June 5 – The father of a man on death row for killing a New Kensington police officer was arrested on Sunday after police say the 52-year-old made sexual advances to two 16-year-old girls in Latrobe.
Gregory Baucum Jr. was charged with two counts each of unlawful contact with a minor, interference with child care, open obscenity and harassment and one count of supplying alcohol to a minor.
Latrobe City police met shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday with a woman who said her daughter and her friend were approached by a man they saw exiting a Pennsylvania State Police cruiser near the McDonald’s on Lincoln Ave.
The girls said the man – later identified as Baucum – was wearing a red T-shirt and Disney hat with Mickey Mouse ears. One of the girls took a photo of the man on his mobile phone, who walked into the restaurant and started talking to them, police said.
According to court documents, the girls told police that Baucum started asking them sexually explicit questions, followed them outside, and continued talking to them while stroking through his pants. He said his sister was picking him up and asked if the girls wanted to accompany him to New Jersey, authorities said. He then left and returned with a 24-ounce can of alcoholic iced tea and handed it to one of the girls, according to a criminal complaint.
After speaking with the girls, city police located Baucum at a nearby Dollar General wearing the same shirt and hat as in the cellphone photo, police said. He led police to his belongings, which included a box of alcoholic iced tea, and he was arrested and taken into custody, authorities said.
While Baucum was in police custody, a woman claiming to be his sister contacted police, saying she was from New Jersey and planned to pick him up.
“This corroborated the statements of the minors and that (Baucum) had the means to take the victims to another state,” police wrote in a criminal complaint.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 12 in the unity court of Judge Tamara Mahady. Baucum, who has no fixed address, police say, was unable to post bail and was taken to Westmoreland County Jail.
Baucum is the father of Rahmael Holt, who was sentenced to death in 2019 after he was found guilty of fatally shooting New Kensington policeman Brian Shaw following an attempted traffic stop two years earlier .
Baucum was sentenced to time served in 2020 after being accused of intimidating a witness during Holt’s trial. A Baucum attorney in that most recent case was not listed in court records.
Patrick Varine is an editor at Tribune-Review. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter.