Crimes including homicide, arson, possessing explicit images and animal neglect occurred in the Times News coverage area throughout 2024.

Here’s are some of the police reports:

Homicide charges

• Joshua Douglas Moser, 33, of Slatington, was charged in May with homicide after he admitted to killing a 37-year-old man in the basement of his residence, dismembering his body and depositing pieces in several locations.

Moser was arraigned on a first-degree felony charge for criminal homicide, and two misdemeanor charges each of abuse of corpse and tampering with physical evidence.

Police said troopers learned Moser had recently allowed the victim, David Hittinger, to move into 699 W. Franklin St. with him. Police found a large quantity of blood in the basement where Hittinger was staying and eventually learned Moser dismembered Hittinger’s body at the residence and discarded the body parts in trash bags in three locations in Slatington and Washington Township.

• In June, state police in Schuylkill County charged Lamour C. Branch, 19, of Port Carbon, with killing two teenagers in October 2023, in a wooded area near New Philadelphia.

Branch was arraigned on the charges relating to the deaths of Hunter Mock, 18, and Angelito X. Caraballo, 16, both of New Philadelphia, whose bodies were found on Oct. 10 near Ferndale Road, about a mile from Route 209.

Police said Caraballo had been stabbed four times, and Mock had been shot.

Branch faces two counts of first-degree murder; two counts of third-degree murder; six counts of aggravated assault; five counts of simple assault, as well as possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment and tampering with evidence.

• Officers found 46-year-old Hector Garcia Gomez, 46, of Palmerton, shot and killed earlier this month in an incident in the parking lot of Loco Hot Deals at 1155 MacArthur Road, Whitehall. Police have since made two arrests in the killing.

Christian Martinez-Ramos, 35, and Liz Pacheco, 37, both of Allentown, have been charged with the killing.

Martinez-Ramos is charged with criminal homicide and aggravated assault — knowingly or recklessly extreme indifference, both first-degree felonies; and misdemeanor charges of possession of instruments of crime/weapon, criminal mischief — tampering with property and recklessly endangerment.

Pacheco is charged with criminal homicide, conspiracy to commit criminal homicide, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and obstruction of law enforcement.

Police said Garcia Gomez was gunned down after he entered his car upon leaving the store. They said shots were fired from a vehicle that was parked behind his car.

Arson cases

• Ian Keating, 42, of Weatherly, was charged in January with arson in November 2023 after a fire that took place during a no-burning ban period.

Police said the Citizens Fire Company No. 1 of Weatherly was dispatched to 789 E. Main St. for an unattended fire, and found household furniture burning. Firefighters contained and extinguished the fire, which had been left unattended during dry, windy conditions and with gasoline left several feet from the fire.

• Barton MacConnell, 39, of Lehighton, was charged by Scranton police in January on charges of arson — danger of death or bodily injury; arson endangering property — reckless endangerment of inhabited buildings; recklessly endangering another person; and criminal mischief.

Police said on Aug. 3, 2023, he set fire to the home of Michael Albert, 60, in the 400 block of Brook Street in the city. Albert had been charged with murder after he allegedly ran over Mark T. Boyle, 35, owner of a welding business in West Penn Township, with a dump truck the previous day.

• Benjamin J. Arnold, 52, of Ellicott City, Maryland, was arraigned in March on charges of arson, insurance fraud and reckless burning stemming from a 2016 fire that destroyed a vacant double home in Lansford.

Police said he paid Richard Snyder, 53, of Coaldale, $10,000 to burn down the house he owned at 524 E. Front St., and then Snyder paid David Argott, 46, of Frackville, $5,000 to set the fire.

Snyder and Argott were also charged by state police in the fire at 522-524 E. Front St. on Jan. 11, 2016.

Explicit images

• Charges were filed in February in a child pornography investigation against Matthew C. Schutter, 53, of South Whitehall Township. He was charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of children — dissemination of photographs, videotapes, computer depictions, films.

Schutter was a candidate for Penn Forest supervisor in 2011; Jim Thorpe school board in 2013; Carbon County sheriff in 2015; state representative in 2016; and Jim Thorpe school board in 2017. He was elected as Penn Forest auditor in 2013 and served until he left the area in 2018.

• Kyle Lichtenwalner, 34, of Nesquehoning, was charged in April by the state Attorney General’s Office with more than 25 counts of child pornography and criminal use of a communications facility.

Police said their investigation began in December 2023, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report from Snapchat, an instant messaging app used for photos and messages, which reported an apparent image of child pornography that was saved, shared or uploaded on its platform.

Police found uploaded videos/images of child pornography on Lichtenwalner’s phone, including images of a child engaged in indecent contact with an adult male; 15 videos or images of prepubescent children engaged in prohibited sexual acts; and 10 images or videos depicting children engaged in prohibited sexual acts.

• Christopher Cordes, 29, a former Tamaqua police officer, was charged in May with multiple crimes, including manufacturing and dissemination of child pornography; solicitation and conspiracy to commit sexual abuse of children; unlawful contact with a minor; and sexual intercourse with an animal.

In October, Cordes was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with federal charges of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity; attempted receipt of and possession of child pornography; and animal crushing.

In December, the state charges against Cordes, who listed an address in Nazareth, were dropped and the case will proceed as a federal prosecution.

Animal neglect

• Skyler Moore, 25, of Tamaqua, was charged in February with aggravated cruelty to animals and other offenses after police found an emaciated dog and dead rabbit inside his litter-filled home.

Police were dispatched to Moore’s home on the 500 block of Rolling Mill Avenue, where they found his dog emaciated and malnourished and a dead rabbit in a cage that was filled with 4 inches of feces.

• Dawn James, 25, of Lansford, was charged in May with cruelty and neglect to animals after a malnourished female dog and puppies were found abandoned in her yard.

Carbon County Animal Shelter director Tom Connors, acting on a call he received, picked up the dogs and observed the mother dog was extremely malnourished and suffering from starvation. The puppies appeared to be in fair condition, as they were still receiving nourishment from their mother.

• Bethany Bachert, 70, of Bull Run Street, Coaldale, was charged in May with multiple counts of animal cruelty and neglect after 17 dogs and animals were rescued from her property. She was charged with six counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, 18 counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals, 17 counts of misdemeanor neglect of animals for failing to provide food and water and 11 counts of misdemeanor neglect of animals for failing to provide necessary veterinary care.

The arrest came after Coaldale police received a tip on May 17 of malnourished and hairless dogs on Bachert’s property. Three days later, after a search warrant was obtained, Coaldale and Tamaqua police and state police executed it, finding the dogs, two birds and a turtle in the home which was covered in animal waste and had elevated amounts of ammonia. Police also found deceased to skeletal remains of cats.

• Linda Reul, 61, of Polk Township, was charged in October with 276 counts — 265 of neglect of animals and 11 of aggravated cruelty to animals — stemming from a case in July 2023 in which police found neglected animals (dogs, cats, birds) in her residence in the 600 block of Long Mountain Road in Effort.

Personnel from the Pennsylvania SPCA removed 139 dogs and five cats from the location, where officials said the conditions were unsanitary and the animals were unsupervised. The animals were removed from the location and subsequently taken to PSPCA facilities.

• A nearly two-year investigation by the Pennsylvania Game Commission led to the filing of 71 charges in October against three Chester County residents — a father and his two adult sons — who are accused of poaching dozens of trophy bucks in Chester and Delaware counties.

Charged were Carroll Nelson IV, 44, of Downingtown, and Carl Nelson III, 70, and Mark Nelson, 40, both of West Chester.

The commission began investigating the case after receiving a tip concerning the unlawful taking of large whitetail bucks over a span of years. The charges filed involve deer that were taken out of season, at night and or over the limit of one buck per hunter per year. Nearly 50 mounts and antler sets — most of them trophy class — were seized from the three.

Juvenile charged

• A 12-year-old boy was charged in late February and committed to a juvenile detention center in Northampton County after police investigated a report of a possible school shooting directed toward multiple school administrators at the Pleasant Valley Middle School, 2233 Route 115, Brodheadsville.

State police at the Fern Ridge barracks said the boy was charged with causing or risking a catastrophe, threat to use weapons of mass destruction, terroristic threats and reckless endangerment, and was transported to the detention center by personnel from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Police said they were called to the school after a report was made to “Safe to Say,” seizing the boy’s cellular device and following up with his arrest.

Court proceedings

• George C. Sutch, 56, of Slatington, pleaded guilty in March to killing a 4-month-old infant in 2023.

Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan said Sutch pleaded guilty to third-degree murder.

Slatington police arrested him in connection with a violent shaking incident they were called to at an apartment on Seventh Street, where they found the boy not breathing, having suffered severe head trauma.

• Former Lehighton Area High School teacher Michael Feifel, 56, of Walnutport, was sentenced in March to at least one year in prison on charges related to his arrangement to meet who he thought was a 17-year-old girl for sex acts last year.

Feifel pleaded guilty last January to one count each of unlawful contact with minor-prostitution and criminal use of a communication facility, both third-degree felonies. He was arrested in South Whitehall Township in July 2023 and accused of arranging to meet a 17-year-old girl for sex acts.

• Marvin L. Mosley, a former pastor who admitted to having sexually assaulted three children while he lived in Andreas, was sentenced in March to six to 23 months in Schuylkill County Prison.

He was charged with indecent sexual assault and corruption of minors for incidents that occurred at the farm where he resided in West Penn Township over a period of 15 years.

He was the pastor of God’s Missionary Church, 139 N. Sixth St., Lehighton, at the time.

• Marc Muffley, 41, of Lansford, was sentenced in May to 2½ years in prison for attempting to place an explosive device on an aircraft and possessing an explosive in an airport. He was arrested in earlier in January after officials found him in possession of a bag containing an explosive device, a can of butane, lithium batteries, a lighter, and other items at Lehigh Valley International Airport on Feb. 27, 2023.

Muffley checked the bag for a flight to Orlando Sanford International Airport in Florida. After hearing his name over the airport’s public address system, he fled the airport and called his girlfriend to pick him up. He also changed his phone number to avoid detection.

Other cases

• In January, the impact of ransomware attacks on a number of Carbon County office networks was reported.

The attacks occurred in the last quarter of 2023, with information on the incidents surfacing being released after the start of the year. “The threat was there but nothing materialized,” Eloise Ahner, county administrator, said on the county’s behalf. “It was just a matter of getting everything back and that took some time. It took some time because those systems had to be shut down.”

She said the county did not find any compromised data.

• Jamal Bayton, 38, of Pocono Lake, the assistant fire chief of Tobyhanna Township Fire Bureau, was charged In January with the theft of gas from the township’s pumps.

Pocono Mountain Regional Police arrested him on five counts each of criminal use of a computer, theft and receiving stolen property. Surveillance footage showed Bayton filling his pickup truck at the pumps on several occasions.

• Francis L. Moyer II, 68, of Lehighton, the father of a man charged with homicide in Lehighton, was charged in March with harassment and disorderly conduct in an incident unrelated to the killing.

Police said Moyer made statements and threats leading to the department returning to the area for a bomb threat.

His son, Zak, 30, was charged with killing Edward Whitehead Jr., 59, of 239 Carbon St., striking him with a chain saw and knife.

• Nesquehoning police arrested Luis Ivan Ocasio, 35, of Hazleton, in the theft of two historic bronze bells at the borough’s historical society.

Police said that on April 2 Ocasio took two bells — one over 200 years old and weighing about 1,400 pounds, and the other over 100 years old and weighing about 200 pounds — from outside the historical society on West Railroad Street and sold them to a metal recycling center for $5,575.33.

Ocasio was charged with one felony count each of theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, theft of secondary metal and institutional vandalism.

• Abigail Horn, 18, of Lansford, was charged in July by Bethlehem City police with attempted homicide of her 3-month old infant.

She is charged with two counts of attempted criminal homicide and aggravated assault and one count of endangering welfare of a child.

Police said the baby’s father told them when the baby was about 6 weeks old, he awoke to muffled cries from the infant, and found Horn standing above the baby with her hands smothering the child in their home. He intervened by forcefully moving Horn off the baby.

He said when the baby was about 2 months old, Horn was staying at one of her family member’s house in Carbon County when a family member awoke around 6 a.m. to the infant screaming. Police were told the infant’s screaming became muffled and then sounded like she was gasping for air. The family member found Horn with the baby on her lap and took the baby from Horn, fleeing to another family member’s house to await for police.

• An Ashfield couple, Shaine Hawk and Robin Sterner, were charged in December after a shooting in Dennison Township, Luzerne County.

Hawk, 29, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and reckless endangerment, and Sterner, 23, for conspiracy to commit aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and reckless endangerment.

Police said the victim, a man, was shot in the face from a vehicle the two occupied. They said the Ashfield couple met the man via Facebook Marketplace as he attempted to purchase solar panels.