died Friday night<\/a> from gunshot wounds in their home in what authorities have suggested was a murder-suicide.<\/p>\nDozens of people, children and adults, placed votive candles on the steps and front porch of the home, a brick-and-siding twin near West Lehigh Avenue. The house has been closed for the police investigation, but holiday lights were lit inside, and garland hung from the top of a front-room window.<\/p>\n
Alex Martinez of Allentown and Danielle Rau of Whitehall Township, who helped organize the vigil, said they have known the couple for years. Rice grew up in the area and was a Liberty High School student. Johnson came to the Valley from Brooklyn, New York, \u201cfor a change of scenery,\u201d Martinez said. The couple met through a mutual friend, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very, very sad situation,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Though they did not marry, Rice and Johnson lived together for years, according to those who knew them.<\/p>\n
Lori Rice, Sarah\u2019s mother, was among members of the Rice and Johnson families who attended. She said she was unaware of any issues in recent weeks among the couple.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were fine,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened. There are no words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson family members declined to speak.<\/p>\n
Rau said she was shocked by what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery couple fights, but I would not have expected this,\u201d she said. \u201cThey seemed like a very happy couple, taking care of their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to remembering the couple, vigil organizers wanted to raise awareness of issues that feared might have led to their deaths \u2014 depression, mental illness, domestic violence.<\/p>\n
Authorities are awaiting results of autopsies the coroner\u2019s office is scheduled to perform Monday as investigators piece together what caused the fatal shootings, but indicated the deaths were a murder-suicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a heartbreaking time, not just for the family but the entire community,\u201d said Jeani Garcia, executive director of Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley. \u201cToday is the candle-lighting, but this family is going to need support throughout the months, the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson was employed as a warehouse supervisor near Quakertown. Rice worked at a convenience store in the 1100 block of West Broad Street, several blocks from the 10th Avenue home that Lehigh County property records show the couple bought in 2018.\n<\/p>\n
Lisa Culver and Judy Duffy, both of west Bethlehem, said Rice was very sociable at her job. She would talk with them about children, about hiding presents for one of her children until her next birthday, and about cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still can\u2019t get over it,\u201d Culver said of the shootings. \u201cIt\u2019s something that doesn\u2019t happen around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah Marshall met Rice several years ago while lifeguarding at the West Side Pool on 13th Avenue. She came out with fellow lifeguards, lighted candles in their hands, to show support to the family, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a great mom from what we saw,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cThe girls were well behaved and sweet to us. You could tell she just loved those girls more than anything in the world, and you could tell how much they loved her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday night\u2019s turnout \u201cshows how much she impacted the community and affected everyone in a positive way,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n
Rice and Johnson\u2019s children have been placed in the care of family members, Bethlehem police said earlier.<\/p>\n
An online fundraiser established to help the family<\/a> had collected more than $24,000 as of Sunday night.\n<\/p>\nContact Morning Call reporter Anthony Salamone at asalamone@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah A. Rice and Greg A. Johnson were coming into their element as the parents of three children,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,202,433,182,139,434,28,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-78353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-lehigh-county","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northampton-county","16":"tag-pennsylvania","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78353","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=78353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}