Suspect in murder of young Bucks County couple found dead of overdose

Kitty Knight Drive is a quiet street in Churchville. Longtime residents speak fondly of its tidy homes and neat lawns.

But that tranquility was shattered this week as police in Northampton Township pieced together the murders of a young couple, high school sweethearts who had purchased a home on the block, their first, hoping to lay the foundations of a new life.

Tyler Roy, 28, and his wife, Christina, 27, were found dead in the upper floor of their home early Tuesday by a house painter they had hired, police said at a Wednesday news conference.

"They were a sweet couple," Eileen Bily, who lives next door, said Wednesday. "They made a point of introducing themselves to all us old timers. This is just the saddest week here."

The cause and manner of their deaths were pending autopsies Thursday morning. Bucks County First District Attorney Gregg Shore said late Wednesday that both victims had been stabbed multiple times and shot with a rifle that belonged to Tyler Roy and was left behind at the crime scene.

Investigators had been eyeing a person of interest in the case: Daniel Kenneth Mooney, 26, whose family lives just a few doors down from the Roys. On Tuesday, Mooney was found dead of an apparent overdose.

Philadelphia police contacted Northampton Township investigators early Wednesday to say that a John Doe had been brought to Episcopal Hospital in Kensington after succumbing to a drug overdose. Together, they confirmed Mooney's identity.

Shore said he was confident that Mooney had no prior connection to the couple. It appeared he had entered their home through an unlocked door, and there were signs of an extended struggle in the home's upper floor.

The exact motive was unclear, but Shore said it was clear that Mooney "struggled with addiction."

The Roys' Ford Edge SUV, reported missing after their bodies were discovered, was found abandoned in Northeast Philadelphia early Wednesday, police said. Investigators in the city had been assisting their counterparts in Bucks County, and had put out a patrol bulletin for Mooney throughout the surrounding police districts, sources said.

Police in the township had an active warrant for Mooney's arrest from an unrelated car theft on April 30, when he allegedly stole a car from a Speedway gas station in Northampton Township.

Meanwhile, the families of the young couple mourned Wednesday. Their relatives declined to speak with a reporter Wednesday, requesting privacy as they gathered in shared grief.

The couple graduated together from Archbishop Wood High School in 2008. Tyler Roy worked as a construction estimator. Christina Roy worked as a professional photographer, neighbors said, specializing in weddings.

She and her husband had a wedding of their own in 2016, around the same time they purchased their two-story home on Kitty Knight Drive.

Bily, their neighbor, said they seemed to always be working on the house. And they were always "proud to show people around," she said.

In the fall, they invited Bily, her husband, and a few other neighbors over for a chili cook-off, an event the couple described to their guests as an annual tradition in their families.

"I expected to hear the news that she was pregnant, that there would be little kids running around this neighborhood again," Bily said. "Not this. No one could imagine something like this could happen."

Across the street, Susan Karpuk watched solemnly as news trucks and police vehicles idled.

"This is a very quiet neighborhood," Karpuk said. "There's nothing to fear here. You couldn't ask for a safer place to live."

Karpuk said she's friendly with Mooney's parents, but never knew Daniel himself.

"As a grandmother and mother, I can't even begin to imagine the pain all of these families are going through right now," she said. "This is just senseless."