Missing Fish

PITTSBURGH- One of the region's most notorious contract killers, Robert ‘Codfish’ Bricker, escaped life imprisonment once again.

Mr. Bricker had been diagnosed with colon cancer and was serving a life sentence in Western Penn Prison Hospital for a 1978 murder.  While incarcerated, Mr. Bricker saved the life of another convict, T. Berkelbaugh.  According to staff, Berklbaugh was despondent about his failing health. A few days after surgery in which Berkelbaugh lost his right eye, he tried to kill himself by injecting heroin.

"I pulled the f**king needle out and I smacked him up a couple of times," Mr. Bricker explained. "He said, 'Just leave me alone. Let me die.'  I couldn’t do that...  We were friends."

Not long after that, Bricker and Berkelbaugh tunneled out of the prison hospital with five other men. All escapees, except for Bricker, were captured a few days later.

Twice, Mr. Bricker was convicted and sentenced to death. Twice, the state Supreme Court overturned the convictions. In all, he was suspected of participating in at least seven murders, most of which he was accused of several years after they occurred when cohorts began cutting deals with prosecutors.

A slippery fish indeed, Robert ‘Codfish’ Bricker, gained his moniker when government informants testified that the nickname, ‘Codfish’, was based on Mr. Bricker's reputation as ‘a cold-blooded killer and his innate ability to evade the long arm of the law.’

So where is Robert ‘Codfish” Bricker now?