New York State Police have fielded several phone calls while looking to establish a potential connection between the stabbing death of a Pennsylvania State Police Liquor Control Enforcement agent on the Montour Trail last fall and the death of a hiker six months earlier on a trail outside Albany, N.Y.
New York State Police trooper Stephanie O’Neill said Tuesday similarities in the cases involving the deaths of Benjamin Brallier, 44, of Kennedy Township, and 76-year-old Daniel Frament attracted the interest of New York authorities.
“Both homicides occurred on public bike and walking paths,” O’Neill said. “While they obviously occurred in different states, the scenes were similar and both appear to be random acts of violence.”
Anthony Quesen, 25, was arraigned on a single count of criminal homicide shortly after Brallier’s body was found along the Montour Trail in Moon Township Oct. 21 of last year.
Quesen is scheduled to appear in court April 25 for a preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to hold him for trial. He originally was being held in the Allegheny County Jail after his bail was denied in October, but he is now in custody elsewhere, a jail spokesman said Tuesday.
O’Neill said that during their investigation into Frament’s death, which occurred in April of 2024, investigators looked to see if any other crimes that occurred aligned with the New York incident, which occurred on the Empire State Trail in Menands, N.Y.
During the course of their investigation, O’Neill said, New York State Police learned of the Brallier case and as investigators looked deeper into that case, they learned that Quesen was “described as a transient known to travel to multiple states.”
Quesen’s hometown is listed as Baltimore on court documents related to the Brallier case. O’Neill emphasized that Quesen is not a suspect in the Frament case but is considered a “person of interest.”
O’Neill said because investigators learned that Quesen had been known to travel to different states, they wanted to put the word out in case anyone might have known of Quesen’s whereabouts in mid-April when the Frament killing took place.
New York State Police notified the public Feb. 13 and O’Neill said her office has received “a couple phone calls,” but would not elaborate because the case remains an active investigation.
O’Neill said if investigators find out that Quesen was known to be somewhere else at the time of Frament’s killing, that would be important to their investigation.
O’Neill said investigators have no immediate plans to question Quesen. “That would be determined by investigators,” she said. “If we develop information that would warrant travel to another state, we absolutely would. But that has to be determined by investigators and what they come up with during their investigation.”
Moon Township police were called to the Montour Trail on the afternoon of Oct. 21 and arrived to find Brallier, who had sustained multiple stab wounds to his back, upper chest and left hand, according to court documents.
He was transported to Heritage Valley Sewickley, where he was pronounced dead later that afternoon. Pennsylvania State Police found Quesen later that day at the entrance of the Montour Woods Conservation Area on Hassam Road, less than a half-mile from the crime scene.
He was arraigned the next day on the criminal homicide charge and denied bail the same day.
Be First to Comment