Published June 06, 2008 07:57 am - Police on Wednesday arrested the second of four suspects accused of robbing and attempting to murder a Union County man May 22.
Police capture second suspect
By The Daily Item
MIFFLINBURG — Police on Wednesday arrested the second of four suspects accused of robbing and attempting to murder a Union County man May 22.
Joseph Williams, 19, of Glenside, Montgomery County, was apprehended Wednesday in the Philadelphia area. He is being held in Union County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Williams is one of four men who allegedly broke into 20-year-old Carson Sampsell’s West Buffalo Township home May 22, searching for drugs and money, state police at Milton said. The other man in custody, Robert Schreffler Jr., 22, of Williamsport, waived his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday before District Judge Jeffrey L. Mensch in Mifflinburg on charges of attempted murder, criminal conspiracy and aggravated assault.
The four men broke into Sampsell’s home by unlocking a screen door through a dog door, a criminal complaint said.
Schreffler reportedly told police he knew Sampsell’s father was at work and thought Sampsell was not home.
He had burglarized the home a few weeks earlier and had stolen firearms, police said. Two of the guns were used in the May 22 break-in and assault.
Once inside the home, the four men broke down Sampsell’s locked bedroom door and one of them began hitting him in the head and face as many as 11 times with a firearm.
Sampsell freed himself and reached for a gun in his bed, the complaint said.
One of the alleged attackers fired his weapon and then pointed it at Sampsell and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. The men fled the home, leaving the guns at the scene.
Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Matt Burrows on Thursday said police are actively looking for the other two suspects in the case. Officers are following “some leads” in tracking the men down, Burrows said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Pennsylvania state police in Milton at 524-2662.