Thursday, April 01, 1999
Parents search for clues in UC student's death
BY PHILLIP PINA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It has been 15 months since Anthony Proviano died, and his mother still doesn't know how or why.
New leads in the investigation into his death, though, may soon give Maryann Proviano her answers. But she and her husband, Carmen Proviano, will not slow their quest for an explanation.
“We have been through so much. We want to be cautious,” Mrs. Proviano said.
Two prison inmates have told authorities that a couple plying a sex-and-robbery scam killed Mr. Proviano as he drove home on break from the University of Cincinnati medical school.
Two days before Christmas 1997, Mr. Proviano, in a car loaded with Christmas presents, left his Avondale residence for his parents' suburban Pittsburgh home.
He apparently stopped miles short of Ohio's border with West Virginia and checked into a St. Clairsville, Ohio, hotel. His body was found five days later with a gunshot wound in the chest.
Despite protests from family and police, the Belmont County coroner labeled Mr. Proviano's death a suicide.
Mrs. Proviano wrote Ohio and Pennsylvania congressmen to pressure local officials and force the coroner to rethink his suicide ruling.
After the political pressure and an investigation by a second medical examiner, the coroner labeled Mr. Proviano's death “undecided.”
Evidence was conflicting, investigators said. It appears Mr. Proviano was shot with his own gun. There was no evidence of a robbery or a break-in at his hotel room. A bottle of whiskey was left behind.
Friends refused to think Mr. Proviano killed himself. He had too much going for him, said Helen Kollus, a friend and lab partner at UC.
But again, clues are conflicting.
A fresh cigarette was found near his body. Mr. Proviano didn't smoke. His belongings were scattered in an unusual pattern. No gunshot residue was found on his hands, hinting he may have not fired his gun.
Mrs. Proviano was shocked and frustrated by a lack of help from investigators in Ohio. For months, Belmont County Coroner Manuel Villaverde refused to perform an autopsy.
The Provianos hired their own medical examiner, who questioned the suicide ruling.
When they first knew their son was missing, the Provianos called Cincinnati police, who told her they would not take a missing person report, Mrs. Proviano said. They ad vised her to file a report with police in Pennsylvania. They did so on Christmas Day.
Cincinnati policy says reports of missing adults are taken after a person is gone 24 hours. In critical cases — of a child, for example — a report is taken immediately, said Cincinnati Police Lt. Roger Wolf.
It is also policy that a person outside Cincinnati trying to report another person missing is referred to his own police department if it isn't considered a critical case and the person isn't a permanent Cincinnati resident. It is unclear what the situation was in the Proviano case, Lt. Wolf said.
Cincinnati police investigators were assigned the case. Detective Rick Malone has followed several leads but declined to comment, saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation.
A day after reporting Michael missing, the Provianos came to Cincinnati to search his apartment but found nothing unusual.
Using a television helicopter, police traced Mr. Proviano's route to his parents' home. They found his car, and later his body, near St. Clairsville.
Investigators then followed more than 200 leads. They anguished whether foul play was involved or the death was a suicide.
Then, March 12, they got another clue. According to reports, investigators came across a Pennsylvania prison inmate who said he knows a couple who lured Mr. Proviano to a hotel room for sex before fatally shooting him. The inmate said it was part of a sex-and-robbery scheme the couple had been pulling for years.
Another inmate told investigators a similar story.
“We are not calling them (the couple) suspects,” said Belmont County Sheriff's Capt. Todd Graham. “These are leads, and we are following them up and collecting evidence. I would call them good leads.”
Investigators used search war rants to obtain forensic and physical evidence from the couple, Capt. Graham said.
According to reports, they interviewed and took fingerprints and hair samples from 37-year-old Douglas Ray Main of Washington, Pa., who is serving a nine- to 18-month sentence in a Greene County, Pa., jail on heroin charges. They also tried to interview his 43-year-old girlfriend, Marlene Smith, who is serving a prison sentence in a Lycoming, Pa., prison, and take forensic samples from her.
The evidence is being examined at a London, Ohio, crime laboratory, Capt. Graham said. No charges have been filed.
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