By Randy Griffith
Sixteen years after his retirement from state police, David Marker of Garrett saw last week’s arrest of John David Dawson as capping his
25-year career.
“It is just a completion of my career with the state police,” Marker said. “This was the case that I worked on that bothered me the most.”
Investigators focused on Dawson soon after the body of his 30-year-old wife, Kathleen Dawson, was discovered in her burning car on Nov. 10, 1981, along what is now Soap Hollow Road near Tire Hill.
Investigation showed she had been killed along the roadside and her body placed back into the car before it was torched.
“Everybody had strong feelings from the first (about John Dawson’s involvement),” retired Conemaugh Township police Chief Larry Kush said.
“It was very frustrating.” Kush said. “That was one of my things that I wished could have been closed before I retired.”
“(Dawson) was always an interest in it,” said James B. Yelovich, Somerset County district attorney at the time of the murder.
“We were frustrated by the lack of evidence,” Yelovich said. “I am not going to bring a case until and unless there is sufficient evidence.”
Dawson could never be held accountable for
the murder if he had been arrested, but subsequently acquitted because of a weak case, Yelovich said.
“Then there would be no closure,” Yelovich said.
Dawson was arrested Monday after his nephew, Duane Schmidt, came forward with new information that he heard Dawson and another man on the morning after the crime talking about police finding the murder weapon.
Marker did not remember if investigators were able to talk to Schmidt in the days after the murder.
“We talked to several hundred people,” Marker said.
Yelovich lauded state police investigators for their perseverance.
“It was a long time coming,” Yelovich said. “We were lacking proof until the fine work by the state police.”
Kathleen Dawson’s father, Roy Smith of Johnstown, has been outspoken in his criticism of police involved in the first stages of investigation, but Yelovich said the detective work is often painstaking and frustrating.
“As far as what they did, and how much they did, I can’t say,” Yelovich said. “All we know is we
couldn’t even sneak it by a coroner’s jury.”
The coroner’s inquest in June 1982 ruled Kathleen’s death a homicide, but could not name a suspect.
A trial jury would be expected to require even more evidence to convict.
In addition to Smith’s campaign for justice, there was considerable public pressure on police in the months after the murder.
“The pressure doesn’t mean much; the proof does,” Yelovich said. “Everybody was interested in the resolution, but without the proof, there was not going to be any resolution.”
Wanting to solve a crime is not enough, Kush said, noting he doesn’t take Smith’s comments personally.
“I can understand where the man is coming from. He lost a daughter,” Kush said. “We did what we could, the best we could. We didn’t have enough.”
