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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Blair County President Judge Elizabeth Doyle on Friday approved orders that will destroy evidence in several old criminal cases, including the assortment of weapons, ammunition and personal items seized by Logan Township in the 2009 arrest of Joseph Brian Olecki.
Olecki, now 48, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Albion in Erie County, is believed to have used an AK-47 assault rifle on March 14, 2009, to fire 21 shots into his girlfriend's residence on Drexel Lane in Logan Township.
He then fled to Scranton where he shot a husband and wife in their yard before returning to the Altoona area where police, on March 16, 2009, spotted him driving a stolen vehicle.
After police forced him to pull over near the railroad culvert on 31st Street, Olecki emerged from his vehicle with an AK-47, 500 rounds of ammo and six homemade pipe bombs strapped to his body.
At the request of Logan Township Police Chief Ron Heller, a state police bomb squad was flown in from Reading to dismantle the explosives. AMED personnel remained on scene while the bombs were dismantled.
In court Friday, Assistant District Attorney Salua Kamerow submitted evidence on the destruction requests in Olecki's case on behalf of Logan Township and for 15 additional criminal cases.
Kamerow confirmed to Doyle that her office mailed notices to property owners of the pending motion for destruction of evidence and that no one asked for property to be returned.
In referencing the older cases, Doyle spoke of a lack of expectation, by the owners, for getting their property back.
In Olecki's case, the destruction order permits Logan Township to destroy two AK-47 Romanian assault rifles, an AK-47 style Century Arms rifle, an AK-47 Century Arms style rifle with laser and flashlight, a wide variety of ammunition and two tear gas grenades.
Kamerow said that Pennsylvania law no longer allows police departments to retain seized weapons for their own use.
The destruct order also permits Logan Township to get rid of several other items seized in Olecki's arrest, including a blue vinyl tarp, a sleeping bag, a duffle bag, a camouflaged jacket, gloves, three ready-to-eat meals, two anarchist handbooks and 20 bottles of water.
"It sometimes seems like a waste," Kamerow admitted when asked after court about the destruction of the personal items.
In the petition seeking permission to destroy the items, Kamerow referenced appellate court rulings that found destruction of seized evidence to be justified if the evidence was used in the commission of a crime or to further criminal activity.
The assistant district attorney also advised Doyle: "This helps the police departments clear out their evidence rooms."
In one of the other cases Doyle considered Friday, the personal items include silver and black Oakley sunglasses. Altoona police seized the sunglasses in a 2004 investigation into a bar shooting and arrested Dayvin Johnson. In 2006, Johnson entered a no contest plea to one count of aggravated assault and four counts of recklessly endangering another person. Mirror obituary records show Johnson died in 2016.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.