Owner of motel fatally shot in Jefferson Hills

Victim once owned Someplace Else club

Police believe a former nightclub owner was fatally shot during a robbery at the Jefferson Hills Motel that he owned and operated when he tried to resist the gunman.

Police were called to the motel on Route 51 around 4:15 a.m. Friday and found the body of Dehnad “Dan” Taiedi, 78, of Jefferson Hills behind the office counter. He died at the scene, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said.

Cash was missing from the register, and investigators believe that Mr. Taiedi might have resisted, leading to a confrontation and the shooting, Allegheny County Police homicide Lt. Andrew Schurman said.

Police said Mr. Taiedi had been working the front desk when he was shot. Detectives were hoping to review security video for clues about what happened.

Mr. Taiedi, a French Persian immigrant who went by Dan or Danny, owned the Baldwin Borough nightclub Someplace Else from 1978 to 1994 and did it with flair.

“He looked like the Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd characters from ‘Saturday Night Live,’” said Pittsburgh musician/producer Sean McDonald, referring to the “Wild and Crazy Guys.”

With his wife, Linda, who died in 2013 at 65, they turned Someplace Else, which held between 200 and 300 people, into a prominent rock club on Route 51 that played host to such bands as the Iron City Houserockers, Norm Nardini and the Tigers, The Silencers and the Granati Brothers. It also featured such national bands as Warrant and Talas with Billy Sheehan, and in 1993, after playing the Civic Arena, Bon Jovi visited the Someplace Else to jam with Mr. Nardini.

“It was one of the few places that had bands six or seven days a week,” Mr. McDonald said. “It really was an incubator for a lot of musicians. He and Linda were always generous with me and people that I knew.”

“It was quite a hoppin’ place,” said Joe Grushecky of the Houserockers. “It wasn’t like the Decade scene, noted for its original music, but back then there were clubs up and down Route 51 and that was the best of them. They were nice people and we always had a good time playing there.”

Frank Czuri of The Silencers said one of the earliest places the Pittsburgh band played was in Michael Jay’s in Dormont.

running bands, he picked up the slack and kept us working.”

The couple also owned the Spruce Motel behind the club, the Saddlebrook Stables in South Park and the Shop-N-Go Deli in West Elizabeth. In 2001, they purchased an unfinished motel that was almost 50 years in the making after builder Claude Kaufmann died. After bringing in 25 tons of stone from Tennessee to match the facade and completing the interior, within six months, they opened the Jefferson Hills Motel.

The motel opened Oct. 23, 2001, with the message “A Dream Come True” on the marquee.

Mr. Taiedi, is survived by daughter Kimberly Francis, of Maryland, and stepdaughter Carrie Howard, of Clairton.