AFP
New York
US police have stepped up a manhunt for an Iraq war veteran accused of murdering his ex-wife and five members of her family on a killing spree near the northeastern city of Philadelphia.
Bradley William Stone, 35, is “armed and dangerous” and Pennsylvania state police ordered residents in Montgomery County to stay at home with their doors locked.
Stone, a former US Marine reportedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is suspected of shooting dead ex-wife Nicole Hill, 33, and four generations of her family before dawn on Monday.
Police say that the killing spree took place in three separate towns.
First Hill’s sister, sister’s husband and 14-year-old daughter were shot dead and Hill’s 17-year-old nephew shot and wounded.
Then her mother and grandmother were killed, before Stone allegedly murdered Hill in her apartment in Lower Salford in front of their two young daughters, whom Stone then dropped off with a neighbour in his hometown of Pennsburg, authorities said.
Police say that the couple had been locked in a bitter custody battle since their acrimonious divorce in 2009 and neighbours told US TV networks that they were repeatedly overheard arguing.
District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman released two photographs of Stone which showed him both clean shaven and with closely-cropped red hair, a beard and mustache.
Stone is 5’10” (1.78m) and 195 pounds (89kg) and is known to use a cane or a walker, and may be wearing military fatigues in either sand or green, Ferman said.
The manhunt was taking place on the air and ground, with a K9 unit scrambled to assist.
On Monday police SWAT teams searched in vain in Pennsburg, around 75km northwest of Philadelphia, where Stone comes from, and where he handed his daughters to a neighbour after the shooting.
Overnight police concentrated the manhunt in Doylestown, around 60km (40 miles) north of Philadelphia, where an armed man fitting his description reportedly tried to steal a man’s car keys at knife point before vanishing into a wooded area.
The victim opened fire several times, prompting the suspect to flee.
Schools were closed or on modified lockdown in the areas where the manhunt was taking place, and residents were advised to stay at home with their doors locked.
The US Marine Corps confirmed that Stone was a reservist from 2002 to 2011 and served in Iraq in 2008. He left with the rank of sergeant and had been trained as an artillery weatherman.
He was awarded the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Force Reserve Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and National Defence Service Medal.
US media said he had been arrested three times for drunken driving since 2001.
