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Second Search Warrant Served In Rachael DelTondo Murder Case

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ALIQUIPPA (KDKA) -- A second search warrant was served Thursday night in connection with Rachael DelTondo's death.

Police executed a search warrant at the home of Sheldon Jeter, but they may not have found the evidence they were looking for. Sources say investigators came away with a PlayStation and some notebooks, but maybe nothing more incriminating.

It's the second warrant executed. Earlier they confiscated Jeter's cell phone, which has been sent to a Harrisburg lab for analysis. They also took the clothes he was supposedly wearing the night of the murder.

Sources say the affidavit accompanying the warrant also contains a witness testimony of a verbal fight between DelTondo and Jeter, which happened last year.

 

So far, attorneys for former fiancé Frank Catroppa and sometime boyfriend Sheldon Jeter say their clients deny any involvement in DelTondo's murder.

But Thursday, Jeter's attorney, Michael Santicola, raised a third possibility, saying DelTondo had received death threats because she was about to testify before a grand jury about corruption in Aliquippa.

"It's hard to imagine that fear and those death threats had nothing to do with the fact that she was shot within days of her alleged testimony in front of a grand jury," Santicola said.

 

Was she killed because she was a cooperating witness? Sources close to the grand jury say DelTondo had not been subpoenaed.

Beaver County District Attorney David Lozier is prohibited from discussing any grand jury.

"To the best of my knowledge, she was not a witness in another outside investigation that has anything to do with this homicide," he said.

Santicola has suggested that the Aliquippa Police are conflicted in this murder investigation and should be removed from it.

More on Rachael DelTondo Murder Case:

Late last year, DelTondo was involved with a state police investigation of the Aliquippa Police when an incident report about her was mysteriously leaked. It concerned an incident two years ago when she was found by police in a parked car with then-17-year-old Sheldon Jeter.

As a result, state police sanctioned the Aliquippa Police, barring them from their databases. In March, state police raided Aliquippa City Hall, seizing computers and hard drives of the mayor and city officials.

Lozier indicated that these are separate probes and that the Aliquippa Police have no conflict of interest in being part of the investigation of the DelTondo murder investigation.

"I have no questions as to the ability of the Aliquippa Police Department detectives to conduct this investigation fairly," Lozier said. "They're working with my detectives, the Beaver County Detective Bureau, the Pennsylvania State Police, as a team. They would not be part of this team if there were any question as to their capacity or their integrity."

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