Lower Merion police shot and killed a former child abuse investigator wanted for child rape, authorities said

A former Morton Borough police officer is dead after Lower Merion police shot and killed him when he exchanged gunfire with officers in Bala Cynwyd Wednesday morning, authorities said.

Francis Connell Collier, 38, who previously served as a part-time officer in the Delaware County borough, was wanted on charges of rape and other sex crimes involving children at the time of the shooting.

Authorities said Lower Merion police spotted Collier’s vehicle on Old Lancaster Road in the Bala Cynwyd section of the township around 3:48 a.m. When they saw him return to his car, police said, officers confronted him, and he shot at the officers, who returned fire, fatally wounding him.

The officers had not been serving a warrant for Collier’s arrest at the time of the shooting, but the department was aware of the charges against him, said Lower Merion Police Capt. John Tucci.

Charges in the rape case had been filed Tuesday in Upper Darby, according to a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, which brought the case against him.

In addition to serving in Morton, Collier was previously a member of the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office’s Child Abuse and Exploitation Task Force, a spokesperson for District Attorney Tanner Rouse said.

Collier’s appointment in 2022 was not made during Rouse’s tenure, and he was removed from the task force the following year during a leadership change within the unit, the spokesperson said.

When the sex abuse allegations against Collier were reported to authorities late last year, Rouse’s office initially investigated, but later referred the case to state prosecutors because of a conflict of interest.

In a statement on Collier’s shooting death Wednesday, the Delaware County DA’s Office said he ”reportedly engaged in actions that led to what has been described as ‘suicide by cop.’”

Police have not released the names of the officers involved in the shooting, which is under investigation by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. It was unclear whether the officers had been placed on leave, as is customary, as the inquiry continues.

Morton Borough police learned of the criminal investigation in December, department officials said, and Collier was placed on unpaid administrative leave.

He resigned from the department on Dec. 19, they said.

The criminal case against Collier began late last year, authorities said, when Delaware County investigators learned that he may have sexually abused children.

Two women told investigators Collier had touched them inappropriately in the early 2000s, when they were five and six years old and Collier was a teenager, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. The women said the abuse began in 2001 and 2003, the affidavit said.

Collier was 15 when he assaulted the first victim the document said.

The second woman said Collier had assaulted her as well, framing the abuse as a “game” that involved sex toys and sex acts. She said she told her mother at the time that Collier was touching her inappropriately but when confronted, she said, he denied the abuse.

Years later, the women said, they learned that Collier worked with Delaware County’s child abuse task force, which investigates sex crimes against children. They said they grew worried when they saw social media posts showing Collier posing with children, the document said.

When investigators interviewed Collier about the allegations in early December, the affidavit said, he failed a polygraph test, but told detectives he “never intentionally touched the girls inappropriately.”

Investigators referred the case to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office that month because of a possible conflict or interest, the affidavit said. State investigators later interviewed people who said the women had told them of the abuse years ago when they were children, and prosecutors filed the criminal charges against Collier on Tuesday, just hours before his death.

Lower Merion police said the shooting took place in the area of Old Lancaster Road and City Avenue, a block from St. Joe’s University and not far from Edgehill Court, the apartment complex where Collier lived.

A neighbor, Liam Riley, said he heard at least seven shots ring out when police confronted Collier.

“I saw a officer run up, grab something out of his trunk, and then run back up to [Collier’s] car,” Riley, a St. Joe’s University senior, said. “Then I heard them yelling to the guy, ‘Put your hands out of the window, put your hands out of the window.”

Juliette Palasol, a student at Drexel University who lives a block away with her family, said they didn’t hear the early morning gunfire, but her father left for work at 5 a.m. to find that many of the neighborhood roads closed.

“I couldn’t believe it — my brother, my cousins — none of us heard it,” Palasol said, outside the Edgehill Court. “I was just surprised to see police bring out firetrucks, drones, and robotic dogs to the scene.”

Around noon on Wednesday, police officers, assisted by Union Fire Association, raised a ladder to Collier’s third-story apartment, where officers broke through the window and piloted a drone inside to conduct an initial search of his residence. Officers also used a robotic dog to search the apartment “out of an abundance of caution,” police said.