{"id":150180,"date":"2026-03-27T17:14:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150180\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:14:23","slug":"killing-like-that-thats-cruel-details-emerge-in-bethlehem-murder-investigation-bethlehem-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150180\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Killing like that? That&#8217;s cruel&#8217;: Details emerge in Bethlehem murder investigation | Bethlehem Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. &#8211; New details emerge in the gruesome killing of a woman in Northampton County. James Frank is charged with homicide after allegedly killing his wife inside their home in Bethlehem Township.<\/p>\n<p>The Northampton County District Attorney told us the initial call for a welfare check on the 2100 block of 3rd St. came from Frank&#8217;s employer after he failed to show up for work on Monday and Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Police made contact with him after trying to enter the house through a second-floor window when he refused to come to the door. That&#8217;s when he told investigators his wife was dead in the bathtub.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It appeared that she had been dead for a number of hours. It was pretty clear that it had been many hours prior to the police response,&#8221; said Stephen Baratta, Northampton Co. District Attorney. &#8220;She had injuries that we could visually inspect. Some were to the chest area and injuries to her neck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frank told police he slit his wife&#8217;s throat then stabbed her and hit her chest with a hammer about 10 times to make sure she was dead, the DA&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>People in the neighborhood told us it was an act of evil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Killing like that? That&#8217;s cruel. He must&#8217;ve hated, there&#8217;s a lot of hate with someone like that,&#8221; said Roger Bercaw, who lives around the corner.<\/p>\n<p>Al Miller has lived on 3rd Street for 55 years and told us he&#8217;s never heard of such a thing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s terrible you know. I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s wrong with people today,&#8221; Miller said.<\/p>\n<p>Frank was charged with homicide and is being held without bail. His motive for allegedly killing his wife is unclear. Baratta told us the pair were married in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The District Attorney&#8217;s Office is waiting on the final autopsy report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. &#8211; New details emerge in the gruesome killing of a woman in Northampton County. James&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391,31],"class_list":["post-150180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-area","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}