The motive behind the horrific killings at a Pennsylvania weekend house owned by an East Village couple is still being investigated. East 10th Street residents Paul and Monica Shay were at their Bechtelsville farmhouse with their nephew Joseph Shay, his girlfriend Kathryn Erdmann, and her two-year-old son Gregory when Mark Geisenheyner (pictured) stormed in and shot them all in the head on Saturday night. Joseph Shay and Gregory Erdmann died from their wounds, while the others were seriously injured. Geisenheyner, who was killed by a SWAT team on July 4, told friends that Paul Shay hadn't paid him his share of an insurance fraud scheme.
The NY Times reports, "Mr. Geisenheyner’s story, according to those who recounted it to law enforcement officials over the Independence Day weekend, went like this: He and Paul Benjamin Shay had hatched a scheme to torch the rural Pennsylvania country home of Mr. Shay and his wife and to submit an insurance claim for the fire and divvy up the windfall." But Geisenheyner, a career criminal, claimed he never got his share and was eventually sent back to to prison after police found him with $222 of artwork that went missing from the Shays' home in 2006 (the Shays reported it missing a month after a fire at their home). While the charges against him were dropped, he stayed in prison due to the parole violation. And, after his release, he allegedly spent 15 months plotting to rob and kill Paul Shay.
Montgomery County DA Risa Ferman said to the Times, "The general sense I have from talking to the investigators was that his anger was twofold. One, that he wound up back in prison, for two and a half years. The other was that he felt he did not get a large enough share of whatever the proceeds were to be."
Neighbors and friends of Paul and Monica Shay held a vigil for them yesterday on East 10th Street. The couple (Paul is a plumber, Monica is a professor at Pratt) are known for supporting activism against the war and police brutality, are still hospitalized; Monica Shay is in particularly bad shape and some are not sure she will survive. A friend told DNAinfo that Monica "went out of her way to stand up for folks who tend to be ostracized."
