A man fatally shot a woman decorating for a children's Christmas party at a tiny church hall and killed two men elsewhere in a rural central Pennsylvania township Friday before he was fatally shot in a gunfight with state troopers.
The woman had cooked food the day before for the funeral of Juniata Valley Gospel Church's longtime pastor, said the Rev. James McCaulley, his brother. The central Pennsylvania church was still reeling Friday from the Rev. David McCaulley's death when the woman returned to decorate the church hall — named after the pastor of 58 years — and bullets ripped through a window, he said.
The gunman then entered and shot one of two women before he left, the Rev. James McCaulley said.
Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said that there "might be some relation" between at least two of the victims but that they were shot at multiple places in and around the tiny village of Geeseytown, about 70 miles west of Harrisburg. The names of the victims and the gunman weren't immediately released.
The shootings began in Frankstown Township at about 9 a.m. and troopers encountered the gunman as they sped to the township from their barracks in nearby Hollidaysburg, Consiglio and state police said.
State police spokeswoman Maria Finn said troopers responded to a 911 call of a shooting in the township — though she couldn't immediately say if that was at the church or elsewhere — when they heard calls reporting at least one other shooting elsewhere.
Authorities said at a news briefing Friday afternoon that investigators were processing five crime scenes within about 1.5 miles of each other.
Two troopers driving to the scene of one shooting were fired upon by the driver of a pickup truck headed in the other direction, and the truck smashed head-on into a cruiser driven by a third trooper. The truck driver — believed to be the gunman who killed the other victims — exited the truck and immediately fired at the troopers, who returned fire and killed him, Finn said.
All three troopers were being treated at a hospital for what Finn called "non-life threatening injuries."
One trooper was hit by two bullets, one that hit the body armor on his chest and the other which wounded the trooper's wrist, Finn said. A second trooper was hit by shattered glass and shrapnel. Those two troopers were expected to be released from the hospital Friday.
The third trooper was being evaluated for injuries he suffered from the head-on crash with the gunman's truck.
McCaulley, who is the pastor of another church about 50 miles away from the site of Friday's carnage, said his older brother began leading the Frankstown church in 1954.
"He preached his last sermon at the church in October before he fell ill," McCaulley said.
The church, which lists about 150 members in an online want ad posted this month for an associate pastor, is close-knit and the woman killed Friday was among its more active members, McCaulley said. She had made food for him to bring home Thursday since his wife had died this year, he said.
"The only thing I can say good at this time is that (the gunman) didn't do this 24 hours earlier when there was a big crowd in the church hall," McCaulley said. "We're devastated."
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