{"id":244456,"date":"2026-07-16T01:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/244456\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T01:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:56:09","slug":"teen-held-for-trial-in-fatal-shooting-of-74-year-old-whitehall-township-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/244456\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen held for trial in fatal shooting of 74-year-old Whitehall Township resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teenager charged as an adult with fatally shooting his 74-year-old neighbor in Whitehall Township will stand trial in Lehigh County Court.<\/a><\/p>\n

Elijah Ceballos, 17, waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday in the death of Fernando Guerreo Tabera of Third Street.<\/p>\n

According to a statement from Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan:<\/p>\n

Police were called to the victim\u2019s home around 5:07 p.m. on May 28 and found Guerreo Tabera on an outside patio chair with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, leg and chin. First responders provided life-saving measures, but Guerrero Tabera died from his injuries.<\/p>\n

Guerreo Tabera\u2019s death was due to multiple gunshot wounds and his death was ruled a homicide by the Lehigh County coroner.<\/p>\n

The investigation included home surveillance footage that showed the victim sitting on his porch facing the street. A person, later identified as Ceballos, was spotted on the video wearing a dark-colored hoodie, jeans and boots.<\/p>\n

The video shows Ceballos point a gun at the victim and walk away with the weapon still in his hand. Police did not say if Ceballos and the victim knew each other.<\/p>\n

Investigators found 16 spent 9-millimenter shell casings on the street and on the patio in front of the victim, prosecutors said. A witness told police he believed Ceballos may have taken a firearm from his home that had been used in the shooting.<\/p>\n

The witness said Ceballos had entered a Main Street home after the shooting. Police later found clothing and a 9mm firearm believed to be linked to the killing at that address.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say a second witness told police he heard the gunshots outside and saw Ceballos with a gun and ski mask. That witness took the gun away from Ceballos, according to the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Ceballos is charged with homicide and several gun-related offenses, including possession of a firearm by a minor. He is being held in the county jail without bail.<\/p>\n

Ceballos\u2019 attorneys from the Lehigh County Public Defender\u2019s Office declined to comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager charged as an adult with fatally shooting his 74-year-old neighbor in Whitehall Township will stand trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,202,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-244456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244456","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=244456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}