Iraq war vet suspected of killing 6 family members

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.”

Just doing his job – trained to kill the enemy?

Officials in a Philadelphia suburb have yet to capture an Iraq war veteran they say carried out a shooting rampage early Monday (local time) 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 neighbour and vanishing.

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(Comments also include a similar situation developing in Cairns Australia where a mother has been arrested for killing 8 children.)

Officials in a Philadelphia suburb have yet to capture an Iraq war veteran they say carried out a shooting rampage early Monday (local time) 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 neighbour and vanishing.

Former Marine Corps Sergeant Bradley William Stone, 35, of Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, is being sought for shootings at homes in the towns of Lansdale, Lower Salford Township and Souderton.

ALLEGED KILLER: Bradley William Stone, 35, is accused of killing six family members.

Montgomery County law enforcement officials described a series of attacks between 3.30am and 5am, 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 neighbour, 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 5am, after the rampage, when he “delivered” the two daughters with a neighbour 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 3.30am 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 8am, 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.