By Pamela Lehman
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Authorities say a “tumultuous” relationship between gunman Justin Kephart and his mother may have sparked her death during last week’s standoff in Bethlehem Township, but they also believe Kephart targeted police officers, firing at least 115 rounds at them.
“It was his intent to take out other bodies, and they would be wearing blue uniforms,” Bethlehem Township police Sgt. Daryl LaPointe said Tuesday afternoon during a news conference about the killings.
Authorities say Kephart, 35, was armed with a shotgun and two Russian assault rifles and fired the 115 rounds from his Dennis Street home on Friday afternoon as neighbors prepped for the Christmas holiday.
Kephart shot and killed his mother, Marylouise Meixell-Moyer, 62, who was hit 11 times, then shot himself in the basement of the home he shared with his grandmother and mother, police say.
At the news conference, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said he spent several hours at the standoff scene as armored vehicles prowled the streets and officers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests searched backyards to make sure the gunman hadn’t escaped.
“I felt like I was in a war zone, really,” Morganelli said.
The bizarre story took an even stranger turn on Monday when Kephart’s father, Dale Clark Kephart, was found dead Monday in his Allentown home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Justin Kephart, a convicted felon with previous drug charges, was not permitted to own firearms and Morganelli said investigators suspect he got the weapons he used during the standoff from his father’s “arsenal.”
State police Lt. Joseph Sokolofski, who also spoke at the news conference, said Justin Kephart had a semi-automatic shotgun and two Russian assault rifles, an AK-47 and an AK-74. Sokolofski said one of the weapons, identified as a Saiga shotgun, may not be able to be imported anymore, but the semi-automatic weapons are not restricted. The primary purpose of an assault rifle is home or self-defense, he said.
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Police said they also found drug paraphernalia in the home, but did not detail exactly what was found.
“We were very fortunate that we did not have a police officer shot. We are very fortunate that no civilians were hurt,” Morganelli said.
Authorities at the news conference described a harrowing scene as Kephart’s neighbor called police around 2 p.m. Friday to say a bloody woman was lying motionless in the yard of her home at 1543 Dennis St. As a neighbor checked on her and a township police officer arrived Kephart opened fire, spraying the street with dozens of gunshots, police said.
The neighbor, 70-year-old Douglas Wallace, said he dove for cover behind his pickup truck. Bethlehem Township police officer John Meehan took cover behind a car, said township Chief Daniel Pancoast.
As shots rang out, one bullet whizzed between Meehan’s left hand resting against the car and his head, Pancoast said, “missing him very closely.”
A Bethlehem police armored vehicle was brought to the scene to rescue Meehan and Wallace. That vehicle also came under heavy fire and was riddled by at least 26 gunshots, said city police Chief Mark DiLuzio.
The state police’s special emergency response team tried to make contact with Kephart, who was found later in the basement of the home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police said he had several weapons nearby and they found dozens of spent rounds, mostly in the basement of the home near two windows.
Morganelli said authorities are still unsure of the motive behind the attack, but knew of the rocky relationship between Kephart and his mother. During the attack, Kephart told his father in a cellphone call that he had killed “mom” and “a cop,” Morganelli said.
Kephart’s public Facebook profile has not been updated in more than a year, but during the 2014 manhunt for convicted cop-killer Eric Frein, he posted “Go Frein. Keep making a [expletive] of all those OINKERS.”
The Bethlehem Township shootings prompted a massive police response, with authorities preventing residents from returning to their homes and ordering those at home to shelter in place.
LaPointe said at Tuesday’s news conference that police used a reverse 911 call and online message system to warn residents to stay inside their homes and seek shelter. Any Bethlehem Area School District students who lived in the area were kept at their schools to be picked up later, he said.
Morganelli said he was pleased by the response of area police departments, volunteer firefighters and the residents of the neighborhood.
“I can tell you that in the staging area, it was like a ghost town,” Morganelli said. “People stayed inside their homes, people out shopping couldn’t get back home for hours. There were traffic jams galore across the area, but it kept everyone safe and everyone seemed to understand the need for that.”
Morganelli said he knows that incidents across the nation have prompted complaints about police purchases of surplus military equipment, questioning the cost and the necessity of it.
“We need to have these types of armored units available,” Morganelli said. “But for that, we may have had a police officer and citizen deceased at the scene.”
©2017 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)