Five Decades Later, Convicted Pittsburgh Murderer Captured

Pittsburgh PA

13 November, 2020

2:29 PM

Description

PITTSBURGH, PA —For nearly a half-century, convicted murder Leonard Moses of Pittsburgh eluded capture after escaping law enforcement officials while attending his grandmother's funeral. But Moses, living in Michigan under the name of Paul Dickson and working as a traveling pharmacist, finally was apprehended on Thursday. The FBI's Pittsburgh Division and the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office announced Friday that Moses was arrested in Grand Blanc, MI by the FBI Detroit's Fugitive Task Force. He is in custody on a federal unauthorized flight to avoid confinement warrant and will be returned to Pennsylvania pending an extradition hearing. On June 1, 1971, Moses escaped after being permitted to attending his grandmother's funeral in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood. At the time of his escape, Moses was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. During riots in Pittsburgh following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Moses and others threw Molotov cocktails at a house in Homewood. As a result of burns received during the attack, and subsequent pneumonia, the female victim inside the house died. After his arrest earlier this year on Michigan state charges that the FBI did not specify, Moses' fingerprints were entered into a nationwide database in October. Using the FBI's Next Generation Identification system, Moses' fingerprints from the state arrest in Michigan matched with the prints taken after his arrest in 1968. "I hope this arrest brings some closure to the family members of Mary Amplo, who was killed back in 1968," said FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Michael Christman. "Mr. Moses will now have to face justice for her murder. Through coordination with the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office and our partners in Michigan, we were able to identify Mr. Moses."