Tape reveals frantic scene at shooting
BUTLER TWP — A tape-recording of a frantic 911 call provided a real-time account of the recent pre-dawn shooting spree on Bessemer Avenue in Lyndora.
On one end was the alleged shooter's 65-year-old father, a witness to his son's seeming armed meltdown outside.
“I'm scared to death. I won't go downstairs,” Charles Wheeler Sr. tells the voice, a Butler County dispatcher, on the other end of the line.
“He's going crazy,” the father relates. “You're going to have to take him down. Try a Taser.”
Frenzied screams, mostly incomprehensible, presumably by the suspect — 24-year-old Samuel L. Wheeler of Butler Township — can be heard in the background.
“Sam, they're going to shoot you,” the elder Wheeler warns his son. “Put down the gun.”
Moments later, the father's fears were realized.
After allegedly pointing a 9 mm rifle at two state troopers and firing a shot shortly before 5 p.m. March 8, Wheeler was struck in the left hand by return fire from one of the officers, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing Thursday.
“He's down. He's down. He's down,” cries out Wheeler's older brother, as captured on the 911 recording.
But despite being hit, witnesses recounted, the suspect picked himself up, rifle in hand. Each trooper fired off one more shot.
“He went out the back door,” the brother is heard shouting to police.
A trail of blood and footprints in the snow led officers to the wounded suspect, lying on nearby Butler Road, a short time later.Wheeler was arrested and taken to a Pittsburgh hospital where he underwent surgery on his badly wounded hand.District Judge Sue Haggerty, who presided over Thursday's hearing, ordered Wheeler to stand trial on a myriad of felony charges including multiple counts of attempted homicide, aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer and illegal gun possession.Wheeler, who sat calmly next to his public defender attorney throughout the nearly two-hour hearing, remains in the Butler County Prison on $500,000 bail.The chaotic events March 8 apparently unfolded after Wheeler's perceived problem with an ex-girlfriend, his father told police, according to court documents.The defendant, who only moved here several months ago from Texas after serving prison time for a felony drug conviction, drove to his parents' house, a modest two-story duplex.Crystal Brooks, who lives across the street, was outside smoking a cigarette. She testified that she saw Wheeler speed down the street.She walked over and confronted Charles Wheeler Sr. over what she considered his son's reckless driving.While arguing with the father, Wheeler drove back and got out of his vehicle.“He flew into the house and came out with a gun and pointed it in my face,” Brooks told prosecutor William Fullerton, a county assistant district attorney.She initially believed it was a BB gun. But after retreating into her house with roommate Renee Defoggi, she heard two shots.“Then I realized it was a real gun,” she said.However, Brooks admitted to Wheeler's attorney, Kimberly Hudak, that she did not see either Wheeler fire the gun or where the shots went.Police allege in charging documents that after going into his parents' house, carrying a hunting knife, Wheeler wrestled the 9 mm Highpoint rifle out of his father's hands.The defendant is accused of twice trying to stab his father with the knife in gaining control of the gun.Scared, Charles Wheeler Sr. ran upstairs to get away from his son — and called 911. Holed up with him was his older son, Robb, who also lives there.From an upstairs window, the elder Wheeler described for the dispatcher what he saw.“There are some people outside,” he says on the tape-recorded call. “They're trying to get away from him.”Police suspect Wheeler fired two shots, presumably at Brooks and Defoggi.The two women sought refuge in their house, another duplex.Neighbor Travis Dugan, who lives down the street, appeared on the street amid the commotion.“(Dugan) dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his head,” Brooks testified. “He knew Sam had a gun.”Wheeler, after allegedly pointing the rifle at Dugan, walked over to the women's duplex and used the rifle's butt stock to break a front window.Next door, Lonell Harp Jr., who was playing video games, heard screaming and yelling. He went outside and immediately saw Wheeler with the rifle.“The gun was on me,” Harp testified, “and I heard a couple shots. That's when I ran inside.”Harp said moments later he saw and heard the defendant hitting his metal door with the rifle butt.Butler Township Patrolman Paul Kuss was the first officer there. Armed with a shotgun, he walked toward Charles Wheeler Sr.'s home.“I came from around the corner and saw a man carrying a firearm,” Kuss testified. “The man, he recounted, was “yelling hysterically. He seemed quite upset.”Wheeler, he said, pointed the rifle at him. The officer sought cover.“As I was moving,” Kuss said, “he followed me with the gun.”Soon after, Kuss saw a state police car drive up from the other end of the street.Troopers Brian Knirnschild and Christopher Cialella, hearing the radio call, arrived to help.“They yelled at him to drop the gun,” said state police Cpl. Jeffrey Martin, recounting what the troopers told him during post-incident interviews.Cialella positioned himself behind a Ford Escape parked on the side of the road, four or five houses away from Wheeler standing on his parents' front porch. Knirnschild got behind the patrol car.The troopers saw the defendant point the scoped rifle at them — and fire.The officers shot back, firing three combined shots.Later, in processing the crime scene, police found the suspect's weapons, the rifle and knife, and two 9 mm spent bullet casings that were on the side of the road.On the porch, Martin said, they found a third casing, believed to be from the bullet Wheeler fired at the troopers.
