife and went back
and stabbed her to be certain
she was dead.
"He said the entire incident lasted about an
hour, from the time he met her until
the time he finished with her," Pittsburgh
homicide Detective Dennis Logan
testified. "He never showed any emotion or
remorse."
"They knew that by stabbing her ... it would
kill her," Logan's partner, Richard
McDonald, testified.
Both detectives testified that Fiebiger told
them he had fantasies about killing
people.
The day Jones was killed started out with
Jones and Rump, along with a
group of high school friends, cutting school
and going to Settler's Cabin Park
for several hours to party. Later in the day,
each girl claimed to be staying at
the other's house and, unbeknownst to their
parents, went to a party at a
Crane Avenue apartment building. The hostess,
an older girl, later drove them
to Mount Washington.
It was then that Rump and Jones, both of whom
had been drinking, argued
about staying out.
Jones got out of the car and stormed off. By
the time Rump and the other girls
returned to the park about 15 minutes later
to look for her, she was gone.
They looked for her at a nearby pizza shop,
then returned to the park, but
their friend was nowhere to be found.
Her body was discovered the next morning.
"We weren't the best of girls," Rump
testified, "but she didn't deserve to be
killed."