Tip leads to Dischman's arrest
A nearly two-month manhunt for 32-year-old Kasey R. Dischman ended peacefully Sunday afternoon.
Butler police caught the Butler woman after they received an anonymous tip about 3:35 p.m.
The tipster reported seeing the defendant in the area of Pillow Street walking toward the Pullman Square shopping plaza, said police Lt. Brian Grooms.
Dischman did not resist and was taken into custody. She was placed in the Butler County Prison on a pair of bench warrants.
Authorities had been looking for Dischman since Jan. 28 when Butler County officials say she cut off her electronic monitoring device and fled her city apartment. They believe she jumped out of an upstairs window of her North Main Street home, landed on the roof of the Burger Hut next door and fled after a probation officer showed up for a routine house check.
Doug Ritson, chief county probation officer, said authorities recovered the discarded ankle bracelet on the roof of the restaurant.
Butler County Judge William Shaffer subsequently issued two bench warrants Feb. 12 after she failed to appear for status conferences in a pair of pending criminal cases.
One of those cases for which Dischman is awaiting trial captured statewide attention after prosecutors charged her with overdosing on heroin while pregnant. Dischman was on pretrial supervision with electronic monitoring stemming from that case.
While on the lam, she also missed a pretrial violation hearing. That hearing was initially scheduled for a series of other alleged house arrest violations, court records showed.
Those prior violations, 10 in all between Dec. 3 and Jan. 20, were for Dischman allegedly being at unauthorized locations while on pretrial supervision.
The case that led to her house arrest began June 22, 2017, when state police allege that she overdosed after injecting heroin at her then-East Butler home while seven months pregnant.
Dischman was flown to a hospital in Pittsburgh and placed on a ventilator after suffering cardiac arrest.
Later, she was transferred to another Pittsburgh hospital, where doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section.
The baby, a girl, survived but suffered “lasting injuries,” according to police and prosecutors.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger initially charged Dischman with aggravated assault, a felony, citing a 1998 amendment to Pennsylvania's Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act.
Public defender Joseph Smith argued the law clearly states a pregnant woman can't be charged with crimes against her unborn child.
Shaffer dismissed that top count, leaving Dischman to face only misdemeanor charges of child endangerment, corruption of minors and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The lesser charges, authorities said, were based on evidence that Dischman's then-8-year-old daughter also was at the defendant's home at the time of the overdose, and that a hypodermic needle was found there.
