6 dead, suspect on loose in Penn.
PENNSBURG, Pa. – A man suspected of going to three houses in the Philadelphia suburbs and fatally shooting six people, including his ex-wife and her teenage niece, was at large, and prosecutors said investigators didn’t know where he was or how he was getting around.
Police recovered the cellphone and car of Bradley William Stone, who had recently been in court fighting with his ex-wife over custody of their two children. SWAT teams surrounded his Pennsburg home on Monday and pleaded through a bullhorn for him to surrender, but Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said it was unclear if he was there.
The shooting rampage started before dawn at the home of Stone’s former sister-in-law in Souderton and ended about 90 minutes later at ex-wife Nicole Stone’s apartment in nearby Harleysville, Ferman said.
Nicole Stone’s sister, Patricia Flick, her sister’s husband, Aaron Flick, and the couple’s 14-year-old daughter, Nina Flick, were killed in the first wave of violence, discovered just before 8 a.m., Ferman said. Their 17-year-old son, Anthony Flick, was pulled from the home with a head wound and was taken in an armored vehicle and then by helicopter to a Philadelphia hospital for treatment.
Nicole Stone’s mother, Joanne Hill, and grandmother Patricia Hill were killed next at their home in nearby Lansdale. Investigators were alerted by a hang-up call to emergency dispatchers, Ferman said.
Islamic rebels capture 2 bases
BEIRUT – Al-Qaida-linked and other Islamic fighters captured two key Syrian army bases on Monday in the northwestern province of Idlib after two days of intense battles with government troops that killed dozens on both sides, activists said.
The fall of the two bases – Wadi Deif and Hamidiyeh, both located near the town of Maaret al-Numan – is a significant blow to the Syrian army, which had managed to hold on to them for more than two years, repelling repeated attacks by an array of opposition groups.
The battles for “these two bases were exhausting the rebel factions,” said Hussam Abu Bakr, a spokesman for the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group, one of the strongest rebel factions in northern Syria. He said his group captured Hamidiyeh base.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an Idlib-based activist who goes by the name of Mohammed al-Sayid said members of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and other rebel factions captured the Wadi Deif base Monday morning and the nearby Hamidiyeh base in the early afternoon.
Associated Press
