{"id":78488,"date":"2026-01-05T17:56:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/78488\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T17:56:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:56:06","slug":"bethlehem-murder-suicide-victims-died-of-gunshots-coroner-rules-as-investigation-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/78488\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem murder-suicide victims died of gunshots, coroner rules as investigation continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 The deaths of a couple <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lehighvalleynews.com\/bethlehem\/victims-identified-in-apparent-murder-suicide-in-bethlehem-vigil-set-for-sunday-night\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in an apparent murder-suicide Friday night in West Bethlehem<\/a> were caused by gunshot wounds, the Lehigh County coroner said Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah A. Rice, 39, and Greg A. Johnson, 42, both of Bethlehem, died from wounds to the head, Coroner Daniel Buglio ruled after autopsies Monday.<\/p>\n<p>    Authorities have not said who shot whom in the basement of a home in the 200 block of 10th Avenue.<\/p>\n<p>Bethlehem law enforcement investigations<\/p>\n<p>But Buglio said in a release that a ruling has not been made in the manner of their deaths, pending completion of an investigation by his office and Bethlehem Police.<\/p>\n<p>Lehigh County homicide task force and the county district attorney&#8217;s office also are investigating, Buglio said.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have not said who shot whom in the basement of a home in the 200 block of 10th Avenue.<\/p>\n<p>Police said they were called about 10:15 p.m. after an adult had dropped off one of the couple\u2019s three children at the home after a playdate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The child entered the home, then returned outside (to the adult who had dropped them off) and reported a serious issue had just occurred inside the residence,&#8221; police said.<\/p>\n<p>Two juveniles and an older adult who were in the home at the time were safely removed by officers, police said.<\/p>\n<p>The adult was in a separate part of the home and seemed to be unaware of the shooting, police said. That adult is not considered a suspect, according to police.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said Rice was pronounced dead in the home&#8217;s basement at 11:22 p.m. Johnson was taken to St. Luke&#8217;s University Hospital in Fountain Hill where he was pronounced dead at 11:39 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>A firearm was recovered from the basement, police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 The deaths of a couple in an apparent murder-suicide Friday night in West Bethlehem were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,40027,2519,39583,40028,40029],"class_list":{"0":"post-78488","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-greg-a-johnson","12":"tag-lehigh-county-coroners-office","13":"tag-murder-suicide-bethlehem","14":"tag-murder-suicide-autopsies-and-bethlehem","15":"tag-sarah-a-rice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488","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=78488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}