When people talk about serial killers, Pittsburgh usually isn’t one of the cities that comes to mind.

But one of the darkest chapters in Western Pennsylvania crime history involves Richard Henkel, a former Hampton resident whose criminal life included bank robberies, con jobs, alleged mob connections—and murder.

Henkel confessed to five killings. Yet investigators believed there could have been more. One associate claimed Henkel had bragged about killing as many as 28 people.

Henkel died in January 2025 at age 87 after spending more than four decades in prison. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette subsequently revisited his extraordinary story, describing him as Pittsburgh’s forgotten serial killer and reporting that investigators still believe he may have taken answers about additional victims to his grave.

This wasn’t a killer who fit the stereotype of someone murdering strangers for sexual gratification or simply for the thrill of killing.

According to investigators, Henkel killed for money—and to eliminate people who could become problems.

 

The Murder That Put Henkel on the Map

Before 1979, Henkel wasn’t a household name around Pittsburgh.

Then came Debbie Gentile.

On May 18, 1979, the 26-year-old Gentile was discovered dead inside Room 239 of the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport Hotel. She had been shot multiple times in the head with a .22-caliber weapon and stabbed in the chest, back and neck. Pennsylvania court records confirm the brutal circumstances of her death.

The motive prosecutors eventually uncovered was remarkable.

Gentile had a life-insurance policy worth $800,000, according to the Post-Gazette. Henkel’s mother was the beneficiary, but the policy would pay only if Gentile died in a plane crash or on airport property.

The airport hotel was above the terminal.

Investigators began digging into Henkel’s life. What they found went far beyond one murder.

 

People Around Henkel Had a Habit of Dying—or Disappearing

As detectives examined Henkel’s criminal history, a disturbing pattern emerged. Associates and people connected to him repeatedly ended up dead or vanished.

The five victims Henkel ultimately confessed or admitted involvement in killing were: Debbie Gentile. Bruce Agnew. Andrew Russman. Glenn Scott. Joann “Sasha” Scott.

Henkel pleaded guilty to Gentile’s murder and admitted killing Glenn and Sasha Scott. As part of a last-minute plea agreement that spared him the possibility of execution, he also agreed to confess to the killings of Agnew and Russman and show authorities where their bodies had been buried.

Investigators found Agnew. They never found Russman. Henkel said he could no longer remember exactly where Russman’s body was buried.

That left detectives wondering how many other graves might exist that only Henkel knew about.

 

Bruce Agnew Dug His Own Grave

The story of Bruce Agnew shows the coldness investigators attributed to Henkel.

Henkel told authorities that he took Agnew to undeveloped property in Westmoreland County under the pretense that they were going to retrieve money Henkel had hidden there.

Instead, Agnew was digging what would become his own grave. Henkel shot him.

Years later, Henkel took investigators to the area near Mamont in Washington Township. After days of searching, authorities recovered Agnew’s remains.

Russman was supposedly buried somewhere on the same property.

His remains were never recovered.

 

Glenn and Sasha Scott

Then there was the bizarre story of Glenn Scott and his wife, Joann “Sasha” Scott.

Sasha had arranged for someone to kill her husband, according to the Post-Gazette’s reconstruction of the case. Henkel later admitted participating in Glenn’s killing.

That created another problem. Sasha knew what happened.

Two years later, she was working at a Downtown Pittsburgh massage parlor when a Christmas package arrived.

She opened the small box. It exploded.

Sasha was killed instantly.

Henkel later admitted involvement in her death as well. Investigators believed his motivation was fear that she might talk about Glenn’s murder.

That pattern became central to understanding Henkel.

Someone participated in a crime with him. Someone knew too much. Someone became a potential witness. And then that person could become what investigators described as another “loose end.”

 

How Many People Did Richard Henkel Really Kill?

This is where the story becomes even darker.

Five killings were acknowledged. Investigators suspected more. Potentially many more.

Henkel allegedly once bragged to an associate that he had killed 28 people.

Years later, true-crime author and retired police chief Rick Porrello corresponded with Henkel while researching his crimes.

Porrello asked him directly about that number.

Henkel wouldn’t discuss individual killings, but according to Porrello, Henkel gave a chilling response: “Nobody exaggerated 28.”

That isn’t proof that Henkel murdered 28 people.

But coming from a man who had already admitted responsibility for five killings, it’s impossible to dismiss the statement entirely.

 

The Other Dead and Missing

There were other names investigators couldn’t ignore.

Joe DeMarco, described in newspapers at the time as a Brookline organized-crime figure, was found riddled with bullets inside the trunk of a car at Greater Pittsburgh Airport in 1979.

Suzanne Dixon, Henkel’s fiancée, had been discovered shot to death inside the trunk of her vehicle in New Kensington the previous year. Henkel denied killing her.

Then there were men who simply disappeared.

James Barone participated in a Downtown bank burglary with Henkel in January 1969. He later vanished.

Laurence Windsor robbed a Mount Washington bank with Henkel in July 1969. He disappeared shortly afterward.

Windsor’s daughter spent decades trying to discover what happened to her father and came to believe Henkel killed him after the robbery.

Another man, Joseph DeRose Jr., a Youngstown organized-crime figure, disappeared in 1981. Henkel was incarcerated at the time, but investigators reportedly suspected he may have orchestrated DeRose’s killing from behind bars.

None of those suspicions should be treated as convictions.

But the number of dead and missing people surrounding Henkel was enough to keep investigators asking questions for decades.

 

He Was Allegedly Willing to Target Art Rooney Sr.

Henkel’s story wasn’t limited to murder.

One of the strangest allegations involved a sophisticated kidnapping and ransom scheme.

According to the Post-Gazette’s reporting, Henkel and associates were connected to a plan involving a device capable of disabling someone’s automobile remotely. The intended victim could then be kidnapped, fitted with an explosive and held for ransom.

Among the potential targets?

Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. Another was Ryan Homes executive Ed Ryan.

Investigators recovered electronics from Henkel’s residence and sent them to federal authorities for testing. According to retired Allegheny County detective Bob Payne, the equipment worked.

The plot never reached its intended conclusion.

But it shows the scale of the criminal world investigators believed surrounded Henkel.

 

Not the Typical Serial Killer

Henkel doesn’t fit neatly beside Bundy, Dahmer or Ridgway.

Those killers became infamous largely for repeatedly targeting victims to satisfy violent psychological or sexual compulsions.

Henkel’s alleged motivation appears to have been more practical and cold-blooded.

Money. Self-preservation. Silence.

If someone threatened his freedom, knew too much about his crimes or stood between him and money, investigators believed that person could become expendable.

Porrello described Henkel as a prolific serial killer, but acknowledged that he didn’t fit the way most people imagine one. Henkel himself claimed that his killings were about self-preservation.

That might actually make the story more disturbing. There didn’t necessarily need to be some elaborate obsession.

Sometimes a person simply knew too much.

 

More Than Four Decades Behind Bars

Henkel eventually pleaded guilty in the Gentile case and spent more than 40 years in Pennsylvania prisons.

The people involved in prosecuting and investigating him never forgot him.

Former Allegheny County detective Bob Payne told the Post-Gazette that witnesses were terrified of Henkel. Prosecutor Patrick Thomassey recalled that Henkel threatened to kill him if he ever got out of prison.

Even Henkel’s own defense attorney, Paul Gettleman, remembered the fear surrounding his client. He recalled that when Henkel entered certain bars, people would leave because they feared something bad might happen simply because Henkel was there.

Henkel never got out. He died of congestive heart failure on January 27, 2025, at 87.

 

The Answers Died With Him

Five killings. Possibly more than a dozen. An alleged boast of 28. Missing men whose families never received answers. Bodies investigators suspected existed but never found.

That’s the legacy Richard Henkel left behind.

It’s important not to turn suspicions into facts. Henkel cannot responsibly be called the killer in every death or disappearance investigators examined. Some connections were never proven, and some victims’ families still don’t know what happened.

But five killings alone make Henkel’s story extraordinary.

And perhaps the most haunting part isn’t what Pittsburgh police eventually learned about Richard Henkel.

It’s what they never learned.

For decades, Henkel was sitting in a Pennsylvania prison with information that could potentially have solved other murders and disappearances.

He had nothing left to lose by talking. He still didn’t give investigators everything. Now he never can.

Richard Henkel died in 2025, but the biggest question surrounding Pittsburgh’s forgotten serial killer remains unanswered: Was his true victim count five—or was it somewhere closer to the 28 killings he allegedly bragged about?