MILFORD, Pennsylvania — A state judge ruled Monday there was enough evidence to put survivalist Eric Frein on trial in the shooting of two Pennsylvania state troopers, setting the stage for prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
After a nearly five-hour hearing in Pike County Courthouse, Magisterial Judge Shannon Muir said Frein could stand trial on all charges against him in the Sept. 12 sniper attack that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson, 38, and wounded Trooper Alex Douglass, then 31, outside their barracks during a shift change.
Frein eluded authorities for 48 days, leading them on an $11 million manhunt in thick woods in the Pocono Mountains before being captured outside an abandoned airplane hangar near Tannersville, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles north of Philadelphia.
He is charged with first-degree murder, terrorism and other crimes. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty if he is convicted of the top count.
At the hearing, Dickson’s widow watched as security camera footage from the Blooming Grove barracks played in court showed her husband’s lifeless body lying on the ground and a cruiser zooming up from behind the building in a blocking maneuver to protect troopers who dragged him inside the building.
Another scene showed Douglass, shot in the hip area, dragging himself on his elbows into the barracks’ front door and colleagues pulling him out of the line of fire. A bullet was later found wedged inside the lobby in the glass of a receptionist’s booth, a trooper testified.
Frein, who lived with his parents in Canadensis in nearby Barrett Township, was known to spend long periods in the woods, police said.
In a letter to his parents found in the hangar, Frein said he was upset with where the country was headed and wanted to “wake people up,” although he never directly referred to the attack on the troopers, according to an amended complaint.
During the manhunt, searchers also discovered a journal, apparently written by Frein, that coldly described the shooting that night, police said.
Frein had spent years planning the attack, but accidentally drove his Jeep into a pond, police said. The Jeep was found three days later, and identification cards and ammunition found inside helped police identify Frein as the suspect.
The manhunt involved helicopters, airplanes and armored vehicles and drew national attention, with the FBI placing Frein on its Most Wanted list.