Pittsburgh police have arrested the second of three suspects in a fatal stabbing in March at an abandoned West End house.
Police on Thursday arrested Carlena Wells, 18, in the death of Marc Kovach, 37, who was beaten and stabbed, according to a criminal complaint. His body was then hidden under the empty house’s front porch, the complaint said.
Investigators arrested Wells’ boyfriend, Dominic Johnson, 19, on March 22. On April 5 they charged another man, Logan Smetanka, 20.
Smetanka was not in jail Friday and appears to be at large.
Authorities did not have home addresses for any of the suspects.
Police said the crime unfolded when Johnson was hanging out with Kovach in a home on Steuben Street around March 16. Johnson attacked Kovach for touching his girlfriend Wells, according to a criminal complaint.
At least two witnesses whom police did not identify were present.
One of them told police that Johnson and Wells were “stomping” on Kovach at the house, the complaint said.
Johnson then dragged an unconscious Kovach toward the porch of the house, the complaint said.
A different witness said Johnson grabbed a knife off the floor inside the home and yelled “some sort of ‘demonic wording.’”
The first witness then heard “slashing and stabbing sounds.”
One witness said Smetanka also participated in the murder, according to police.
Police said a witness told them that Johnson confessed to the crime, but when confronted by investigators, he denied that he participated in the attack.
The witness who claimed that Johnson picked up the knife washed it and “threw it in the river,” according to police.
That same witness also threw Johnson’s shoes — blue-and-white Air Jordan sneakers — in a dumpster, police said.
Investigators said they recovered the sneakers and matched the tread pattern to a shoe print on the victim’s stomach.
Wells told her Johnson, her boyfriend, that the victim had been touching her days before the attack, the complaint said.
On the day of the stabbing, Wells tried to touch Kovach in a sexual manner on the day of the murder, a witness told police.
Pittsburgh police were dispatched on March 21 to Steuben Street after someone called 911 to report a body. They found Kovach dead in a dried pool of blood under the front porch of the home, the complaint said.
He had been stabbed multiple times in the abdomen. Kovach was lying face-up on the ground, with a black jacket covering his chest.
Police charged Johnson with criminal homicide and tampering with evidence. Wells is charged with criminal homicide and conspiracy. Both were denied bail and remain in the Allegheny County Jail.
Police charged Smetanka on April 5 with criminal homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide.
