kidnapping<\/a> of 23-year-old Michael Petrino Jr. of Lebanon County, who is presumed to have been killed even though his body hasn\u2019t been found.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is just another example of the great work of our detectives from the city of Reading,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThey really did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paniagua-Pena was charged with first- and third-degree murder, and two counts each of aggravated and simple assault, and possessing an instrument of crime.<\/p>\n
He is being held without bail in Berks County Jail to await a hearing.<\/p>\n
According to investigators:<\/p>\n
Officers responded to the 200 block of River Road about 2:45 p.m. on May 9 for a report of a man lying in the street with what appeared to be stab wounds on his back.<\/p>\n
Mercado-Gomez was taken to Reading Hospital where he later died.<\/p>\n
An examination of Mercado-Gomez\u2019s body by a doctor at the hospital found multiple, deep stab wounds to his head, face and back. Additional stab wounds were found on his left hand.<\/p>\n
Police viewed surveillance camera footage from the area and saw Mercado-Gomez crossing the intersection of West Buttonwood Street and River Road. As he crossed, a person dressed all in black and wearing a balaclava-style mask was seen on a bicycle near the intersection.<\/p>\n
As Mercado-Gomez continued to walk on River Road, the other man can be seen cycling quickly toward him. Both of them move out of view of cameras.<\/p>\n
Police also spoke to a relative of Mercado-Gomez\u2019s who lives in the Dominican Republic and was speaking to Mercado-Gomez as he was walking.<\/p>\n
The relative described hearing yelling and a commotion, as well as Mercado-Gomez yelling, \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything to you. Oh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n
The battery-powered bicycle was found near the crime scene.<\/p>\n
Police collected DNA evidence from the bicycle, and results returned last month could not exclude Paniagua-Pena as a suspect.<\/p>\n
It was discovered that Paniagua-Pena worked at Sun Rich Foods, the same company that employed Mercado-Gomez. Another employee told police that the two worked at workstations only a few feet apart.<\/p>\n
Time clock records showed Paniagua-Pena left work about 15 minutes before Mercado-Gomez. A witness who worked at Sun Rich Foods told police that Paniagua-Pena was known to ride a bicycle that matched the description of the one found at the crime scene.<\/p>\n
Officials are awaiting results of a confirmatory DNA test to positively match the suspect\u2019s DNA profile to that found on the bicycle, but they believe they have the right suspect.<\/p>\n
Adams said the investigation is continuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Investigators still haven\u2019t identified the motive for the fatal stabbing of Leonardo Mercardo-Gomez who was followed by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,202,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-316509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316509","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=316509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}