A man who was convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl in October of 1978 is scheduled to be sentenced once again this morning.
On August 27th, a jury convicted 78-year-old Ronald Weiss on charges of first-degree murder. Today, Weiss returns to court for a sentencing hearing this morning in front of Indiana County President Judge Thomas Bianco. He faces a mandatory life sentence. Weiss was originally convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder in connection with the death of Barbara Bruzda in 1978. She was last seen playing pool with her before leaving for a party in October of 1978 and she was found on March 20th, 1979 in a ditch off a gravel road a few miles away from the party location and Weiss’ home. Investigators said that he beat her with a tire iron.
The guilty verdict was overturned by federal court in 2018 over prosecutorial misconduct by the state attorney general’s prosecutor and a state trooper who testified at the trial. The State Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Weiss could be retried because the crime and the prosecutorial misconduct were separate matters.
The 2026 trial was prosecuted by Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Evan Lowry and Senior Deputy Attorney General Kara Rice.
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