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<\/a>CALIFORNIA, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\nA mother and son are facing charges in connection to the death of an 18-year-old PennWest California student, Pennsylvania State Police said Thursday.<\/p>\n
See the video above: 18-year-old homicide suspect arrested<\/p>\n
Authorities say Karoline Heintz was found dead inside her parked vehicle near the California Borough Library around 12:24 a.m. on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Royce Moser, 18, is charged with criminal homicide, and his mother, Rachel Moser, is charged with hindering apprehension, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse and obstruction, Trooper Rocco Gagliardi said at a news conference.<\/p>\n
Both suspects were taken outside separately in handcuffs and placed into police vehicles at the PSP station in Washington on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Royce Moser did not comment as he was being taken away by state troopers.<\/p>\n
“My son took a life” <\/p>\n
Rachel Moser said, “I’m sorry,” as she covered her face with her hands. Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 reporter Jordan Cioppa said, “Tell us why you’re sorry.” Rachel Moser said, “That my son took a life.”<\/p>\n
See the video below: Homicide suspect’s mother arrested<\/p>\n
Victim was a recent high school graduate in Washington County<\/p>\n
According to Peters Township School District, Heintz was attending PennWest California after signing a National Letter of Intent for soccer.<\/p>\n
Heintz was a recent graduate of Peters Township High School who was set to begin classes at PennWest as a freshman.<\/p>\n
According to officials, Heintz had been with family earlier on Wednesday and was returning to campus housing at Pennsylvania Western University California.<\/p>\n
When Heintz did not check in with her family, they tracked her location to her vehicle on Wood Street in California and called 911.<\/p>\n
Police say that was when they found her dead inside the back hatch of the vehicle. Sources close to the investigation told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that Heintz had been stabbed.<\/p>\n
“We knew right away that this was a very serious case, but an isolated one,” Gagliardi said. <\/p>\n
According to a criminal complaint, Heintz left her family\u2019s home in Peters Township around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night. <\/p>\n
The victim\u2019s father told police he tracked her location and noticed she stopped at her boyfriend\u2019s house in North Strabane Township. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s where investigators say Royce told them the couple got into a discussion in the victim\u2019s car. <\/p>\n
\u201cTowards the end of that conversation between boyfriend-girlfriend, he goes inside and grabs a large knife from the kitchen, comes back out, and proceeds to stab her in the chest area,\u201d Gagliardi said.<\/p>\n
“Demon took over” <\/p>\n
The criminal complaint said Royce allegedly told police he was angered by something the victim said and claimed he had a \u201cdemon take over\u201d him before he stabbed Heintz. <\/p>\n
Gagliardi said Royce put the victim in the back hatch of her Jeep Cherokee before driving the vehicle to his mom\u2019s house in Beallsville Borough. <\/p>\n
In an interview with police, Royce said his mom offered to help clean the car with disinfectant spray. She also allegedly gave her son latex gloves. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey try to clean clothes, they try to clean the car up, they try to get rid of any blood stains possible,\u201d Gagliardi said.<\/p>\n
According to state police, the mother and son drove separately to California Borough, where they dumped the Jeep. <\/p>\n
Rachel, according to the complaint, allegedly told Royce to \u201ctake a bath and then shower,\u201d upon returning to her house. <\/p>\n
The complaint later states that Rachel put the knife used to kill Heintz in a garbage bag and put her son\u2019s clothes into the washing machine. <\/p>\n
Watch full video of the police update after the arrests of Royce and Rachel Moser:<\/p>\n
Watch the earlier news conference from State Police, the DA below<\/p>\n
Statement from PennWest California<\/p>\n
“PennWest University is deeply saddened by the tragic death of Karoline Heintz, who was a first-year student at the California campus. Our heartfelt condolences go out to her family, friends, and all those affected by this tragedy.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania State Police are investigating the incident, which occurred off campus, and PennWest University police are cooperating fully with the investigation.”<\/p>\n
Additional information has not yet been released. This story is developing.<\/p>\n
Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teen, his mother charged in connection to PennWest California student’s homicide CALIFORNIA, Pa. \u2014 A mother and son…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[458,3646,113651,113652,113659,113657,113655,12653,111,40204,1510,113656,113654,1021,113650,5866,139,2008,36161,28,30,29,1224,105860,60940,113660,37422,3522,113658,6967,113653,437,23133,10254],"class_list":["post-269492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-a-m","tag-authority","tag-california-borough","tag-california-borough-library","tag-california-pennsylvania","tag-called-911","tag-campus-housing","tag-coroners-office","tag-death","tag-developing-story","tag-family","tag-family-tracked","tag-found-dead","tag-investigation","tag-karoline-heintz","tag-location","tag-news","tag-office","tag-parked-vehicle","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-state-police","tag-pennsylvania-western-university","tag-pennwest-california","tag-pennwest-california-student","tag-student-death","tag-thursday","tag-under-investigation","tag-vehicle","tag-vehicle-death","tag-washington-county","tag-wood-street","tag-wtae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269492","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=269492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}