COLD CASE SOLVED AFTER 46 YEARS

NY man, 80, arrested for 1973 murder of two teens in Virginia Beach

By Esha Ray, Thomas Tracy and Graham Rayman

New York Daily News
April 9, 2019

An 80-year-old Queens man was arrested for the rape and murder of two young women in Virginia Beach in 1973, officials said.

Ernest Broadnax was arrested Monday for the murders of Lynn Seethaler and Janice Pietropola, both 19, on June 30, 1973, in a seaside motel in the beach resort town. He was linked to the murders via DNA, a law enforcement source said.

Seethaler and Pietropola, both of Pittsburgh, were there on vacation for a week. Pietroaola was raped, strangled and shot three times. Seethaler was strangled and shot twice in the head. Her throat was also slashed with a broken wine bottle.

Cops busted Broadnax at his Hollis apartment in an affordable housing facility for military veterans.

Kevin Wallace, 60, one of Broadnax’s neighbors said the police brought the accused killer a bottle of water when they came to arrest him and led him out without handcuffing him.

“They gave it to him, dressed him up, and he went quietly. He went very quietly,” Wallace said. “He knew he did it. They couldn’t find him, and all the sudden they found him.”

Wallace speculated that Broadnax was tracked down because he had to provide his Social Security number to live in the complex. Detectives also collected forensic evidence from Broadnax’s apartment.

“They came and knocked on his door, they asked him if he was Ernest, and he said yes," Wallace said. "Then they said, ‘Mr. Ernest we have a thing of a water.’ It was three (detectives).”

Broadnax was 33 at the time of the murders. The Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported in 1988 the their bodies were found by a motel employee after they did not check out on time. Their killer took a screen off of a window and crept into their room.

According to a WTKR-TV piece from 2011, detectives suspected their killer had slain as many as 10 other women in the Virginia Beach area. The report noted that DNA evidence from the killer in the Seethaler/Pietropola murders was sent to the FBI in 1973 for preservation. That was long before the advent of DNA testing.

Broadnax was arraigned Tuesday night and waived extradition. His lawyer Peter James Laumann declined to comment.

He is being held in a city jail pending extradition to Virginia.

“The NYPD assisted detectives from the Virginia Beach Police Department in locating, apprehending and collecting forensic evidence from Ernest Jean Broadnax,” said Sgt. Jessica McRorie, an NYPD spokeswoman.

Broadnax has 10 prior arrests, including burglary, assault and weapons possession, police said. He did at least two prior stints in New York state prison. He served three years for burglary beginning in 1999, and eight more for assault starting in 2006. He was released in 2013.

“He was a quiet man, very quiet, stayed to himself,” his neighbor Wallace said.