By MIKE CHALMERS and ESTEBAN PARRA
The News Journal
04/23/2006
Stephen F. Pytko spent a third of his life behind bars, and early Friday morning he died there, the victim of what state police are calling a homicide.
A fellow inmate at the Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna is suspected of killing the 57-year-old Wilmington man, who was convicted of kidnapping and robbery in 1976.
Police had not charged anyone as of Saturday night.
Authorities released few details Saturday, saying Pytko was found unresponsive in his cell at 11:40 p.m. Thursday and was pronounced dead an hour later.
Pytko's family, though, said they were told by an official from the Medical Examiner's Office that Pytko had been severely assaulted a day or two before he died.
Authorities would not comment on the family's claim, and The News Journal could not verify it.
"I'd imagine if it caused his death, it must have been pretty severe," said his brother Gene Pytko.
Pytko had not been treated at the prison infirmary in the days before he died, said Master Cpl. Jeff Oldham, spokesman for the Delaware State Police.
The state Medical Examiner's Office is conducting an autopsy and toxicology tests.
Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor Jr. said officers conducted 12 security checks of the medium-maximum housing unit where Pytko was housed between 4 p.m. and the time he was found in his cell. He did not say when someone last checked on Pytko.
Pytko shared the cell with one other inmate.
The unit "was at full staffing levels, and no one on duty was serving an overtime shift," Taylor said in a statement.
"I can't tell you anything more," said department spokeswoman Gail Stallings Minor. "There's a concern anything we might tell you might affect the investigation."
The last time an inmate killed another inmate in a Delaware prison was April 28, 1996, according to the department. Robert E. Ashley, 40, stabbed Thomas Bruce Younger, 36, in the chest in a common area of the same facility near Smyrna.
New, harsher sentencing
Pytko was serving a portion of the life sentence he received in 1976. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 24 of that year, Pytko and two accomplices burst into the apartment of Charles E. Leager, 23, and Warren W. Gould Jr., 22, in the 100 block of E. Ayre St., Newport, according to newspaper accounts. They were armed with a pistol and a sawed-off shotgun, police said.
Gould and two others escaped, but the trio forced Leager to turn over $1,700 and to carry guns and personal valuables down to his car, police said. As Pytko held the shotgun on Leager, 28-year-old Joseph A. Colatriano, of Wilmington, drove the victim's car.
The car's noisy muffler attracted Newport police, who tried to stop the getaway, but Colatriano sped away. Police chased them until the car crashed through a construction site and plunged 30 feet down an embankment.
One accomplice, 18-year-old Margaret Puff of Elsmere, pleaded guilty to robbery, kidnapping and a weapons charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. Lawyers for Pytko and Colatriano urged them to take a plea offer, but the men refused. Gene Pytko, of Elkton, Md., said his brother thought the charges were "bogus," so he decided to fight them.
After a jury convicted the men in June 1976, Stephen Pytko said the jury went into the jury room "thinking we were guilty before they deliberated."
Under a state law passed that year, Stephen Pytko and Colatriano were given mandatory sentences of 24 1/2 years to life, according to news accounts. The law required consecutive sentences when a person was convicted of two or more crimes during the same incident.
Pytko was paroled in 1991 after serving 15 years, his family said. Information about Colatriano was not available Saturday.
His family said Pytko violated his parole conditions by failing a drug test and was sent back to prison Nov. 12, 2003. That seemed too harsh a punishment after so many years of staying out of trouble, they said.
"After being in there 15 years and being out 12, he showed he could be on the outside," Gene Pytko said.
12 years of staying clean
During his 12 years of parole, Pytko supported himself by doing carpentry and handyman jobs. Pytko liked working with cars, and painting portraits and murals, his family said.
"If you needed a hand doing this or that, he'd be there to help," said his brother Frank Pytko, of Christiana Hundred.
"He was a kindhearted person," said his sister Joann Eldreth, of Elkton, Md. "He was liked by everyone. I just never suspected anything like this."
Eldreth said the last time she heard from her brother was about six weeks ago, when he said he wanted to get out of the Young Correctional Institution in Wilmington. His family said he feared becoming infected by a skin disease common at the prison. Officials were unable to confirm Pytko's move to the Smyrna-area prison.
History of poor medical care
In the fall, several inmates told The News Journal they had become infected by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a virulent bacteria that can lead to a flesh-eating disease.
The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation last month of medical care inside Delaware prisons. The Justice Department stepped in after a six-month investigation by The News Journal found cases of poor medical care and high inmate death rates due to HIV/ AIDS and suicide.
The state Senate's Correction Committee chairman, James T. Vaughn, D-Clayton, has said he's inclined to wait until the federal government completes its investigation before debating legislation that would overhaul medical services in prisons.
Pytko's family said officials told them about 9 a.m. Friday that he had died, but they did not release details of his death.
They said officials should have notified them if Pytko had been assaulted before his death.
"I don't know why it took so long," Gene Pytko said. "If someone is seriously injured, somebody should be contacted. I'm in the dark, and I can't get any information."
That also disturbs state Rep. Wally Caulk, an unaffiliated lawmaker from the Frederica area. He introduced a bill in January that would require the department to notify an inmate's next-of-kin if a prisoner is taken to an outside medical institution or facility, or receives hospice services for a terminal illness. Caulk said he was especially upset because about six weeks ago he was asked by Department of Correction representatives to sit on his bill.
"They wanted me not to work on the bill until they were able to see if they could come up with some other way to make it work other than with my piece of legislation," he said.
"It's very upsetting because here we go again," Caulk said. "There has not been any action to come out of this."
Contact Mike Chalmers at 324-2790 or mchalmers@delawareonline.com. Contact Esteban Parra at 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.
