State police seek truth in shooting
MUDDY CREEK TWP — A township man accused of fatally shooting his friend with a rifle while the two hung out at the suspect's home admitted he was pointing the gun at the victim when it went off.
Jeremey D. Sickenberger, 22, however, claimed the shooting Thursday night was an accident during horse play, state police said.
But Sickenberger's admission came only after he gave investigators several different accounts about what happened, according to court documents.
Two other friends who were at the house also contradicted parts of what he told police.
Troopers later arrested Sickenberger on a general charge of homicide in the death of 21-year-old Thomas J. “T.J.” Stockman of Portersville.
The defendant is in the Butler County Prison without bail.
Trooper Michael Taylor, the lead investigator, told the Butler Eagle this morning that he does not believe the shooting was intentional and was likely caused by the defendant fooling around with a gun.
But, he noted, the investigation continues.
Sickenberger called 911 after the shooting about 8 p.m. at his home in the 100 block of Robbie Way, police said.
He reported Stockman had been accidentally shot in the chest.First-responders found the victim lying on the living room floor. Nearby was a .22-caliber rifle, which had one spent casing in the chamber and 13 live rounds in the tube magazine, police said.Stockman was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital where he was immediately pronounced dead. An autopsy determined he died of a single gunshot wound to the upper chest.Within an hour after the shooting, Taylor asked Sickenberger what happened, during an informal interview inside an unmarked police car at the defendant's home.Sickenberger claimed he had been in the living room and walking toward the kitchen and Stockman was walking the other way down the hallway when he heard a bang.He didn't see what happened, he told Taylor, because his back was toward Stockman.“He indicated that when he turned around he saw the victim fall to the ground,” according to a police affidavit.His friend, Michael Lively, who also was at the house, came running out of the bathroom and applied pressure to Stockman's gunshot wound.Sickenberger said he telephoned 911 after Stockman told him to call an ambulance.He told police that the rifle belonged to another friend and had been stored at his house for several days. He had kept it in the living room and he believed the safety was on.Police later took the defendant to the barracks for a formal interview. Investigators were skeptical of his account.“The defendant was told we were looking for the truth and didn't care if a mistake was made and lies were told,” Taylor said in court papers. “He was told that tests would be conducted and we would know if things didn't match up.”Sickenberger's story changed. He acknowledged he was holding the rifle when it was fired but insisted it was an accident.“The defendant related that he did not have his hand on the trigger and the gun wasn't even cocked,” Taylor's affidavit said.He claimed he never pointed the rifle at Stockman, who was standing in front of the TV, and did not hear the gun go off.Sickenberger told police that he was not familiar with the gun but he believed the safety was on. He also knew the rifle was a pump-action model but that he had not worked the action before the shooting.He also denied pulling the hammer back.Taylor and Trooper Chris Birckbichler, who assisted in the questioning, pressed Sickenberger about his story, which continued to change during the interview.He eventually conceded it was possible his finger was near the trigger when he grabbed the rifle and that he may have pointed it at Stockman.Questioned further, however, he admitted that he aimed the gun from waist level at his friend. But he claimed he was just “horse playing” with Stockman, who he described as a “jokester.”“He indicated that his intention was to get (Stockman) to smile because the victim had been down in the dumps,” documents said.Birckbichler later interviewed Lively, who recounted that he had been watching “Forrest Gump” on TV with the others when he got up to use the bathroom.He told police he saw Sickenberger holding a gun when he walked past Sickenberger's bedroom, contradicting the defendant's initial claim that the gun had been stored in the living room.While in the bathroom, Lively said he heard “muffled voices talking about a pellet gun,” documents said. Then came “a thump, a pop and then another thump.”When he returned to the living room he saw Stockman on the floor. He attempted CPR but the victim stopped breathing.Confronted with Lively's account, Sickenberger's story changed again, police said.“He indicated that he and the victim were looking at the gun and they thought it was a pellet gun,” documents said.Birckbichler asked Sickenberger if the gun went off while the two were looking at it. “The defendant told us he believes so,” Taylor said in his affidavit.He told investigators that he was a foot away from the victim but the barrel of the gun was not touching Stockman.Ashley Homison, another friend at the house at the time of the shooting, disputed some of what Sickenberger earlier told investigators.During an interview at the barracks Friday afternoon, Homison said she saw the defendant work the slide action at least one time and point the gun at Stockman.She said he had the gun above his waist and had it pressed against the victim's stomach. Homison said Sickenberger told Stockman the gun was not loaded.Homison, however, corroborated what the defendant had told investigators — there was no animosity between Sickenberger and Stockman that night and that the two men were friends.After the shooting, she said Sickenberger immediately called 911. She said, according to documents, that he also “kept repeating that he was going to jail.”His preliminary hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday at the office of District Judge Tim Shaffer in Slippery Rock.
