08/10/2026
We took this from Famous Graves. Great page!
They did a focus on him and when we realized how dirty his gravestone was we went up to Mount Hope today and cleaned it up.
It’s kind of hard to tell because the stone is still wet, but we’ll follow up once it gets cooler out with some spray.
John Maletsky was murdered on January 21, 1984.
That evening, John was driving his 1973 Pontiac Firebird with his 4-year-old daughter beside him in the front seat, while his wife, Deborah, followed closely behind in another car.
As John stopped at a red light, brothers Dean and Michael Campbell approached his vehicle. Minutes earlier, the two had reportedly approached another motorist at the same intersection, but that driver managed to speed away.
Dean stepped to the driver's side of John's car and fired through the open window, striking John in the chest. When John tried to resist, Dean pulled him from the vehicle and shot him a second time in the chest.
While Dean stood over the wounded man, Michael climbed behind the wheel and drove away in the Firebird with John's terrified daughter still inside.
Deborah reached the intersection seconds later and found her husband bleeding on the ground. John managed to tell her that the men had taken their daughter. As Deborah tried to pursue the stolen car, Dean attempted to grab her purse and threatened her with the gun. She fought back and ripped a red knit cap from his head before he fled on foot.
Michael's escape lasted only about two blocks. The Firebird slid on an icy patch and became stuck, and witnesses saw him desperately trying to free it. When Deborah reached the vehicle, she found her daughter shaken but unharmed. Michael abandoned the car and ran.
John was rushed to the hospital, but his wounds proved fatal. He died at 2:42am.
Investigators recovered Michael's fingerprints from inside the Firebird, while witnesses described seeing two men matching the brothers' descriptions approaching motorists that evening. Police concluded that the Campbells had been targeting drivers stopped at the intersection for robbery.
The brothers fled to Louisiana, where they were eventually captured. Dean gave investigators a taped confession describing the robbery attempt and admitting to shooting John. Both men were extradited to Pennsylvania to stand trial.
Michael was convicted of second-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, and related offenses. Because John's murder occurred during the commission of a felony, Michael received Pennsylvania's mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Dean was tried separately and also convicted of second-degree murder. He received a mandatory life sentence, along with consecutive sentences totaling an additional 13 to 39 years for the accompanying crimes. His subsequent appeals and post-conviction petitions were unsuccessful.
A third man, Wilbert Daniels, had been accused of serving as a lookout during the robbery attempt, but the murder and related charges against him were dismissed on June 11, 1984.
John was 27 years old.
