{"id":270793,"date":"2026-08-23T16:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T16:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/270793\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T16:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T16:34:24","slug":"karoline-heintz-soccer-player-incoming-pennwest-california-freshman-dead-boyfriend-royce-moser-his-mother-rachel-moser-charged-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/270793\/","title":{"rendered":"Karoline Heintz, soccer player, incoming PennWest California freshman dead; boyfriend Royce Moser, his mother Rachel Moser charged"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALIFORNIA, Penn. — A mother and son are facing charges in connection to the death of an 18-year-old PennWest California student, Pennsylvania State Police said Thursday, WTAE reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Authorities say Karoline Heintz was found dead inside her parked vehicle near the California Borough Library around 12:24 a.m. local time 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” Rachel Moser said, “I’m sorry,” as she covered her face with her hands.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 reporter Jordan Cioppa said, “Tell us why you’re sorry.”<\/p>\n

Rachel Moser said, “That my son took a life.”<\/p>\n

The victim was a recent high school graduate in Washington County. 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’s home in Peters Township around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The victim’s father told police he tracked her location and noticed she stopped at her boyfriend’s house in North Strabane Township.<\/p>\n

That’s where investigators say Royce told them the couple got into a discussion in the victim’s car.<\/p>\n

“Towards 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,” Gagliardi said.<\/p>\n

The criminal complaint said Royce allegedly told police he was angered by something the victim said and claimed he had a “demon take over” 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’s 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

“They try to clean clothes, they try to clean the car up, they try to get rid of any blood stains possible,” 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 “take a bath and then shower,” 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’s clothes into the washing machine.<\/p>\n

Statement from PennWest California “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

(The-CNN-Wire & 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALIFORNIA, Penn. — A mother and son are facing charges in connection to the death of an 18-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113696,113691,113694,113688,113650,113692,113693,28,30,29,60940,113690,113689,113695],"class_list":["post-270793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-113696","tag-beallsville-pa","tag-california-pa","tag-california-public-library","tag-karoline-heintz","tag-karoline-heintz-peters-township","tag-karoline-heintz-soccer","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennwest-california","tag-rachel-moser","tag-royce-moser","tag-soccer-player-murdered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270793","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=270793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}