A Massachusetts man will face a Bucks County judge in his girlfriend’s murder

A Massachusetts man was held for trial in his girlfriend’s slaying after a preliminary hearing Thursday in which responding police officers described the gruesome scene left behind after a botched murder-suicide in Bucks County.

Thadius McGrath, 35, is charged with first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, and related offenses in the death of Samantha Rementer, whom prosecutors say he strangled in front of her young daughters last summer in Northampton Township. The girls, then 4 and 1, were covered in blood when officers arrived at their home, and the older girl was hysterical as she rushed outside, according to testimony Thursday.

McGrath’s attorney, Timothy Tarpey, made no argument on his client’s behalf during the hearing, but said afterward that McGrath is contesting the charges.

“His memory is very, very bad about that night, and we’re looking forward to getting all of the discovery from the commonwealth to string together all of what happened,” Tarpey said.

McGrath shot himself in the face with a 9mm handgun on June 8 after allegedly killing Rementer and was hospitalized for two weeks before he was able to give a statement to police, prosecutors said Thursday.

When he did, he told Northampton Township Police Detective Peter Stark that he had beaten Rementer with a floor lamp and stepladder during an argument inside the apartment they shared. What they argued about was unclear, according to Stark, though McGrath told detectives he was fuming over Rementer’s comment that he was not the father of her daughters.

During the argument, McGrath told detectives, he wrapped the lamp’s cord around her neck, in an attempt, he said, to “finish the job.”

At the time, Rementer, 31, had recently started dating McGrath, whom she had met through mutual friends of her late husband. Her husband, the father of her children, died the previous year of a heart attack, according to her family.

» READ MORE: A Massachusetts man killed his girlfriend during a botched murder-suicide in her Bucks County home, police said

Police were called to Rementer’s home in Northampton on the day of the murder by McGrath’s mother, who had received a suicidal call from him hours earlier, the affidavit said. When the officers arrived, they heard a “popping sound” and forced open the front door, according to testimony Thursday.

They were greeted by Rementer’s 4-year-old daughter, who was covered in blood and told them, “[Daddy] killed Mommy because she was annoying him and then [Daddy] shot himself accidentally.”

Inside the home, officers found Rementer’s 2-year-old daughter still strapped in her high chair in the dining room. The home’s front door and walls were stained with blood, officers said during Thursday’s hearing.

In a nearby bedroom, they found Rementer, unresponsive and covered by blankets. The cord from the lamp was still wrapped around her neck. She was pronounced dead at the scene by medics, and her death was later ruled to be murder by ligature strangulation.

The officers found McGrath lying injured on the floor of another bedroom, with the 9mm pistol beside him. Officers testified Thursday that McGrath ignored their commands, and attempted to reach for the gun. They took him to St. Mary Medical Center and later Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Doctors later ruled he had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right side of his face.