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HUGHESVILLE -- After shooting his girlfriend to death on Tuesday morning, Wesley Minier dialed 911 and told a dispatcher he needed an ambulance for his child. He then hung up and used the same gun on himself, according to investigators.
When an ambulance crew arrived at the couple's home on Mount Zion Hill Road, believing they were there to help treat a sick child, they discovered Minier's body in the kitchen and his girlfriend Kristin Paige Walter's dead body in the bedroom, investigators said.
Two children in the home were found safe and immediately removed from the house, according to state police, who have called the double shooting "a homicide-suicide."
Paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) were dispatched to 765 Mount Zion Hill Road in Penn Township for a report of "a medical emergency" about 6:30 a.m., Trooper Jameson Keeler said in a news release.
When medical staff arrived on the scene and entered the home, "a … child was found watching television in the living room," Keeler said.
"Upon walking through the home, EMTs located the 911 caller, Minier, 36, deceased in the kitchen with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. EMTs located Walter, 29, deceased in a bedroom. Walter died of apparent gunshot wound," Keeler said.
The medical technicians then radioed to a dispatcher that state police were needed at once.
More than a half a dozen state troopers, including several criminal investigators rushed to the home. Jerold Ross, the county's chief deputy coroner, along with a second deputy coroner arrived and helped process the crime scene.
A section of the narrow two-lane road, about three miles northeast of here near Beaver Lake Road, was blocked to traffic and spectators while troopers conducted their investigation, which wrapped up about 11 a.m.
Minier was scheduled later this month to plead guilty before Judge Nancy Butts in two separate drug cases that stemmed from his alleged involvement in drug sales more than a year ago.
At the time of his death, Minier was free on bail on two sets of charges, one filed by state police and the other filed by the county's Narcotics Enforcement Unit.
State police charged him with allegedly selling nine hydrocodone pills to an informant at his home in late August 2018. The county's drug unit charged him with allegedly selling five percocet pills to an informant on Pepper Street in Muncy in early December 2018, according to court records.
Derek Danneker, Sun-Gazette staff, contributed to this story.