The Monsters That Walk Among Us

John Tyran

Thomas Ryan

Scott Mt. Pleasant

Vincent Morello

Richard Morello

Vincent Morello

Jason Lorich

David Gossard

Some of them drew sentences as long as 25 years, and the crimes they committed were the unspeakable plots we know from horror movies.

But chances are you've seen them, and maybe even through them though they undoubtedly do their best to conceal their dark pasts.

Thanks to legislation sponsored in Albany by former Assemblywoman Francine Del Monte and an attitude of complete apathy on the part of Mayor Paul Dyster, Niagara Falls has long been overrun with perverts, deviates, child molesters and rapists of every stripe.

You may see them in the checkout line of a local grocery or lurking outside of an elementary school. Or when you’re having a picnic at Hyde Park or taking the family over to Goat Island for a view of the falls.

As far as we’re concerned, they should be confined to mental institutions or under armed guard for the rest of their lives in one of the prisons recently closed by the state. Let them live under bridges like trolls for all we care.

But at last count, 119 dangerous sex offenders were living among us. These are among the worst of the worst.

John Tyran, 54, is a sexually violent offender who was sentenced to 12.5 to 25 years in prison following his  1995 kidnapping and rape of two women, ages 24 and 32.

Records show he used a cutting instrument to force one of the women to accompany him to a trailer in Cattaraugus County, where she was raped and sodomized.

Now he’s living around children and families in unit 1-B at 530 Fifth St.

According to police, Tyran enjoys forced sexual intercourse, sodomy and kidnapping in addition to eating fast food. The roly- poly rapist weighs in at a blubbery 266 pounds!

David C. Gossard, 67, of 1424 99th St. is another overweight, violent kidnapper and rapist and, like Tyran,  has no business living among civilized human beings. He has a job with the Veterans Administration in Buffalo.

Police say that, back in October of 1993, Gossard choked and beat a 45-year-old woman before engaging in forced sexual intercourse and forced deviate sexual intercourse with her. He was sentenced to 14 to 20 years in state prison but walks among us today. We wonder how many of his 99th Street neighbors or colleagues at the Veterans Administration know of Gossard’s perverted past.

Shortly after a Reporter expose, McKinney was banished back to North Tonawanda, where he lived in a motel, but now he’s back in Niagara Falls, comfortably ensconced in a private residence at 9865 Porter Road.

He should be in a cage at the zoo.

 Vincent Morello, 71, is another sicko who lives here, calling 417 13th St. home.

His victim was an 11-year-old girl whom he was convicted of sodomizing on three occasions, sexually abusing once and raping once.

He was sentenced to consecutive terms of 28 years and 18 years following his 1980 conviction, which should have kept him in prison until 2026, but the state prison system is so overrun with non-violent drug offenders that authorities cut him loose.

Records show he drives a blue, 1997 Ford truck bearing New York license plate EPK3977 and a Yamaha motorcycle.

Jason Lorich, 39, lives at 614 Tronolone Place and was sentenced in 2001 to 10 years in prison on six counts of sexually abusing two girls, ages 8 and 9. He ruined their lives but lives the good life today, working at a swimming pool company in Tonawanda.

Sometimes a change of scenery can do a man good. We doubt this is the case with Curtis Cheeley, who drew an 8 to 25 year sentence following his conviction of the knifepoint rape of a woman in Rochester in 1984.

Winning the prize for overweight sexual predators is Scott Mt. Pleasant, 49, who tips the scales at a whopping 309 pounds! Records show that Mt. Pleasant was less than pleasant in December of 1992 when he violently sexually assaulted a woman prior to his arrest by state police.

Mt. Pleasant makes him home these days at 618 19th St., and makes ends meet with a job at an auto junkyard.

We don’t know if Richard J. Morello is related to the previously mentioned Vincent Morello, but their crimes are shockingly similar and they live a few blocks away from each other in the same East Side neighborhood.

It could be a coincidence, couldn’t it?

Morello, 43, was convicted of the sexual abuse of an eight-year-old girl, using her in a sexual performance and possessing a video of that sexual performance on his computer when cops busted down the door back in 1999.

He now lives at 530 5th St. in Niagara Falls.

Thomas W. Ryan, 69, resembles an evil looking leprechaun and has a nice apartment at 7314 Buffalo Ave. But in 1985 he was arrested by police in North Tonawanda for raping and sodomizing two girls, ages 7 and 11.

He drew a sentence 7 to 20 years for his crimes, although his victims were given a life sentence after having their childhoods stolen away.