Mothers relive discovery of bodies
Nobody saw the violence coming.
By all appearances, Lexis Walker and Jeremiah P. Heller were a typical young couple in a typical relationship.
She was a 19-year-old planning to attend college after finishing up her senior year at Allegheny-Clarion Valley High School.
He was a 22-year-old about to start a new job at Walmart.
The couple was together about a year and living in an apartment on Main Street in St. Petersburg, Clarion County.
They quarreled sometimes, like all couples, according to their families. But no red flags.
Then, something unspeakable happened in that two-bedroom, two-floor apartment.
Lexis' mother, April Walker of Franklin Township, Butler County, and Jeremiah's mother, Lynn Sherman of Emlenton, in interviews this week discussed their children's relationship and recounted finding the couple's bodies at their home April 26.Both families arrived to check on the couple after not being able to reach them by phone.Walker recalled seeing a black pistol by Jeremiah's body at the foot of the upstairs landing.“I was dazed and confused,” she said. “I thought, 'What the (expletive)?'”She assumed he was dead.By Jeremiah's feet, Walker said, she noticed her daughter's head. When she got closer, she saw her face.“I knew she was dead,” Walker said.Sherman, too, got a glimpse of the bodies before she ran out of the home, overcome with emotion.“I was in shock,” she said.State police would later determine Lexis and Jeremiah, a 2016 graduate of Freeport High School, died of gunshot wounds.“All preliminary evidence suggests that it's a murder-suicide,” Clarion County District Attorney Drew Welsh said at a Wednesday press conference at the Clarion state police barracks.“From the preliminary investigation,” said Trooper Ronald Chewning, a public service officer speaking at the press conference on behalf of police, “it appears Jeremiah shot her and then shot himself.”
Those preliminary findings are being questioned by Sherman and her family.“It doesn't make sense,” she said. “Until they finish the investigation and enact what happened and do the trajectory (of the bullets) and tell me how it played out,” she said, “I'm not going to believe (the initial theory).”Authorities believe the shootings happened in the early morning of April 26. Welsh and police are tight-lipped about the investigation, which they say is continuing. They're still conducting interviews.They also cited still to-be-revealed toxicology results of Heller and an examination of the couple's cell phones as reasons for holding back on discussing the case.“Once the investigation is complete,” Welsh said, “there will be a lot more information provided.”But investigators acknowledged that they had not been to the couple's apartment for any domestic-related calls. They were apparently unaware of any problems between the two.They also disclosed members of both families discovered the bodies at the apartment, but refused to say who showed up.“The families were concerned about not having heard from either party,” Chewning said, “so that prompted them to look more into it.”
Walker sensed something could be wrong at 10:18 a.m. April 26 when she got a call from the girlfriend of Lexis' twin brother.“She called to see if Lexi was with me,” Walker remembered.Her son's girlfriend spoke of information she had of an argument between Jeremiah and Lexis during which Lexis revealed that she no longer loved Jeremiah and that she wanted to leave him.Sherman described it as “a little spat” around Easter.“Jeremiah told her, 'If you don't want to be here, where do you want me to take you?'” Sherman said. “He didn't get into a heated rage and say, 'No, you can't leave me.'”He took her to be with one of her girlfriends, where she spent the weekend. “He gave her her space,” Sherman said, “and he left her alone.”Afterward, Sherman related, the couple “set up a little appointment” to talk things over.They patched things up, she said, and “they were back to being peas and carrots.”
At 10:19 a.m., Walker called her daughter's cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. At 10:20 a.m., she called Jeremiah's phone and got the same result.“That's when I got concerned,” Walker said. She immediately drove to the couple's apartment. She arrived about 11:10 a.m.Jeremiah's mother and stepfather were already there.Sherman was pounding on the door, screaming her son's name in an effort to get him to answer the door.Walker didn't wait. She forced her way in.“I set my purse and coffee down,” she said, “and banged the door three times with my left shoulder.”She eventually got in. There was nothing unusual on the first floor.“I thought they were still in bed,” she said, referring to her daughter and Jeremiah.She made her way to the stairs and started up the steps. Sherman was behind her.“As I'm walking upstairs,” Walker said, “I see Jeremiah's head laying by the stairs, like he was sleeping there.”But when she reached the top of the steps, she could see blood. Moments later, she said, she heard Jeremiah's mother scream and run back down the stairs and out the door.Walker then came upon her daughter's body.“All I could see was her head and her body,” she said, “I couldn't see her face.” She saw blood.“I held my mouth and said, 'No. No. No,'” she recalled. Then someone, she still can't remember who, told her, “C'mon. C'mon. C'mon. You gotta leave.”Walker walked back down the stairs and left the apartment. She saw Sherman and Sherman's husband, Terry.
While investigators would not discuss the events, an application for a search warrant that police would later obtain for the apartment disclosed that Jeremiah's stepfather called 911 just before 11:20 a.m.He reported two people dead in the apartment, the document said. “(He) reported he believed 'it was murder suicide.' ”Terry Sherman, however, doesn't remember saying that, his wife said. At the time the bodies were found, she added, “Everyone was just in a state of shock.”Police arrived at the apartment at 11:33 a.m., Chewning said.In checking the crime scene, police found a pistol “in close proximity to both deceased victims,” the document said, and two shell casings between the bodies. A third casing was recovered from the bottom of the stairs.Walker and Sherman were questioned by police, who wanted some personal information about Lexi and Jeremiah, and what they knew about the couple's relationship.Walker recounted another question the trooper posed. “He asked if I thought (Jeremiah) was capable of doing something like this.”She told him “no.”Walker made one request of investigators before they left. She wanted to see her daughter one last time. The coroner advised her against it, given the condition of the body.She insisted and he complied, unzipping the body bag to expose Lexis' head, Walker said.“I saw three bullet holes in her forehead,” she said. She kissed her daughter on the cheek, before the coroner left.Investigators declined to say how many times Lexis was shot — saying only that she suffered “multiple gunshot wounds,” according to Welsh. Authorities refused to say more than that.“That surprised me,” Sherman said, referring to the revelation that Lexi had been shot multiple times.“Jeremiah didn't have anger issues,” she said, again questioning the police theory of what happened. “He didn't have rage.”
Both mothers admitted they are still trying to process what they saw that day, while coping with the loss of their children.“Lexi was a very sweet girl and she had a big heart,” Walker said. “She loved animals and nature and taking pictures. And she loved her family.”She said Lexis was accepted to attend Clarion University and was planning to study photography after graduating high school this year.“Jeremiah was so close to his family,” Sherman said. “We'd talk almost every day. He was so smart. He was just so kind and so giving.”He loved computers and had a seemingly infinite grasp of the technology. He also was “looking forward to his new job,” Sherman said.Walker tries to cling to happy memories of Lexis, but admits she keeps reverting back to one haunting question: why?“There was no sign of trouble,” she said of her daughter and Jeremiah.“None of this makes sense. This makes no sense to anybody,” Sherman said. “Jeremiah believed Lexi was good for him and Lexi believed Jeremiah was good for her.”She added, “My heart pours out for the friends and family of Lexi.”
