INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER GOLD MEDAL WINNER 2012 IN TRUE CRIME FINALIST, FOREWORD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS A small-time hoodlum who became the most hunted man in America Stanley Barton Hoss was a burglar, thief, and local thug from the Pittsburgh area. In eight short months in 1969, however, he became a rapist, prison escapee, murderer, and kidnapper; the subject of an intense nationwide manhunt; and one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted. In Born to Lose, author James G. Hollock traces Hoss from his earliest misdemeanors at the age of fourteen to a daring rooftop escape from the Allegheny Workhouse in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, where he was being held on a rape charge, to his killing of police officer Joseph Zanella in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, to the kidnapping near Cumberland, Maryland, and his ultimate murder of Linda Peugeot and her two-year-old daughter Lori in the autumn of 1969. Their bodies have never been found. Although indicted for the Peugeot kidnappings, these charges were later dropped because it was determined his constitutional right to a speedy trial was denied. Hoss was, however, convicted of the murder of Officer Zanella and initially sentenced to death, and that sentence was subsequently commuted to life in prison. But his killings didn’t end there. In December 1973, while incarcerated at Western Penitentiary, Hoss conspired with two fellow white inmates in the savage murder of the popular and well-respected corrections officer Lieutenant Walter Peterson, one of the first African Americans hired by the Pennsylvania prison system. As a result of this final homicide, Hoss was transferred to an isolation facility in Philadelphia where in 1978 he hanged himself. By consulting previously sealed state and federal archives and interviewing sixty individuals who witnessed or had significant knowledge of Hoss’s series of felonies, James G. Hollock vividly re-creates the crimes, police dispatches, and court proceedings in this gripping narrative. He poignantly characterizes the players involved, especially those who suffered either directly or indirectly at the hands of Stanley B. Hoss. Jim Hollock is a killer writer (and I mean that in the best possible way). In Born To Lose , Mr. Hollock has crafted an impossible-to-put-down account of Stanley Hoss, a Pittsburgh thug turned robber, rapist, prison escapee, kidnapper and murderer. Nicknamed the "Pennsylvania Badman"; Hoss did everything he could to live up to his reputation. Describing him as evil doesn't quite do Hoss justice. Even folks who are against the death penalty would make an exception for this guy. Get ready for many sleepless nights. - Tony Norman , Book Editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 2013. Stanley Hoss was a precursor of change for us. We didn't lock our doors before him, only after. Fleeing a cop shooting, Hoss pulled into Lavale, Md. Then, the unimaginable - the kidnapping, and the horror and sorrow we would come to know. Jim Hollock has written a profound story. Born To Lose is cut from the same cloth as those too few books exemplifying the best in non fiction. But beware, once the front cover is opened, you'll be yanked into the pages, skip meals and stay up very late. - Jan Alderton , Editor, Cumberland Times-News , June 2013 This is a heart-pounding tale of one of middle America's nastiest killers. Reading Mr. Hollock's award-winning story keeps you teetering on the morbid edge between repulsion and fascination. - Jim Barnes , Director, Independent Publisher Book Awards , 2012 In a special edition we incorporated our readers' most memorable events over the past century. In the top five was the criminal episode of Stanley Hoss. A youngster's recollection recently told might be, "It was the first and only time I saw my daddy's shotgun propped up by his easy chair." Our area never before experienced such a happening - and hasn't since. Author Jim Hollock's powerfully told Born To Lose lays bare in frightening detail all the alarm and palpable fear of those times. Quite a read! - Jeff Domenick, Editor, Valley News Dispatch, 2013. In all my 45 years on the bench my most disturbing case was that of Stanley Barton Hoss. I can easily state that if there is one criminal episode used as an argument for returning the Death Penalty to Pennsylvania and Maryland, it is that of Stanley Hoss. Capturing all the violence, shock and heartache, Jim Hollock's Born To Lose tells why. - Judge James S. Getty, Maryland Court of Appeals, Ret. May 2014 James G. Hollock has 30 years of experience with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, primarily at Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. James Jessen Badal is assistant professor of English and journalism at Cuyahoga County Community College in Cleveland. He was elected to the board of trustees of the Cleveland Police Historical Society in 2001. He is the author of In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland’s Torso Murders (The Kent State University Press, 2001) and Twilight of