{"id":322687,"date":"2026-11-06T22:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T22:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/322687\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T22:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T22:10:10","slug":"two-murders-linked-to-serial-killer-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/322687\/","title":{"rendered":"Two murders linked to serial killer, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">PITTSBURGH, Pa. (KDKA) &#8211; After nearly five decades, Pennsylvania State Police said they have identified the man responsible for the murders of two young women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Investigators said DNA evidence has linked two cold cases in the Pittsburgh area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Susan Rush, 21, disappeared in 1976 on her way to a Thanksgiving Eve dinner. She was later found dead in the trunk of her car.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Brenda Ritter, 18, disappeared in 1977 after leaving her boyfriend\u2019s house. Her body was found on a hillside in South Strabane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police said both women had been sexually assaulted and strangled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe testing identified the same offender murdered both Susan Rush and Brenda Ritter. This testing confirmed there was a serial killer in Washington County during this time frame,\u201d said Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. James Petrosky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Investigators have now identified James Richard Clark Sr. as the killer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Clark died of natural causes in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">State police said Clark had never previously been a suspect in either case.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KDKA via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH, Pa. (KDKA) &#8211; After nearly five decades, Pennsylvania State Police said they have identified the man responsible&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[130815,130816,28,30,29,1224,22285,130814,9547],"class_list":["post-322687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-brenda-ritter","tag-james-richard-clark-sr","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-state-police","tag-serial-killer","tag-susan-rush","tag-true-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}