Tredyffrin Township at their recent supervisors’ meeting last week struck a hollow chord with me. Here listen:
Sorry, not sorry that was overly scripted deflection. People deserve answers. I have personal friends who all but for a weird twist of timing and fate would have gone through that exact same area at almost the same time so if it wasn’t Megan Nieberle who was murdered, it could have been one of my friends.
Or it could have been any number of people who live around there, right? For example, I won’t name the supervisor in Tredyffrin but there’s one that I know lives right in that neighborhood near where Megan Nieberle lived correct?
And let’s talk about Steve Jahn’s interactions with people and other police departments before shooting a nurse and MOM of three, ok?
There is a woman from Parksburg, who had a crazy interaction with this guy a couple days before this event. In Caln?
This lady Tiara could have been his victim just as easily as Megan became his victim. Tiara who was a victim of his erratic behavior wanted to press charges. That police department out there apparently just let it go and why? If somebody’s acting that erratically in a parking lot, don’t you even want to look into him for a hot minute?
Here’s an excerpt from the written portion of the interview on 6abc‘s website:
“The officer didn’t want to pursue charges, they didn’t think it was going to go anywhere, and they kind of dissuaded me,” Tiara said.
She said police contacted her again Saturday morning and shared his insurance information, telling her he had also been hostile with officers.
“They wanted to let things lie, they said. So they’re the police, I agreed,” she added.
OK, then you add to that the fact that police encountered him at the PNC Bank and Paoli before he forever took a woman away from her friends, family, coworkers, neighbors? Before he devastated her husband and children?
I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have even have put him in a holding cell? And I get that to 302 someone is not as easy as it used to be, but it’s still possible isn’t it? Sorry if I am not particularly sympathetic about what came out of the mouth of Tredyffrin officials at their meeting. I thought they would at least be more real. (And yes I get that they can’t talk about an ongoing investigation but it could have been a little less CYA sounding.)
And people got up and spoke, and they remarked also upon the fact that residents received no notification of this and why wasn’t an emergency notification issued before they arrested Jahn telling people to stay in their houses and keep the doors locked or on the lookout? Because at that point in time who knew where he was? And it was family members who turned him in, correct?
I’m not playing hindsight is 20/20 but in my opinion I think several balls got dropped here and a woman lost her life as a result.
And then there is something else that I’ve heard multiple times now and is any reporter going to hunt this down? It has been said he stopped in at Radnor PD as in their township building/station at some point before this all happened? Did that actually happen and what did Radnor do? And then there were the reports that appeared in the media already about people concerned about this guy’s mental health calling the police?
Tredyffrin needs to do better than what they have offered thus far.
Megan Nieberle’s husband and children deserve better. Everyone deserves better.
This didn’t have to happen. I still believe that how many days later after this happened.
But Tredyffrin’s response? It’s like they were issuing platitudes so if they’re sued, they can say they care or something? Come on Tredyffrin. Put on your big boy and big girl pants. You can’t unring this bell and how you act going forward may determine a lot of things in this municipality doesn’t it?
Disappointed is the most polite term I can apply to what I saw at that meeting and I dare say residents want action here not platitudes?
Also, Steve Jahn’s hearing was postponed and after looking at the docket, it seems like he still doesn’t have legal representation. He also might not be mentally capable of going to court right now and of course, if that’s the case, I think the public deserves to know what’s going on don’t you?
I’m actually sorry to sound critical but what the hell happened and what is going on?
If you look at the docket, it looks like May is his next court date.
I haven’t written about this yet, but started now. I think I needed to sleep on it some more because I found this so profoundly upsetting and disturbing .
First up: a wrong place, wrong time. A woman in Berwyn murdered by an out of his mind lunatic….whom police had dealt with just a couple of hours before he shot this woman. This was a mom. She was a sister. She was a friend. she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time when someone decided to have a psychotic break. I hope they lock that guy up for a really long time.
According to the timeline laid out, Tredyffrin Police HAD Steven Jahn IN CUSTODAY earlier that evening and perhaps if they had kept a hold of him, this woman might still be alive?
It also speaks to the need for mental health evaluations to be added to requirements for carry permits etc.
I hate to refer to her as just “a woman” or “this woman” but out of respect for her family I am while they try to adjust to something anything but normal.
This woman is known to friends of mine. I have woken up thinking about her these past couple of days. This was about a quasi homeless man on a psychotic break and maybe some sort of substance abuse (who knows?) who murdered a woman who will never wake up again to see the sun rise or take joy in her family, smile at her kids, go for a walk, kiss her husband goodnight. This is a woman with kids and a husband who have to try to make sense of something utterly senseless.
And this piece of crap who shot her? Here is the police comnplaint thingy:
Now was Jahn truly homeless or unhoused? He went to Conestoga and supposedly grew up around Midland in Berwyn? People I spoke to indicated he had lived in Florida, New Jersey, and Maryland before coming back to PA in the beginning of the year? Someone said he had been at some place called the “French Creek Inn” which is some sort of no tell meets meets flop house in East Pikeland? Did anyone check that out? I never heard of that place and someone said it actually came up recently at an East Pikeland meeting?
Anyway, this guy was picked up with his guns at his cousin’s house on Conestoga Road? Look at him? Is that just a full mental break or something else as well? Why do I ask? Because I figured out WHY his name was familiar. 2013. Crazy car accident after hit and runs in East Goshen on North Chester Road. Like 3 hit and runs and his own car upended in the woods.
And next we go to the death of that poor State Trooper Corporal Timothy O’Connor. Fatally shot while performing a traffic stop by one Jesse Nathan Elks. This happened out in West Caln. Another guy who snapped who owned a gun. Elks then ate his own gun.
Timothy O’Connor leaves a wife, daughter, and other family like his beloved parents behind. I literally started crying at one simple comment on the Chester County District Attorney’s Office Facebook Page from his namesake father. All it said was “I love you son.”
So I can’t really find the social media of Jesse Elks but obviously they are out there somewhere because people are posting about it.
Screenshot
When you dig into Elks you find he fathered kids by two women, married one who later divorced him. He was living in a mobile home park in Honey Brook, not sure if it was the township or West Caln area. He seemed to me to be a POS with anger issues and a coward. He took the life of Timothy O’Connor and then killed himself depriving the State Troopers and O’Connor’s family of justice. At least the women who bore his children are free of him…and I hope his kids do okay through this as innocents in his act of murder.
So why did Jesse Elks have a gun?
Look I am not debating the right to own arms. I am asking when the f*ck are they going to add mental health evaluations to the ownership process? It’s the people with the guns doing the killing, so it’s a different conversation to the regular or more typical gun control conversation.
It’s like the fact that sometimes when people have these mental health breaks, law enforcement needs to confiscate weapons sooner, rather than later.
Corporal O’Connor and currently unnamed wife, mother, sister, friend both were taken to Paoli Hospital. What a terribly sad duty for those who work at Paoli. Two tragedies that were random acts of senseless violence. I hope they met on the way to heaven.
I am not particularly eloquent about these senseless acts and I so want to be because these two victims whose souls left their human form at Paoli Hospital deserve that….from all of us.
We live in an awful world right now that needs more happiness. Pray for these families and for these two people murdered through random acts of violence and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This could happen to anyone, and that is the most gut wrenching thought of all.
I close with what Timothy O’Connor’s mom posted. It was public. Mrs. O’Connor, I don’t know you either, but like the currently unnamed murder victim in Berwyn, we share people in common and I am just so damn sorry.
People, we need to strive for a better world. And heaven has two new angels way before they should have been there. And can we also put in a plug for Chester County officials to get a hospital back in the area of where the other two closed with a trauma center?
Screenshot of Ellen Greenberg’s mother holding her photo in the Hulu documentary series.
I will admit I didn’t really follow this case at all until recently. The case started during a time when I was starting my breast cancer journey and learning what life after breast cancer was like. So I remember the initial news reports, but given my life back then and what I didn’t track this and plenty of other news stories I am sure.
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Her name was Ellen Rae Greenberg (June 23, 1983 – January 26, 2011) and she died after sustaining 20 stab wounds in her Manayunk apartment in Venice Lofts.
Her fiancé at the time was a guy named Sam Goldberg. Apparently he called police after he broke the front door down and subsequently found her with a knife sticking out of her chest, but didn’t recognize a knife being in her chest at first, according to the new Hulu documentary which I just found freaking strange. These apartments aren’t that big and if you’re standing there at the entrance of an apartment kitchen and you’re looking at your fiancée literally slumped on the floor or whatever you’re not going to notice a knife sticking out of her chest at first?
And they called it a suicide? How does one stab one’s self multiple times in the back and end up back down with a knife in the chest? And then there was this thing in the documentary where they said that some uncle of the fiancé Sam coming in and getting Ellen‘s electronic devices? So like her computer or tablet and phone? What was the condition of the items when police got them? How could they properly be examined after they took a detour and what is that term? Chain of custody? How was that observed exactly?
Ellen and her parents were from the Harrisburg area. It seems that her parents now live in Florida. Her former fiancé whose full name seems to be Samuel Hankin Goldberg apparently hails from the Main Line. His parents seem to still live in the area. Ellen’s parents are Joshua and Sandra Greenberg.
I have been reading and digging into this since I watched the Hulu series. Suffice it to say when you think you have heard the last worst story about anything having to do with Philadelphia, never say never and watch the documentary series.
R. Seth Greenberg was District Attorney in Philadelphia at the time of Ellen’s death. Charles H. Ramsey was Police Chief.
It’s just insane. Why is Philadelphia stonewalling the Greenberg family?
This is a crazy rabbit hole to go down. And I never really went down it before. There are so many articles, but what I still don’t understand is how the ex-fiancé and his family for that matter just seemed to move on like Ellen Greenberg never existed? He reportedly is married and has a family, and his parents seem to still live in the greater Philadelphia area?
It sounds like Ellen Greenberg wanted to have a family too doesn’t it? Only she never did, did she? Her parents never saw her get married, did they? Her parents never held any of her grandchildren because they were never born because their daughter is dead, right?
People started sending Ellen links for me to post when I was posting about Anna Maciejewska. Every time I looked at anything I kept coming back to one thing: how did Philadelphia think this young woman stabbed herself so many times in the back and chest?
So reports at that time talking about Ellen leading up to her death, included people saying she was anxious and seeing a psychiatrist, right? Does that mean she killed herself? No, it doesn’t does it?
Screenshot off of Hulu series, episode 2
And another thing is supposedly she’d been home a while before she died? Why did she have like boots on? I mean I get that they look like UGG boots or something but they weren’t slippers, they were boots. It’s snowing like crazy, but when you are in your house do you wear boots? Maybe but maybe not?
And how is it that the police and everyone started treating this as a suicide immediately because if you watch the documentary and you read the articles it’s like as soon as they appeared on the scene, they decided what it was and how could they? And then lickity split within a few days it seems of her death the apartment/crime scene was scrubbed within an inch of its life? I realize everything is not like an episode of Law and Order or whatever but doesn’t that seem strange?
Now that I’ve gone down this rabbit hole I get why people have been sending me links all these years.
There’s nothing normal about this, including the fact, the way her fiancé‘s family as well as himself just seemed to move on, right? and he’s married with at least one child right if not more? Perhaps their relationship wasn’t headed down the aisle, but we will never know because Ellen can’t tell us.
So they always tell us that if something like this is a murder one of the suspects they always look at are people closest to the victim. In this case it would be like a domestic incident right? So it would be partner, fiancé husband, etc.
Yeah, it seems like before anyone knew what this was this was just categorized as a suicide and how do you kill yourself by stabbing yourself in the back like how do you reach? Was she like really flexible or something? And I still don’t understand how they let her devices be taken out of the apartment like that? Even if it was a suicide, shouldn’t they have been collected on the initial scene that evening and at least looked at by the police?
Other things I find interesting? The media reports Nancy Schwartzman who directed this documentary, went to Shipley. They also said Sam Goldberg the fiancée also went to Shipley. I guess life really is a small world isn’t it? I know neither of these individuals, we just have a school in common, many years apart. “Courage for the Deed, Grace for the Doing” is Shipley’s motto. It has nothing to do with anything or maybe it has something to do with everything? What do you think?
I just don’t understand any of this. Most of all I don’t understand why the City of Philadelphia never seems to really cooperative so what is being hidden and who is connected to whom? Is this about money, as in whomever has all the expensive toys wins, and no one ever really looks into this case again?
There is a Facebook page that has been up for years about this:
In February 2025, the Greenbergs celebrated a major legal victory when the city settled both suits and the Medical Examiner’s Office agreed to reopen its investigation into Greenberg’s cause of death.
This ruling came shortly after Dr. Osbourne signed an affidavit stating that her death should be classified as “something other than suicide,” according to NBC Philadelphia. He reportedly made the decision after reviewing new information in the case and consulting with a pediatric neuropathologist.
The settlement also included an undisclosed amount of money.
“I hope today we made Ellen proud of us, and we were certainly very proud of her as her parents,” Sandee told reporters. “It’s monumental; for 14 years we’ve been dealing with this suicidal label.”
I don’t know if we’re ever going to know the truth. I hope we will, but it just seems every twist and every turn with this case now that I finally have sat down and read enough articles to make my eyes bleed, you go like a step forward and then two steps back. People really don’t seem to want to have this case to be solved in Philadelphia, do they? In my opinion, that is profoundly disturbing and sad.
Ellen’s family deserves answers. Her ex fiancé’s family should want this issue put to bed once and for all shouldn’t they?
Well, I’m going to leave this here with all the miscellaneous I dug up.
Ellen deserves to have her spirit at rest and justice done. Her parents deserve peace and the respect of the City of Philadelphia and various departments to actually do their freaking jobs.
In April, it’s EIGHT years. I have been writing about this for eight years. I don’t even know how many times I’ve written about Anna Maciejewska at this point.
Eight years of nothing much. This case has gone through and has seemingly been forgotten by now three District Attorneys in Chester County.
Eight years of wondering what the Pennsylvania State Police are doing or have done.
Eight years of her husband Allen Gould being a person of interest unless the police have released him from that category?
I mean, I know the wheels of justice are slow, but do the wheels of justice even give a shit about this anymore? And yes I cursed.
This is also eight years of a little boy not having a mother in his life and he’s probably forgotten her voice by now don’t you think?
I’m writing about this again because there’s a new video out about it. I’m not sure how I feel about the video because one of the things that this podcaster mentioned is that Anna was jealous of her son and that was a reason for a bad marriage? I think that’s a bit of a reach. The woman sadly also is probably not familiar with the area because she conflated Malvern in Charlestown Township where Anna lived with Malvern Borough.
Malvern is a name assigned to areas in multiple municipalities which is separate from Malvern Borough. She conflated all of that into Malvern Borough. Also, we’re not a suburb of Philadelphia we’re Chester County. Development being what it is we have become more of a suitcase, community for major metropolitan areas, yes, but there’s plenty of business out here in its own, right. Anna Maciejewska lived in Malvern Charlestown Township. Malvern also exists in Willistown, East Whiteland, and Tredyffrin.
It’s now been eight years and this has gone through three district attorneys and the same old state police. It’s like nobody cares anymore.
Do I think like this woman seems to think the visits to Poland were unusual? Well, maybe if she had former Polish natives as friends she would see how normal it is my friends go once a year for a fairly long chunk of time usually in the summer, they take their children. They take their spouses. Sometimes they don’t take their spouses, but they go home to spend time with family and to give their children exposure to their Polish heritage.
Do I think that she was going to run away with her child to Poland to escape a bad marriage? No, I don’t at all. This is a woman who owned two houses. And people said early on that she was the money in the relationship. The properties are still in her name.
And the new podcaster seemed to leave the fact that Anna’s s parents had to fight to get visitation with their grandson. There’s a court record. So I wonder how often Anna‘s Polish family has been able to see her son in the last eight years?
so even if I don’t really agree with everything in this new podcast, I am grateful that the woman did it because it keeps Anna Maciejewska’s name out there.
Anna is still missing and I can’t even think of how long it’s been since we’ve heard from the Chester County District Attorney’s office let alone the State Police. Because Anna still had a property in West Whiteland Township, I wonder if their detectives could take a fresh look at this? Do the State Police have other investigators who could take a fresh look? Outside forensic investigators?A profiler of some sort?
Again, I never knew Anna. But she’s someone who belongs to all of us in the community out here at this point.
I am thinking of devoting my time on the Barry Dee show All Politics are Local on WCHE next week on this. and the funny thing is Barry and I had talked about this before. I saw this new podcast. She’s just been on my mind because we know the anniversary of her disappearing is coming up.
Anna deserves justice and her family deserves closure. Say her name.
I woke up this morning to the news that somebody was stabbed to death within the shadow of the Lower Merion Township Building and Police Department early Saturday morning after some sort of bar fight on Cricket Avenue.
It’s also pretty close to a cute little street where friends live and have for decades. Fox29 News remarked that there are lots of shops and apartments, but also right there are plenty of single family homes.
LOWER MERION TWP., Pa. – A deadly stabbing outside a Lower Merion bar has stunned the quiet town on the Main Line. Police say they do know who they are looking for.
Officers responded to the intersection of Cricket Avenue and Cricket Terrace in Lower Merion to find a 31-year-old man suffering from stab wounds around 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
The victim, identified as Michael Thomas Sides, was pronounced shortly after at a local hospital….The owner of Jack McShea’s told FOX 29 Sides was one of his employees. He was too upset to go on camera, but says Sides was like family and a beautiful person who worked there for years.
I was amused by someone interviewed by Fox29 who proclaimed it was the Main Line and these things don’t happen there. I am paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.
The murder happened where there are so many windows of so many apartments in that hideous apartment building that used to be a parking lot that backed up to what used to be the movie theater. It looks like it started in that John Henry’s Pub that used to be Annie’s years ago? My educated guess there comes from the fact that FOX 29 featured that bar it in a shot of their news report.
My sources around town were told that it must have started as a beef over at that bar and perhaps whomever did it went looking for the murder victim where he worked and then they met up at that intersection, is this true? Someone else said, both the victim and the alleged perpetrator live in Ardmore? (And so LMPD doesn’t get their parties in a bunch, I don’t have any inside information, but one thing about downtown Ardmore is it is a community and people talk, and people are talking about this.)
The psychology of committing a murder is something that you can’t help but just wonder about. And why do I say that? Simple. We all get mad at people, but what is it that causes someone to take another person’s life? What disconnect is in their brain? I certainly don’t know Michael Thomas Sides, but he had friends and one presumes relatives and was 31 years old. He had a lot of life left to live.
I’ve been looking at the media reports on this and the media reports state the police know whom they are looking for so why don’t they name a suspect or show video footage because there have to be security cameras around there one would think?
And what caused the altercation in the first place? I mean bar fights and beefs start over all sorts of stuff, right? Dumb things like a barstool, or owing somebody money, or a perceived slight when someone else is wasted or hitting on someone’s girl, right? So what was it?
My age must be showing but it used to be when there was a bar fight in Ardmore, it wasn’t settled with weapons. You might see some barstools fly around. You would hear glass get broken. You might even see somebody get punched or tossed out of a bar by a bouncer, but not hear they were murdered later.
But this whole thing being reported of a beef in a bar and then these guys meet up on the street later sounds like somebody was looking for somebody else begs the question of was this premeditated?
And I guess the police can say that there’s no potential threat to the public, but how do you know these days? If the police are implying they know who it is, then why aren’t they releasing more information?
Anyway I hope this is resolved soon. Ardmore will always be a special place to me. Prayers to the families of those involved because their lives are all changed forever now.
Have you ever read something from a complete stranger in a group you belong to and just started to cry because it just gets you right through the heart? As in immediately at the time of reading? Well I have, and I am writing about it because my heart is so sad for this lady I don’t know, who just lost her daughter to some tragedy across the county. And the mom is a recent breast cancer survivor. So it hits me in more than one way.
In my few years living in Chester County, I have discovered this is a place with a huge heart and in Chester County we take care of our own. So at the end of this I am going to put in a couple of things on how we can help this family. Not through any non-profit, we will help because we care, deal?
So I read this post this morning from Jennifer Lynch that said:
It has been 4 days, now, since our youngest daughter was identified as the Eugene Oregon Jane Doe. Every day is different, but equally horrifying. I finally got a call, from the detective working her case. He is in the violent crime division. There has been some “creative storytelling” from the parties we believe to be involved in the circumstances surrounding the death of a beautiful, vulnerable 24 year old girl, but we are no closer to real answers, as of yet.
Sometimes, I border on ok, sometimes I am out of my mind. Other times, I am just standing in the shower, when I suddenly realize that I am putting out more water than the shower head, and I have no idea how long I’ve been in there. Time has no meaning. I have a constant flow of still frames, in my mind. How could I have stopped this? What could I have done or said differently, to convince her to come home?
I don’t know.
She was stubborn, and willful, and there were times that we went at it like two Billy goats on a log. God, what I wouldn’t do, to be able to have another argument, another hug just one more moment, frozen in time.
Hug your children, even if they think they are too old, for hugs. You never know if it could be the last time.
So I went scrolling through the group looking for more information and I found this article:
She was like a sparkle — burning bright, hot and fast.
And in an instant, she was gone.
That’s how the family of Rachel Lee Lynch described the vivacious 24-year-old who was found dead near the bike path along the west bank of the Willamette River in Eugene on Feb. 20.
It would be nearly a week before her identity would be known — police initially identified her as Jane Doe and learned of her identity only after circulating surveillance images from the Safeway store on Coburg Road, where she had shopped on Feb. 16……Most of her family, including stepmother Jennifer Lynch, lives in Chester County, Pa. They said they had no idea Rachel Lynch was even in Oregon. But they did know, they say, that she was in trouble and had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
“She was a cheerleader, an honor student,” Jennifer Lynch said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “She made one bad decision, she trusted the wrong person and it took her across the country. It took her life.”….“It’s just been incredibly hard,” Jennifer Lynch said on behalf of the family. “She was a good kid. But she’s like any young girl. They think they are in love, and they just can’t see the danger that they’re in. Guys like that, they work these girls. And like any woman, you see what he can be and not what he is. He played her like a violin.”
According to Jennifer Lynch, Rachel Lynch graduated from high school in 2009, and attended Temple University in Philadelphia for two years before she met a slightly older and charming boyfriend.
Almost immediately, the two were inseparable, Jennifer Lynch said. Her stepdaughter quit school and began following her new boyfriend’s wishes, she said.
“He was isolating her and it just kept getting tighter,” Jennifer Lynch said. “He was controlling her. And we saw her less and less and less.”
….Rachel Lynch loved music, movies and art. Her laugh was contagious, and her family is “gutted” by their loss, her stepmother said.
“She wasn’t a Jane Doe,” Jennifer Lynch said tearfully. “She had a family and friends who loved her and were looking for her. Right now, we just want to get her home.”
I. Can’t.Even. Then I read this:
Ladies..it is with a very heavy heart that I once again am reaching out for one of our own today. As many of you read last night about the loss of Jennifer’s daughter Rachel.
Rachel’s body was found on a bike trail in Eugene Oregon on Saturday. She was only 24 yrs old.
Jennifer is currently waiting on details from the coroner as I spoke with her thismorning. At this point she is more than appreciative of all the offers of help but their priority is to get their daughter HOME.
With Jennifer’s recent battle with Breast Cancer taking a major financial toll on them they desperately need the power of our group right now.
To lose a child at any age is a parents worst pain. We are praying for you Jen❤
Ladies our PayPal is open for donations which I will get directly to Jen for her to use for arrangements ASAP!
PLEASE PLEASE…use friends and family when donating AND put JENNIFER in the notes as we also have another fundraiser going❤
2help.momadvice@gmail.com
*ANYONE NOT HAVING PAYPAL CAN PM ME FOR MY ADDRESS❤
4000 women can make a difference together! Thank you Ladies.😢
Tomorrow, a dear friend’s daughter who is a varsity cheerleader at another Chester County high school has a birthday. And seeing Jennifer’s Rachel’s photo really hit that home for me. And I am also a step-parent and a breast cancer survivor, so on so many levels I get this. And most importantly as a human being I get this.
The newspaper article which I thought had great heart thanks to the reporter makes me think back to when I was the age of Rachel Lynch. When you are that young, remember how easy it was to get stars in your eyes over the wrong person? If we are honest we all had those experiences, or a lot of us did.
As an adult we read about domestic violence all of the time. We all say “it could never happen to us” but it happens to many of us, male and female. Sometimes it is brutal and physical, sometimes it is sneaky and subversive, almost subtle as it is all about control and the bruises from emotional and mental warfare you can’t see. I think those situations are even worse than physical abuse.
When you are in an abusive relationship it’s not necessarily so easy to get out. Sometimes you do not recognize (or want to recognize) how toxic a relationship is even if friends and family express concern. That sounds almost silly to people, but if you have ever witnessed anyone go through this you know that it is true.
I don’t know Jennifer, and I never knew Rachel. But I have known women like Rachel and by the grace of God they are still alive.
Here is the information again regarding sending donations via MomAdvice founder Kelly Lammey. Donations are NOT tax deductible. They will go towards the family’s expenses and to help out with bills post breast cancer. I am still paying off breast cancer treatment bills almost five years later, so I get how this is.
Here is the information:
Use PayPal and put “JENNIFER” in the notes as the group is involved in another fundraiser
2help.momadvice@gmail.com is the email address.
If you do NOT use PayPal e-mail KINGMOM123@AOL.com
DO NOT GET THE E-MAIL ADDRESSES MIXED UP! AND ALL CHECKS WILL BE MADE PAYABLE TO JENNIFER LYNCH .
If you can contribute goods or services towards the family holding a memorial service for their daughter or know someone willing to donate a hall somewhere in the Downingtown or Kennett Square area that would also be appreciated. AND AGAIN FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN A PAYPAL DONATION E-MAIL KINGMOM123@aol.COM
Remember Rachel and her family in your prayers. And hug your kids. This can happen to anyone. A young girl smiling at us now forever a moment in time in her Downingtown East cheerleading uniform. It isn’t supposed to be like this. She is supposed to grow old, fall in love, raise her own family.
Today’s post is perhaps in part a rambling stream of consciousness. Truthfully, I am not sure where this post will go as I start to write. This post began writing itself in my head a few hours ago.
A tragedy in Wayne has made me think of someone I had not thought of in a few years.
Radnor police are working with family members to help care for the children after an apparent murder suicide that took place on 300 block of South Wayne Avenue in Radnor shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday.
Radnor police were called to the home for the report of shots fired. Two people, Tim Rooney, 49, and Linda Rooney, 48, were found dead from gunshot wounds in a pool house at the rear of the property, according to police.
“It appears to be a domestic situation,” said Radnor Police Supt. William Colarulo.
An 8-year-old was in the main house at the time of the shooting. The couple had two other children, a 15-year-old who is in a boarding school out of state and a 17-year-old daughter.
Linda was also a mother of three children, two teenagers, and one child who is considerably younger. Now these poor kids are orphans and tainted by a tragedy not of their making which is so unfair.
From what Radnor Patch was reporting, Linda Rooney may have not only feared her husband, but apparently the marriage may have been in trouble.
Posted by Sam Strike (Editor) , January 13, 2014 at 06:51 PM
As the Radnor Township community grapples with a shocking murder-suicide that took place in a Wayne home on Sunday, Radnor Patch has received comments ranging from concern for the victim’s children to the shock of knowing that a firearm was within blocks of their own children and many at Radnor Middle School.
While Radnor Police have not yet revealed a motive in the killing, they have said that they believe that Timothy Rooney, 49, shot to death his 48-year-old wife, Linda, in the pool house of their home and then shot himself….based on documents that police found it appears the marriage “was in trouble” and that Linda “may have been fearful” of her husband.
I noticed that some people were hard on Radnor Patch Editor Sam Strike for in essence, doing her job and reporting this. This shows up in comments underneath the story when the news broke, but victims had not yet been identified. It is horrible news, but she did not sensationalize it. She stated what the Radnor Police had reported to the media in general. I know Sam, so this bothers me. She is not deserving of being castigated for doing her job. It was also all over the media like lightening.
A man shot and killed his wife then shot himself Sunday afternoon, according to Radnor Police.
The incident happened in the guest house of a property at 319 S. Wayne Ave. in Wayne. The victims are identified as 49-year-old Timothy Rooney and his 48-year-old wife Linda Rooney. One of the couple’s three children, an 8-year-old boy, was in a bedroom of the main home.
Police say there were signs of struggle and that a note was left at the scene….The couple’s 17 year-old daughter came home to be with her younger brother. Another sibling is away at boarding school. Police are seeking to make contact with her.
The family, who is originally from Texas, moved to Radnor about a year ago, according to authorities.
This is all so senseless and tragic. It will undoubtedly get weighed down by another debate on gun control. I hope not. It is a weighty issue, but three children just became orphans. And like many other weighty issues in this country it is polarized by politics back and forth on both sides of the issue.
What is rattling around in my brain is a similar crime the spring of 2000. A woman I knew (and went to Shipley with) was shot by her ex-husband. And then he turned the gun on himself.
His name was Mark Biddle. Hers was Melinda Clothier Biddle. She was a neighbor of mine. I came home one day for lunch to find my neighborhood in lockdown, with police and media all over the place; helicopters swarming. The press had a field day because of the old Philadelphia names involved…likened it to High Society run amok.
By Patrick Kerkstra, Erin Carroll and Chani Katzen, INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
Posted: June 01, 2000
A divorced couple from the Main Line, members of two of the most prominent families in Philadelphia’s long history, died yesterday in an apparent murder-suicide at the woman’s home in Haverford.
Mark Biddle was an angry man that Melinda finally divorced. And it took a long time for her to get to her divorce. It was very difficult for her to do this. But before she died, she was finally happy. She was blooming. She loved her children, her garden, a career, her friends and neighbors. I remembered seeing her out with some of her female friends from the neighborhood and elsewhere and I was so happy to see how she how happy she was and excited about life again.
By Ralph Vigoda and Patrick Kerkstra, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Posted: June 04, 2000
As he did many mornings, Mark Hampton Biddle started Wednesday with a prayer for his new wife, Veruschka, in the bedroom of their Chester County home. The couple, married 31/2 months, then prayed together – another morning ritual – before getting themselves and the children ready for the day…..What Mark Biddle did less than two hours later, police say, was confront his ex-wife, Melinda Clothier Biddle, in the back of the Haverford house they had once shared. He shot her twice, then – seconds later – shot himself in the head, his body crumpling in the driveway.
And then, one Wednesday morning, Mark Biddle parked his car literally across the street from my then driveway and accessed his ex-wife’s home via the R-5 Septa train tracks. He used the train tracks as a path. He shot his former wife and then himself. That darn car sat there for days. I remember I finally called his old law practice and begged them to get someone, anyone to remove that car from our neighborhood.
What is wrong with this country? Clearly, Mark Biddle was never someone who should have had access to guns anymore than this Tim Rooney. Yet he did.
My one comment on this debate which wages over guns in our country is why there has to be more control over exactly who is allowed to literally bear arms. No one wants to interfere with an American’s inalienable rights, but part of this process should be a clean bill of mental health. And that should be something that should be periodically revisited as long as an individual owns guns. People kill. Guns can’t just do it on their own as inanimate objects.
So as I first heard the news reports of this tragedy in Wayne, I was instantly transported back 14 years to the sounds of helicopters swarming like we were on the set of M.A.S.H or something. I remember the chaos well because this is where I lived, and Melinda was my neighbor. I have not thought of her in a few years. Until this happened in Wayne.
I can only imagine how everyone in Wayne feels, and these were people that everyone was undoubtedly just getting to know because the family had only moved into the area within the past couple of years.
Human beings can be so cruel to each other and crimes like this will always be selfish in my mind on the part of the perpetrator. Ok, so it is human to be ungodly upset but to take another life? And then your own so you don’t have to deal with the consequences of your actions? And to leave the children you brought into this world orphaned? It’s hateful, wrong, tragic, and selfish.
I often think about Melinda’s kids and wonder where their lives have led them. I remember her son in particular as a little boy with reddish hair at the bus stop. Melinda’s kids were lucky because her parents were able to step in and take care of her children. And they are amazing and lovely people.
I guess life’s big lesson here is once again we are reminded of how life can change in a blink of an eye. I wish for a day when senseless violence like this ebbs away from our existences.
Appreciate those who love you and hold you dear. I know I do.
Yes, sleepy Malvern which doesn’t see much violent crime like this EVER, was all over the news. As a matter of fact when the news interviewed a neighbor named Ben Boomer, he thought the last time Malvern had a murder was over 20 years ago. (I have no idea.)
The media referred to this as a “Main Line Murder”, which in my humble opinion it is not. Malvern Borough is in Chester County and cornfields and farms are close by. The Main Line doesn’t have much in the way of farming they grow McMansions. (Sorry but it is true – just look at the future of Ardrossan.)
The victim, a 2011 graduate of Great Valley High School was only 21 years old. His name was Drew Ferguson. He lived with his grandparents on a cute little street in Malvern Borough off (I believe) Old Lincoln Highway on Miner Street. Someone told me the nickname for over there is “Miner Hill”.
Drew, we learned last evening on the news, was as per Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan, murdered by a friend from high school, 24 year old Merritt Dudas.
Ok wow. I don’t know any of the people involved or families involved, but so tragic as all concerned are/were so young with their entire lives ahead of them.
These were someone’s children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors.
So senseless. So sad.
On a Malvern-centric Facebook page we heard one mom tell of teachers and former students at Great Valley High School meeting over at the school to grieve together and remember.
The media reports showed Drew’s Facebook page and yes, I went and looked. I wanted to see what kind of kid this was. I saw lots of photos of cars he was working on, the photo of him and what I guess was his dog, and then there was the photo that brought me, a stranger, to tears:
His dad.
Ok my father died eight years ago last week and I so get the whole missing your father of it all. This Drew wrote this in January :
R.I.P dad 11/23/65 1/24/12 I will always love u no madder what and it still really hard to live my life with u gone but ur all ways in my heart love u dad see u when it’s my time
He was just a boy. And his “time” should have been decades down the road.
No matter what else, this Drew Ferguson was just a boy who obviously missed his dad and liked cars (and maybe drove too fast judging from photos of a wrecked red Honda?). I am getting a lump in my throat thinking about it. And right there leaving a comment in sympathy in January is the young man accused of his murder. This is truly a senseless tragedy of Shakespearian proportions.
There are no words. I totally feel for both families. This tragedy has and will continue to tear up a lot of people. This shouldn’t have happened and it happened in a town where things like this don’t happen. And I am at an age where this kid Drew is the same age as some of my friends’ children.
Unimaginable.
The police and District Attorney’s office did an amazing job getting this all squared away so quickly.
MALVERN – The Chester County District Attorney’s office Tuesday charged an acquaintance in the death of a 21-year-old man who was found shot to death near his home in the borough Monday evening.
Authorities identified 24-year-old Merritt Dudas of Collegeville as the suspect who is charged with murder, robbery, theft and abuse of a corpse.
Drew Ferguson, a 2011 graduate of Great Valley High School living in the 200 block of Miner Street, was the victim, police said.
According to Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan, the investigation found the attack was not random and the two men had known each other for years.
Hogan said for a period of time Dudas lived in the home next to Ferguson and then with Ferguson at the residence on Miner Street when Dudas was without a place to live.
According to the criminal complaint, Dudas was arrested by police on Tuesday and confessed to the killing….“A tragic and senseless murder, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that in a very short period of time this was extraordinary police work,” Hogan said, indicating police did in 24 hours what should have taken about two weeks.
