Survivalist convicted of killing trooper in sniper ambush

Associated Press

MILFORD, Pa.

A Pennsylvania man who hid in the forest under cover of night and opened fire with a sniper’s rifle was convicted of capital murder Wednesday in the ambush slaying of a state police trooper he targeted at random in hopes of sparking a revolution.

A jury convicted Eric Frein, 33, in the Sept. 12, 2014, attack at the Blooming Grove state police barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania. Cpl. Bryon Dickson II, a married father of two, was killed, and a second trooper was shot through the hips and left debilitated.

Frein was “literally hunting humans” when he peered at his targets through a scope during a late-night shift change and squeezed the trigger four times, Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin told jurors in his closing argument. He called Frein a terrorist who sought to change the government through bullets and bombs.

The gunman led authorities on a 48-day manhunt through the rugged Pocono Mountains before U.S. marshals caught him at an abandoned airplane hangar more than 20 miles from the barracks.

After a two-week trial that presented uncontested evidence of Frein’s guilt, the jury convicted him on all 12 charges, including murder of a law-enforcement officer, terrorism and two weapons of mass destruction counts related to small explosive devices he left in the woods while eluding capture.

Frein showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. The trial now moves into a penalty phase, with the same jury deciding whether he deserves the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The defense will now shift its focus to trying to persuade the jury to spare his life. Prosecutors will argue that Frein deserves to be sent to death row.

A death-penalty verdict would send Frein to death row.