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Man dead in Trainer, Pa. standoff

A man who shot five people in Montgomery County Saturday night was killed by police late Monday morning as the Trainer house he was in was surrounded by police SWAT teams.

Police SWAT team members put away their gear after a standoff in Trainer July. 4, 2011 ended with the suspect of Saturday night's Montgomery County killings shot dead. ( Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer )
Police SWAT team members put away their gear after a standoff in Trainer July. 4, 2011 ended with the suspect of Saturday night's Montgomery County killings shot dead. ( Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer )Read more

A man who shot five people in Montgomery County Saturday night was killed by police late Monday morning as the Trainer house he was in was surrounded by police SWAT teams.

At a press conference, Delaware County District Attorney Mike Green and Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said the suspect died in the basement. Ferman said the suspect, Mark Geisenheyner, 51, was killed by police.

Authorities said Geisenheyner had a long criminal history in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York. Some of the crimes were related to insurance fraud.

Law enforcement officials said there were multiple negotiations between the suspect and police during the standoff. Geisenheyner was armed with a .45 caliber handgun.

Geisenheyner was identified as the lone suspect in the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of three others in rural Douglass Township.

On Saturday night, authorities said that a gunman killed a 2-year-old boy and a 43-year-old man and wounded three others.

The dead were identified as Joseph Shay, 43, who lived in Yarmouth, Mass., and New York, and Gregory Erdmann, 2.

Gregory's mother, Kathryn Erdmann, 37, of Fall River, Mass., was hospitalized in critical condition, along with Paul and Monica Shay, the owners of the property.

Paul, 64, and Monica, 58, live in New York City. He owns a plumbing business, she is an associate professor at Pratt Institute who grew up on the property on Renninger Road.

Ferman said for the past 15 months Geisenheyner had been planning to break into the Douglass Township home and rob and kill the Shays.

"He executed his plan Saturday night," Ferman and Green said.

The suspect knew the Shays' nephew, Joseph.

Five tactical teams from Delaware County were on the scene this morning.

One neighbor, Mike Hoopes, said he watched as two phalanxes of 30 SWAT officers approached the house from the front and back.

Police fired what Hoopes said were percussion bombs into the house.

"I heard a quick shot after that, and next thing you know, an ambulance was coming down the alley," Hoopes said. "I saw the body coming out of the house, covered with a sheet."

It is not clear whether the shot Hoopes heard was the gunman killing himself.

The house is across from a Conoco-Phillips refinery.

Neighbors in the Delaware County community said they had heard gunshots throughout the morning.

Chris Bartolomeo, 38, a trash truck driver who lives near the house where the stand-off and shooting took place, said, "We'd been hearing pop, pop, pop, all morning."

Neighbors described the area as a working-class community.

As events unfolded throughout the morning, neighbors congregated near the scene, standing outside their homes festooned with American flags for the July 4 holiday.