Search continues for shooting suspect
OAKLAND TWP — A helicopter flew over Carol Wise as she went to fetch her mail Monday — a totally unusual circumstance for her rural St. Wendelin Road neighborhood.
What the helicopter crew was looking for was Robert Amend, a 49-year-old Pittsburgh man who is accused of shooting his estranged girlfriend in Pittsburgh and fleeing into Butler County where he had to abandon his disabled car near Oakland Township Elementary School on Route 68 East.
The police search is into its fourth day in the heavily wooded area.
Helicopters overhead, armed SWAT teams in the woods, search dogs on the hunt, television news vans in neighbors' driveways and, ultimately, the idea that a potentially armed shooter is lurking in the background has some neighbors in Oakland Township unnerved.
Amend, a Pittsburgh man, stands accused of shooting 40-year-old Tina Thornton during a weekend domestic dispute at her apartment in Crafton Heights. Thorton was shot in a leg and her side but is expected to recover.
Amend fled and later turned up in Butler County, where there was a brief high speed chase on Route 68. Just past the Oakland Township Elementary School, his car ran over a spike strip that police had laid on the road. His car went down an embankment and into a trailer park. He got out and fled on foot through woods shortly before noon Saturday.
So far, the fugitive has yet to be found, leaving the otherwise docile community speculating.
“I'm not worried,” said one woman at Neff's Country Store on Bonniebrook Road. “I think he's gone. There's no way someone could survive three days in these woods. They are thick and there's coyotes and snakes and bears.”
But other people speculated that outdoor vending machines, like the soda machine at Neff's, coupled with the bounty from just about every home's garden could sustain someone a good, long time.
“People are definitely worried,” said Dallas O'Donnell, while manning O'Donnell's Beer Distributor off Route 68 where every customer in the door for days has added a theory or story about the fugitive. “There's been all kinds of reports of people seeing him. But it's always something someone heard from someone else. Everyone wants to be the one who saw him.”
In addition to the ongoing debate, neighbors say life has changed a bit. Outdoor lights are staying on all night.
“People say they're loading their own guns,” O'Donnell said.
Wise, 70, said, “I locked my doors and windows and pulled down my shades.”
In Wise's neighborhood, witnesses said a helicopter and about a half-dozen police cars converged on her neighborhood Monday, focusing on the area of St. Wendelin Catholic School.
And JoLynn Clouse, school principal, said officials there locked the doors when the police cars pulled into the parking lot and searched around the building. At the time, no children were in the school, just teachers and staff.
State police Sgt. Jamie Clark, said investigators are looking for a credible lead and will continue the search until Amend is caught.
“Be vigilant and, if you think you see him, call 911,” Clark advised residents. “We are going to continue to search and follow every credible sighting.”
