Suspected killer of 3 captured in Austintown

Staff/wire reports

AUSTINTOWN

Township police arrested a man early Saturday who is a person of interest in a triple homicide investigation in Chambersburg, Pa.

Police were notified at about 4 a.m. that Kevin Matthew Cleeves, 35, of Waynesboro, Pa., may be in the township with his 4-year-old daughter.

Officers found Cleeves’ vehicle in the parking lot of the Best Western Hotel at state Route 46 and Interstate 80.

Chief Bob Gavalier said Cleeves didn’t get a room at the hotel but was resting in his car in the parking lot.

The vehicle traveled to the parking lot of the Weston Plaza on Route 46 at Mahoning Avenue, and Cleeves was arrested and taken to the Mahoning County jail where he awaits extradition. His daughter, Leia, was found in the vehicle, unharmed, police said.

Gavalier said Cleeves didn’t struggle with police.

“He said he noticed he was being followed, and his biggest concern was his daughter, and he didn’t want anything to happen,” the chief said.

Police found a gun in the rear seat of the vehicle. It was unclear where the little girl was seated in the vehicle.

Family members were traveling from Pennsylvania Saturday to pick up the girl, Gavalier said.

Cleeves was trying to contact his wife Friday to make arrangements to pick up Leia, but his wife didn’t answer the phone, so he went to a home in Quincy Township at about 9 p.m. Friday, according to wire reports.

Pennsylvania State Police said Cleeves found a woman and a man sitting in a car and began arguing with them, then was ordered to leave. He then shot to death both of them, as well as another woman, and took the girl, authorities alleged.

A news release from the Franklin County, Pa., Coronor’s office identified the victims as Brandi Nicole Killingsworth Cleeves, 25, Cleeves’ estranged wife and the mother of his daughter; Vincent Luke Santucci, 28; and Santucci’s mother, Rosemary Linda Holma, 55.

“All three victims died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds,” the coroner’s news release said.

Autopsies will be conducted Monday in Allentown, Pa.

An Amber Alert was issued Friday night but was canceled hours later when Cleeves and the girl were located.

Cleeves was charged with three counts of criminal homicide Saturday in the deaths in Quincy Township, Pa., according to online court records. In the Amber Alert, authorities had said that Cleeves should be considered “armed and dangerous as well as suicidal.”

Trooper Adam Reed of the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Chambersburg declined to comment about Cleeves’ criminal history.

Both Quincy Township and Waynesboro, Pa., are in south central Pennsylvania, about 30 miles from the Maryland state line.

Court records did not list an attorney for Cleeves, who was in the Mahoning County Jail, police said.