Barbara McKenna lived and died on the streets of Carnegie, beaten to death by a fellow homeless person who knew her as “Aunt Babs.”
On the morning of Aug. 18, 2024, Joseph Beraducci attacked McKenna, who at 64 was more than twice his age, after they had been drinking together.
On Tuesday, Beraducci pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was ordered to serve 15 to 30 years in state prison as part of an agreement with the prosecution.
“I’m extremely remorseful for what happened,” Beraducci, 31, told Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Randal B. Todd. “I plan on never doing this again.”
Beraducci, who was sent to Torrance State Hospital after his arrest, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD.
He is now undergoing treatment.
“Since his return, he’s been like a different individual,” his defense attorney, Sarah McGuire, told the court.
Patrick McHugh, McKenna’s brother-in-law questioned the severity of the sentence.
“I understand the diagnosis,” he began, but “given the savageness of what happened … for a 29-year-old to beat a 64-year-old woman on a walker and blind in one eye, that just seems atrocious to me.”
The judge agreed.
“It is,” Todd said. “There’s nothing I can do to make this right.”
The judge lamented the closure of local mental health hospitals and said there aren’t enough social workers to address the number of people with mental illness in the community.
Snitching accusation
According to the criminal complaint, Carnegie police were called to the area under the Mansfield Boulevard Bridge around 4 a.m..
Beraducci told police he had gone to check on McKenna and another man staying there, and while he was there, the man had a seizure.
Beraducci said he gave him CPR until police and paramedics arrived and took the man to a hospital.
Officers left, and McKenna and Beraducci remained under the bridge, where they were drinking.
Around 6 a.m., according to the complaint, they got into an argument, and Beraducci accused McKenna of being a snitch for the police.
“He hit her until she stopped moving,” said Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Michael Borsch.
When police arrived, Beraducci had the victim’s head in his lap. He told police he was trying to revive her.
Feeling safer on the streets
In a written victim impact statement, McKenna’s loved ones wrote that they miss her.
“There is a hole where there once was some hope,” they wrote. “There is emptiness where there once were some wishes.”
During a celebration of life service they held, the family wrote, members of the church McKenna attended in Carnegie described her as friendly and generous.
That’s how she’d been when she was younger, too, they wrote.
“We reached out to Bab over the years and asked her to try to get some help with her substance abuse,” the family wrote. “We tried many different ways to reach her, but for some reason, she felt that the streets of Carnegie were where she wanted to be.”
The family questioned why the police left McKenna and Beraducci under the bridge that morning after responding to the first medical emergency.
“What does that say about society? Is it legal for people to live under a bridge in Carnegie?” they wrote. “What did they think was going to happen when they left them there?
“(H)e killed Bab. And here we are.”