(Tribune News Service) — Officials in a Philadelphia suburb have yet to capture an Iraq war veteran they say carried out a shooting rampage early Monday that left six of his estranged family members dead, including his ex-wife and her 14-year-old niece.
He also apparently briefly abducted his two daughters from his ex-wife’s home before dropping them off with a neighbor and vanishing.
Former Marine Corps Sgt. Bradley William Stone, 35, of Pennsburg, Pa., is being sought for shootings at homes in the towns of Lansdale, Lower Salford Township and Souderton.
Montgomery County law enforcement officials described a series of attacks between 3:30 and 5 a.m., after Stone dropped off his daughters and disappeared, abandoning his vehicle and his cellphone at an undisclosed location.
The victims were all family members of Stone’s ex-wife, Nicole, 33, who divorced Stone in 2009 and was found dead in her home in Lower Salford Township.
“They’ve been fighting for years, real bad,” a neighbor, Michele Brewster, told the Allentown Morning Call of Nicole and Bradley Stone. “He’s been tormenting her. She’s gone to the police, and she has told everybody, ‘He’s going to kill me.””
The pair had been involved in a protracted custody battle over the pair’s two daughters, Matthew Schafte, 42, a friend of Bradley Stone’s, told the Los Angeles Times.
“She was trying to hold the kids from him, and he just snapped,” guessed Schafte, of Harleysville, who said he’s known Stone for 20 years. “But to snap by killing her family members is not the Brad that I know. … He was a nice guy.”
Stone was seen around 5 a.m., after the rampage, when he “delivered” the two daughters with a neighbor in Pennsburg, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman told reporters in a brief news conference.
The girls were safe, Ferman said. But much of their extended family is now dead.
The first attack apparently began at 3:30 a.m. in Souderton, where Nicole Stone’s sister, Patricia Flick, Flick’s husband, and the pair’s 14-year-old daughter were found dead, Ferman said.
Flick’s 17-year-old son was injured in the attack and was apparently not found until shortly before 8 a.m., when authorities visited the home and transported him to an area hospital, Ferman said. His name was not released and the extent of his injuries is not known.
Nicole Stone’s mother and grandmother were also found dead at a home in Lansdale after a hang-up 911 call was placed to police at 4:25 a.m., Ferman said. Officials did not give their names.
Nicole Stone was found dead in Lower Salford Township after a 911 call from a neighbor at 4:55 a.m., Ferman said.
“I heard a ‘pow,’ and I thought, ‘Was that a gun?’” Brewster, Nicole Stone’s neighbor, told the Morning Call. Another neighbor, Ashley Deane, told the newspaper she heard what sounded like four gunshots and could hear children screaming for their mother.
Deane said she could hear her neighbor’s ex-husband telling the children that they had to leave. She said she looked out the front window and she could see him with the children, ages 5 and 7, who were in their pajamas.
The ex-husband looked at Deane and said, “She’s hurt,” referring to his ex-wife, Deane told the Morning Call, adding that the ex-husband and the children then got in a car and sped off.
The ensuing manhunt forced local schools to shelter in place as authorities spent the day hunting for the balding, red-haired Bradley Stone, whom officials consider armed and dangerous. Local media reported that SWAT teams swarmed his home in Pennsburg, apparently to no luck.
A Facebook page under Stone’s name said he had a son and showed a photo of him kissing the bride at a wedding. Among favorite quotes listed on the Facebook page: “If you (expletive) with me, I’ll kill you all,” and “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
Stone’s friend Schafte described his interests as being focused on Marines and on his children, which now included a son with his most recent wife.
“He loved life, he loved his country, he went to serve, he was so proud of his babies, especially when he got married to Nicole,” Schafte told the Times, adding that around town “he’d be a bartender or help out or go to the local legion or VFW — it was all about veterans.”
The Marine Corps confirmed Stone’s service, telling the Times that he enlisted as a reservist in 2002 and left duty in 2008, remaining on individual ready reserve in case of a call-up until 2011.
Stone served in Iraq from April 17, 2008, to July 2, 2008, the only deployment on his record, according to a spokeswoman for the Marines.
He earned an Iraq Campaign Medal — a merit indicating service in Iraq — in addition to a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and other commendations. His job included monitoring weather conditions for artillery.
His record made no note of any injuries sustained in the service, a Marines spokeswoman said.
But in court documents relating to a child support disagreement filed in Montgomery County obtained by the Morning Call, Stone described himself as “permanently disabled according to the Veteran’s Administration.”
Montgomery County law enforcement officials said Stone often used a cane or a walker and might be wearing military fatigues.
“I’m totally shocked, I’m upset,” Schafte told the Times. “I just can’t see him doing this because, you know, he was the type of kid that loves life, man.”
Staff writer Kurtis Lee contributed to this report.
©2014 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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