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Erin Michelle Walker, 36, was shot dead by her neighbor, Daniel Berry, 59, in an apparent murder-suicide in the 400 block of Hill Street in Spring Garden Township around 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 21— she was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. on Sunday, May, 22, according to the York County coroner’s office.
Her killer, Berry, was pronounced dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to a separate release from the coroner’s office.
It is now known that Walker’s 3-year-old daughter was in her car seat in the back of her mother’s pickup truck when Berry and Walker had an argument possibly over his shed— which had supposedly knocked down Walker’s landline telephone wire, shortly after Walker had come home from grocery shopping, Spring Garden Police Chief George Swartz said in a press conference on Tuesday, May 23.
Berry shot Walker “multiple times at close range” with a .38 caliber handgun and left her bleeding on the ground next to the pickup truck before he went home and sat down on his back patio and shot himself in the head, Chief Swartz said.
The two are documented as disputing over the shed starting on May 19, but both of them had called the police over the matter. Police even came to Berry’s home the following day to inform him how to file a permit to get his shed approved and Walker was informed over the phone to reach out to Verizon to have her line repaired.
Walker had lived in the neighborhood since 2010 and Berry had moved in Nov. 2021 and the shed was put up earlier in May, Swartz said, adding that there might have been other unknown factors that contributed to the deadly dispute.
Berry lived in his home with his elder mother, Swartz said. Their neighbors cared for his mother, Walker’s daughter, and tended to Walker until EMS arrived following the shooting.
Both the elderly mother and young daughter are safe and being cared for, Swartz said.
In addition to the daughter potentially witnessing the deadly dispute, a neighbor’s security camera caught much of the encounter, which helped the police piece together what had happened.
Police continue to investigate this incident.
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