Regent Square Sisters Help Robbery Victims

Diana Maedinger was getting ready for bed Monday night when her dog, D’Artagnan, started barking furiously at the kitchen window.

She thought some kids may have been fooling around and looked outside.

That’s when she heard yelling. Two people were lying on the ground while two others stood over them.

“I opened up the front door and I knew something wasn’t right,” Maedinger said.

As the two people standing began to run up Hutchinson Avenue, Maedinger called out to the people lying down on the sidewalk outside at about 9:30 p.m.

“Are you OK?” she yelled.

Maedinger heard a woman scream in reply.

“No – call 911,” the woman cried.

The couple that had been lying down ran into Maedinger’s first floor apartment near the A man was bleeding from the back of the head after being pistol-whipped.

It was the seventh robbery in the Regent Square area in a week.

Two men approached the couple on the street with a gun, demanding money. When they realized the couple had nothing, the man with the gun struck the male victim in the back of the head, leaving a bloody gash, Maedinger, 39, said.

Her sister, Michelle, who shares the apartment, called 911.

“He said they put a gun to his head,” said Michelle, 42.

occurring just a few blocks away from the first reported incident, which happened at the corner of Hutchinson and South Braddock.

Four people at a pet store called

Five robberies occurred involving pedestrians between Jan. 10 and 11, according to Edgewood Police Chief Robert Payne.

Payne said Tuesday the local forces were working together and the investigation is ongoing. Swissvale police are investigating Monday night’s incident.

“There are no absolutes, but it seems they are related,” he said of the robberies.

Payne said no sketches or photographs were available for the public at this time, but the description of the suspects remained the same – two black men traveling in a small white vehicle.

The Maedinger sisters have lived in Regent Square for six years and regularly take their dog, a mixed Shepherd, on nightly walks through the neighborhood.

After having two victims interviewed by police in their living room Monday night, they both feel shaken.

“I cannot believe this happened right outside of our house,” Diana said. “People got mugged -- with a gun.”

When Michelle took the dog for a walk Tuesday morning, she warned everyone she saw on the street about the incident.

“I have always loved it here because it’s safe, but this takes away that safe feeling,” she said. “I just hope they catch them soon so we can go back to that feeling. They’re upgrading, too – before it was just robbery and now it’s assault.”

She also said she is disturbed by what she witnessed Monday night as a couple sought refuge in their apartment. The sisters helped the man with a gash in his head with ice and towels before ambulances came and police responded.

“To see that kind of violence is disgusting,” Diane said. “Knowing someone would do that to another human being. It’s unsettling.”

The sisters also shared the sentiment that incidents like these have not usually happened in the past in their neighborhood. They said from now on they would walk the dog together and urged neighbors to be aware of their surroundings – and to always stick together.

“It hits home,” said Michelle. “This is right here. The more people who know, the better – everyone needs to be watching.”

Diana credited her dog’s sixth sense for alerting her of the crime.

“If he hadn’t barked we wouldn’t have known,” she said. “He’s a good boy.”