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Mystery stymies police

Hurt woman silent about her injuries

ADAMS TWP — Police are still trying to piece together how a 26-year-old Mars woman ended up injured and bleeding on Three Degree Road late Wednesday night.

The woman, who police did not identify, remains hospitalized in Pittsburgh and isn't saying much.

Two men riding in a pickup found stopped on the road, township police said, claimed the woman had a seizure and fell down.

But the men were intoxicated, Adams Police Chief Bill Westerman said, and there is evidence that the truck possibly was involved in a crash a short time earlier several miles away.

"We don't know what's going on yet," Westerman said about 8 a.m. today. "We don't know how the woman got her injuries.

"Was she injured in an accident of some kind? Was she ejected from a vehicle? Was she assaulted? We don't know."

A 911 call at 11:21 p.m. sent police to Three Degree Road for the report of a woman having a seizure on the road. Joshua Black, 29, of Mars, and Charles Cotto, 32, of Valencia were also found there, police said.

The woman, who had facial injuries, Westerman said, was taken to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Police did not immediately know if the men and woman were acquainted with one another.

"Our officers tried talking to her," he said, "but she doesn't want to talk. She says she doesn't want to the get the two guys in trouble."

Police believe Black was driving the truck. He was arrested for suspicion of drunken driving.

The truck appeared to have been damaged and police are trying to determine if it was involved in a crash about 15 minutes earlier that night, some 4 or 5 miles away at Downieville and Mars-Valencia Road in the township.

"We don't have any idea what was hit, if anything, or what happened," Westerman said, "but we think we found the cap of the truck there. We don't know why the cap came off."

Investigators, meanwhile, hope to again try and speak to the woman later today. But Westerman admitted police remain frustrated with a lack of answers in the case.

"For her not talking," he said of the woman, "it's hard to know what happened. It's like fishing without a worm."

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