By Steve Neavling
The FBI’s Detroit Fugitive Task Force tracked down and arrested a man who had been on the run for nearly 50 years after escaping custody in Pennsylvania.
Leonard Rayne Moses, now 71, was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder when he fled during his grandmother’s funeral in Pittsburgh, Pa., on June 1, 1971.
During the 1968 Pittsburgh riots in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Moses and four friends tossed Molotov cocktail into a home in Pittsburgh, severely burning 72-year-old Mary Amplo, who died three months later.
At the time, Moses was 15. He was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 17.
While on the run, Moses assumed the identity of Paul Dickson and until at least 1999 he was a traveling pharmacist in Michigan.
“I hope this arrest brings some closure to the family members of Mary Amplo, who was killed back in 1968,” FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Michael Christman said in a statement. “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 using the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system. It’s these new advances in technology that the FBI must continue to identify and use to make sure those who commit crimes are brought to justice.”
