The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

January 25, 2009

Mother of attack victim strangled

Woman found in Pittsburgh area

The mother of a Greenville woman critically stabbed in the same attack that killed her father was found strangled to death in her Pittsburgh-area home Friday and her newlywed husband — a Ghanian national — is suspected by authorities in the murder.

Allegheny County Police say the investigation began when 40-year-old Brenda Agbley did not pick up her son at the school bus stop on Friday. Police went to the victim’s residence in suburban Pittsburgh where she was found dead.

Mrs. Agbley was formerly married to Thomas Lorigan of Greenville. Lorigan and the couple’s daughter, Heather Turk, were stabbed May 20 in Ms. Turk’s Greenville apartment.

Lorigan was killed and Ms. Turk was badly injured in the attack, orchestrated by Ms. Turk’s former roommates, authorities allege.

Ronald Victor Machado, 21, of Jamestown and Krystle Sue Weaver, 20, of Fowler, were charged in the case, but Machado hanged himself May 24 in his cell at Trumbull County Jail, Warren, Ohio.

Ms. Weaver faces charges including homicide and attempted homicide in the case.

Machado and Ms. Weaver were waiting for Ms. Turk inside the apartment when Ms. Turk and Lorigan came home from grocery shopping with Ms. Turk’s two young children, who weren’t harmed in the attack, police have said.

Ms. Turk has been hospitalized since the attack and has been gradually improving, Mercer County District Attorney Robert G. Kochems has said.

Authorities have not disclosed a motive for that crime.

Jude Agbley — a Kenyan who also uses the name Vincent Coffie and other aliases — is wanted on homicide charges in Mrs. Agbley’s strangling death. The couple’s marriage license was dated Aug. 6 in Allegheny County in the names of “Delai Kudjoe Agbley and Brenda Lee Lorigan,” according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Police say the Ghanian man has a deportation warrant pending after he failed to appear in court on burglary charges stemming from an incident in October 2003.

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