Posted on 07/19/2008 9:46:44 AM PDT by Born Conservative
Cynthia Collier met police at the door, her hands cuffed behind her back.
Inside 1604 S. Irving Ave., Scranton police would discover a fresh horror around almost every corner: bludgeoned bodies, bound hostages. And in a crib upstairs, a toddler unharmed.
A criminal affidavit accuses Randal Rushing, 25, of killing three people early Thursday in the house where he rented a basement room. He left four other family members traumatized but alive.
The document also reveals the cruel and horrifying chronology of events, as well as a successful investigation by police, resulting in the suspect’s capture less than 12 hours later. Much of that chronology comes from statements given to police by Collier and the other surviving victims.
According to the affidavit, Collier recounted that at around 4:30 a.m. her son Leslie Collier, 16, burst into her bedroom on the first floor, saying he’d been stabbed. She tried to call 911 but Rushing allegedly came in and pointed a gun at both of them, ordering them to the floor.
“I’m going to give Samantha something she can remember,” Cynthia Collier recalled him saying in reference to her daughter and his girlfriend, Samantha Hintz, who was not home at the time.
Cynthia Collier said he then ordered her into another room where her son Matthew Collier, who is handicapped and immobile, was in bed. Rushing handcuffed her wrists and stuffed a sock into her mouth and then tied Matthew’s legs with a rope and his arms with a T-shirt.
Matthew’s account differed slightly from his mother’s. He told police he remembered waking to the sound of his brother Leslie Collier calling out, “He shot me, Mom, he shot me!” Rushing then entered the bedroom with Cynthia Collier. Blood was smeared across his chest and he left a trail of bloody footprints behind him.
When Cynthia Collier’s third son, Dustin Hintz, came up from the basement she listened as he was beaten to death in the next room, she said. “At some point, the beating stops and Cynthia indicates she hears the shower running,” the affidavit reads.
Several times Rushing allegedly returned to the room where Cynthia Collier was confined with Matthew Collier, checking to make sure the mother and son were still tied up.
It is unclear in the affidavit who posed the question, but when someone asked, “Why?” Rushing allegedly said, “I knew she cheated on me; I should’ve slept with someone else, too.”
Matthew Collier told police that Rushing and Samantha Hintz had been dating, but that Rushing was “extremely jealous” and suspected her of cheating on him with many other men.
About 5:45 a.m., Samantha Hintz arrived home from work and was greeted at the door by Rushing. He escorted her past a blanket that had been hung in the doorway of the kitchen, obscuring her brother Leslie Collier’s body lying on the other side. He took her upstairs to her bedroom, telling her they were going to play “cops and robbers.”
When she struggled, he pointed a gun at her face until she stopped, and then used a necktie to fasten her hands behind her back and a belt to bind her legs.
And then he pulled back a blanket lying on the floor to reveal the body of 21-year-old Justin Berrios, the father of Samantha Hintz’s 2-year-old son.
“He didn’t make it,” Rushing reportedly said.
After removing a few items from her purse, he left the house, and Samantha Hintz was able to use her foot to tap out 911 on her cell phone.
Police responded at 6:53 a.m. to find Cynthia Collier standing in the front door.
One body, Leslie Collier’s, was in the kitchen, beaten so badly police couldn’t tell exactly how he was killed.
Dustin Collier’s body was in a back bedroom, also apparently beaten to death with a blunt object.
In a third bedroom, police found Matthew Collier, bound, but alive.
Upstairs they found Samantha Hintz sitting on the bed, her hands still tied. Next to her on the floor lay Berrios’ body. Their child was alone in a crib in the next room.
Then the hunt was on and Rushing’s capture unfolded methodically over the next 10 hours.
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre police first worked with the FBI to trace signals emitted from Rushing’s cell phone to a neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre. Descending on the neighborhood, police spotted a silver Mercury Sable, registered to Samantha Hintz, which Rushing had allegedly been seen driving away from the house on South Irving.
A confidential informant then tipped police off to Rushing’s exact location, at 268-270 High St., Wilkes-Barre, only a few doors away from where the car was parked.
Police secured a search warrant, got into the apartment and found Rushing trying to scramble out a front window. He repeatedly refused to get on the ground and show his hands, but was eventually subdued and taken into custody.
On the front porch, police found a silver .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and noticed that Rushing’s tan Timberland boots appeared to be blood-stained.
Rushing was taken back to Scranton, where, after waiving his rights to an attorney, he essentially confessed to Detective James Pappas. When asked if he hurt the boys at 1604 S. Irving Ave., “Rushing started to cry and said yes,” according to the affidavit. Then Rushing said he couldn’t remember what happened because he blacked out.
Pappas also asked him why he didn’t kill everyone in the house. “My love for them kept me from killing them,” he is quoted as saying.
No doubt an Obama supporter.
That woman had to hear her son beat to death. I feel sick.
the happy murderer, how nice. B*stard
The t-shirt is particularly ironic ...
Hopefully there is the death penalty available.
It’s technically available, but not used (Pennsylvania)
Sometimes I wonder if the practice of public hangings should be resurrected.
But then hanging is way too good for a POS like that.
“....the happy murderer, how nice. B*stard....”
No doubt, yet another product of a stable nuclear family.
Maybe. But we can be sure media will not disclose that information. Obviously not a Christian, or they would mention that.
Public execution was for the masses to behold as well as meeting out justice.
A party atmosphere at most western hangings were reported.
And you know the boys were partying at Sadams hanging.
Obama supporters should remember he will appoint judges who would coddle scum like this. Not that it matters all that much anymore I suppose. The system is broken and it seems like it can’t be fixed. Not to mention that Republican presidents and governors have appointed lousy judges too.
No pictures of the victims here. That makes me wonder of course....
I thought the guy was white.
I suggest the chair.
I think from the family names it’s another white girl taking up with a black thug and murder coming of it. I’m sorry but I don’t read about it happening the other way around.
Eh?
Why does one daughter and one son have different family names?
Psychopath. This is just tragic for the victims.
b-b-but...nooses are racist!
“...nooses are racist!”
No problem. We’ll use slip knots.
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