A police officer who investigated Tanya Kach's disappearance in 1996 remembers her as a troubled teen who was sassy, argumentative and reputed to have a penchant for older men.

	Tanya Kach

E. Michael Elias, the former detective lieutenant in charge of the McKeesport Police Department's juvenile bureau, also recalled that Miss Kach's father, Jerry Kach, expressed little interest in monitoring police progress in the case.

"It almost seemed like he couldn't care less. They weren't calling the station," recalled Mr. Elias, who is now security supervisor for the McKeesport Housing Authority. "They weren't stopping in to see us, unlike most parents whose kids run away."

The family's attorney last night disputed that characterization.

"Jerry Kach was always interested in the safe return of his daughter and has never given up hope that she would be returned to him," said attorney Lawrence Fisher. "This is a very close-knit family and Tanya is very much daddy's little girl. Any suggestion to the contrary is absurd."

When Miss Kach ran away from her McKeesport home in February 1996 as a 14-year-old described by her own stepmother as "streetwise," she had been carrying on a relationship with a then 38-year-old security guard at her middle school, Thomas J. Hose, according to police.

Last week, investigators charged Mr. Hose, 48, with statutory sexual assault and three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

A McKeesport hairdresser, Judith Sokol, 57, was arrested as his accomplice. Police accused her of cutting and dyeing Ms. Kach's hair and allowing Mr. Hose and Miss Kach to have sex at her home.

Miss Kach told police she was not bound or chained; instead, she said, she spent nearly 10 years simply under Mr. Hose's influence, hiding in the house he shared with his parents and son.

Only within the past year did she begin venturing out into public, using the alias Nikki Allen, McKeesport residents said. And it wasn't until last week that she told Joseph Sparico, the owner of a local deli where she whiled away the hours playing video poker in his back room, who she really was.

When Miss Kach re-emerged, she seemed bubbly and naive, a person who was said to have lived a sheltered existence in a dingy house without much access to the outside world.

But she also had manicured nails, her hair was styled and she knew enough to tell Mr. Sparico that her picture was on a Web site for missing children. She is said to have bought Avon products locally, gone shopping at a Wal-Mart in North Versailles and volunteered at a church thrift shop in her old neighborhood.

Miss Kach and her family present a confusing mix of imagery.

On one hand, there was an emotional reunion with Mr. Sparico and tender moments with her father.

But on the other, according to her stepmother, there was a father who went back to sleep after being told his teenage daughter with a history of running away was packing a bag at 6 in the morning.

"I says, 'Jerry, Jerry, Tanya's gone.' His words were 'She better not be' and he goes back to sleep," Jo-Ann Kach said.

And, said Mr. Elias, Mr. Hose himself had volunteered that Miss Kach liked older men.

"It was Tom Hose himself coming to me, telling me to be careful, she likes coming on to older men," Mr. Elias said.

"He always pointed her out to me -- that's Tanya Kach, she's got lots of problems, but she likes to come on to older men. She was 13. ... He said, 'One time, she even tried to get me into trouble by saying I tried to molest her or ask her out on a date.' "

Tanya's stepmother said the teenager had run away several times, usually for a few days, before her final disappearance. At the time, she said, Jerry Kach and Miss Kach's mother were splitting up. Jo-Ann Kach, the step-mother, said Tanya resented her.

"It was adolescence, a lot of emotions," Jo-Ann Kach said. "She felt that her father didn't love her -- a new woman in the picture -- and she was hoping that her mother and father would get back together."

Wrong suspicions

The night before Miss Kach disappeared, she baby-sat the daughter of Kevin J. Churchfield on Cleveland Street in McKeesport, a few blocks from the Kach home at the time.

Mr. Churchfield, 46, said yesterday that Miss Kach had watched his child a few times before. That night, Mr. Churchfield said, he dropped Miss Kach off at her home, said "good night," and left.

Police, however, had a different theory, Mr. Churchfield said. He claims that investigators have hounded him since 1996 about whether he played a role in Miss Kach's disappearance, even asking him where he hid her body when they thought she might be dead.

"I went through 10 years of hell," Mr. Churchfield said. "They wanted me to take a polygraph test to see if I killed her. ... They took pictures of my family. They watched every move I made."

Mr. Churchfield said he took two polygraph tests and passed both. He also claimed investigators had been in contact with him regularly since 1996, most recently in November. He said he never did anything untoward with Miss Kach.

Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent James Morton acknowledged that Mr. Churchfield was questioned in Miss Kach's disappearance. He said, however, Mr. Churchfield greatly exaggerated the detectives' level of interest and was one of many people police interviewed as part of the Kach investigation.

"He was talked to in relation to her and that was it. I don't have anything to accuse him of, but we didn't make his life a living hell," Assistant Superintendent Morton said.

'Stunning' disappearance

When Miss Kach vanished, she did so without a trace, Mr. Elias recalled. He said investigators spoke to parents of classmates, but no one provided useful leads. As far as speaking with classmates, Mr. Elias said, Miss Kach had not endeared herself to other students.

"I don't know that she had any friends at all," he recalled. After getting to know Miss Kach and dealing with her troubles in school, the disappearance was remarkable to him.

"Next thing I know, she's gone. It was stunning, the way she dropped out of sight. These kids, they run away for a day or two and then find out how hard it is to be on their own and come home," Mr. Elias said. "She just disappeared off the face of the Earth."

In March 1996, several weeks after Miss Kach's disappearance, Allegheny County's child welfare agency filed a dependency petition, a document that would turn custody of a child over to the state if approved. The reason cited was "parent-child conflict."

The agency could have been notified by those involved in the investigation, by neighbors, the family itself, or others familiar with the family situation. The case was closed in January 1997.

Over the years, Mr. Hose's name came up in various ways in regards to Miss Kach. Mr. Churchfield said he alerted police to Mr. Hose early on.

"I told the county homicide 10 years ago to check him, and they said, 'He works for the school, and he would have had nothing to do with that,' " Mr. Churchfield claimed. "I told them he's a guard at the school and she had a big crush on him. ... She used to brag about that security guard. She'd say she had the biggest crush on him."

County police said they spoke to Mr. Hose in 1998 or 1999 after Ms. Sokol directed them to him. Police, however, have said there was nothing provoking suspicion of Mr. Hose at the time.

When police spoke with Mr. Hose, they were in McKeesport investigating the discovery in 1998 of the remains of 14-year-old Kimberlie Krimm, whose body was found on a hillside in Versailles Cemetery, near Mr. Hose's home on Soles Street.

Kimberlie's older sister, Monica, was in Tanya Kach's class. Their mother, Jeanie Krimm, said her daughter believed from the moment that Miss Kach disappeared that Mr. Hose was involved.

Mrs. Krimm, who once worked in the Cornell Middle School cafeteria, recalled Mr. Hose as a "wanna-be ladies man," with too-tight pants, cologne, jet-black hair, a smooth patter and winks for the ladies.

"Even at the time that she disappeared, Monica always contended he had something to do with it. All the girls at school knew about their affair," Mrs. Krimm said.

"I always blew it off. I feel bad about that. I feel bad I didn't believe Monica, but who would?"