12 September 2018 :

Daniel M. Saranchak resentenced to life without parole. Schuylkill County Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin imposed 2 consecutive life sentences on Saranchak, 50, White, for killing his grandmother and uncle Stella Saranchock and Edmund "Edju" Saranchak, plus an additional 25 to 50 years for other crimes. In Pennsylvania, a life sentence does not include a chance for parole. Monday's hearing ended a 25-year odyssey before a federal judge spared his life. Saranchak pleaded guilty on Sept. 1, 1994, before Dolbin to 2 counts each of criminal homicide, robbery, criminal solicitation and conspiracy, 4 of aggravated assault and 1 of burglary. Saranchak said he killed his siblings in Oct. 1993 because he needed money to keep drinking with a friend and stole approximately $355. Dolbin then presided over a nonjury degree of guilt hearing with respect to the criminal homicide charges and, on Sept. 8, 1994, convicted Saranchak of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. Saranchak opted to have a jury decide his sentence; jurors ruled Sept. 16, 1994, that Saranchak should get the death penalty, and judge Dolbin formally sentenced Saranchak to death in on September 19, 1994. However, after many appeals in state and federal courts, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2015 that Saranchak did not receive effective legal representation during the sentencing hearing before the jury and overturned his death sentence. State police at Schuylkill Haven charged Saranchak and Roy W. Miles Jr., with entering the home of Stella Saranchock, 78, and her son, Edmund Saranchak, 57, between Oct. 15, 1993, and Oct. 16 and shooting them. Stella Saranchock spelled her last name differently that her son did. Miles pleaded guilty on Aug. 26, 1994, to third-degree murder and related offenses. Dolbin sentenced him on Oct. 31, 1994, to serve 11 to 40 years in a state correctional institution. Miles died on Sept. 18, 2017, at SCI/Huntingdon.