In late 1979 and early 1980, a series of awful crimes took place outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Four people were killed. One of them was a young police officer. Some in the media called these

murders the kill-for-thrill slings, because there was seemingly no motive.

Michael Trevaglia and John Lesko became known as the Kill for Thrill Murderers after their

heinous crime spree in late 1979 and early 1980. The killing ended when some Pittsburgh police

detectives quickly got hot on their trail. Police soon found the men responsible

for the slings, John Lesko and Michael Trevaglia. They confessed, and they were sentenced to the

death penalty. Friends of the victims felt like this was justice, especially friends of the police officer who was killed, Leonard Miller.

Killing an officer was a shocking crime, and they felt like the death penalty was justified.

Leonard Miller was genuine. He was our first black police officer, African American police officer.

Leonard was a real close, real good close friend of mine.

And I know I get choked up that it hurts me to think back the day that this happened.

I mean, we cried for days and days and days.

But 40 years later, the sentence, the death penalty, still hasn't been carried out.

One of Leonard's killers died of natural causes, and the other, John Lesko, is still alive.

He's been waiting on death row for most of his life.

John Lesko's sentence has elapsed alongside essentially the entire modern arc of the American

death penalty.

That's Mark Berman. He covers law enforcement and criminal justice for The Post.

A couple of years ago, Mark started thinking about this mismatch, that there are more than

2,000 people sitting on death row in America. But only a couple of dozen people are executed a year.

And I just kept getting stuck on the idea that those numbers don't line up.

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