Cops: Girl, 7, feared she'd die

SHALER, Pa. - Police say a 7-year-old girl called her grandmother shortly before the girl, her mother and infant sister were fatally shot by the woman's boyfriend in a quiet Pittsburgh suburb.

Investigators told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Quinn Gasparre called her grandmother Sunday night to say her mother's live-in boyfriend, Barry Hardesty, was making threats. A short time later police say he executed the woman and both girls before turning the gun on himself.

When emergency personnel arrived at the scene, they found Quinn Gasparre dead in a hallway. Her mother, Lynette Gasparre, and the woman's 1-year-old daughter with Hardesty, Nina, were found dead in a bedroom. Each had been shot in the head.

The paper said investigators believe that Hardesty may have quarreled with Lynette Gasparre about the older girl's father.

Neighbors told the newspaper that they heard sounds of a loud argument, followed by gunshots about 15 to 20 minutes later.

Police described the neighborhood as quiet and largely crime-free. The home where the shooting occurred is one of about 10 houses on a dead-end street.

Investigators recovered a .357-caliber handgun from the house, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Shaler Township is a residential community of nearly 30,000 just minutes from downtown Pittsburgh. Gov. Corbett lives in a farmhouse in Shaler, but a spokesman said Monday that the shooting was not near his home.

Corbett was in Shaler last week as he recuperated from back surgery, and had returned to Harrisburg by Saturday, his spokesman said.