CLEARFIELD – Three of four cases involving deaths that are currently in the Clearfield County Court system were scheduled for pre-trial conferences recently.
Ryan Gaines, 30, of Philipsburg is charged with criminal homicide in connection with the death of a San Diego, Calif. man; Mark Darren Shaffer, 46, 578 Service Center Rd., Brookville, is charged with drug delivery resulting in death and involuntary manslaughter for an overdose of a Curwensville man; and Brian Lee Schaffer 44, 173 Luthersburg Rockton Rd., Luthersburg, is facing criminal homicide and involuntary manslaughter charges for assisting in his girlfriend’s suicide.
A fourth case against Joseph Robert Fields, 35, 109 E. Scribner Ave., DuBois, an inmate of the jail, has passed the preliminary hearing stage. He is charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault and murder of the first degree in connection to an incident in DuBois during the early-morning hours of Sept. 22.
An open 911 call led police to the East Scribner Avenue address where they found a woman whose throat had been slashed and a young boy covered in blood. The boy allegedly said to police, “Joe killed my Mommy.”
Fields was later taken into custody after a manhunt that lasted about 15 hours, according to previous reports.
An additional case involving a death is still pending. Joshua Jeffrey Nelson, 30, 832 Zion Rd., New Millport, is accused of stealing a car, striking a woman with it, fleeing the scene and then assaulting two, other women in the Brown Street area of DuBois on Aug. 12, according to published reports.
The investigation into this case is still ongoing at this time, according to Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. Nelson was sentenced Monday on a probation violation and sent to state prison.
Here are the results of the pre-trial conferences.
Ryan Gaines, 30, Philipsburg, is accused of the murder of Ronald Bruce Ford Jr., who had been staying with someone in Centre County before his family reported him missing in February of 2013. Gaines signed a plea agreement on Nov. 12 and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18, according to online documents.
Gaines is charged with criminal homicide, murder, involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery-inflict serious bodily injury, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, abuse of corpse, intentional possession of a controlled substance and manufacture/delivery/possession with intent to manufacture or deliver a controlled substance. He is being held in the county jail without bail.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, police received a report that the last person seen with Ford was Gaines, who was living in Morrisdale at the time. When police spoke with Gaines, he confirmed that he picked up Ford on Feb. 21, 2013 and took him back to the Morrisdale residence to spend the night.
Police conducted a search of the Gaines residence on March 1, 2013. One of the officers found a blood-stained mattress on a bed that was covered by two bath towels. The blood was sent to the DNA lab for testing and was later confirmed as belonging to Ford.
Gaines eventually led police to where Ford’s body was found in a wooded area off Rolling Stone Road in Covington Township.
He told police he and Ford did drugs with a woman the night of the murder. Gaines said he continued to do drugs and decided to kill Ford. He grabbed a shotgun and walked to the bedroom where Ford was located multiple times before he opened the door and shot Ford, who was sitting on the bed.
He took Ford’s lockbox, which had drugs and money in it. He and the woman then consumed some of the drugs and sold some to others, Gaines told police.
Mark Darren Shaffer, 46, 578 Service Center Rd., Brookville, an inmate of the jail, is charged with drug delivery resulting in death, intentional possession of a controlled substance by person not registered, involuntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person.
The charges stem from an alleged incident on July 19, 2014 when the victim died from a drug overdose in Curwensville. Shaffer’s case is currently scheduled for jury selection Dec. 3 and a trial on Jan. 25-26. His bail is $100,000, unsecured.
According to the affidavit of probable cause in that case, a witness told police that she and the victim had been dating for three years. They went to the Curwensville Days Celebration and then returned to the Moose campground where they were staying. She wasn’t sure if the victim called Shaffer or if Shaffer called the victim, but they went to pick up Shaffer and returned to the camper around 10 p.m.
She went to bed while the two men stayed outside. She heard Shaffer yell her name and say something was wrong with the victim. She ran outside and opened the passenger side door to her vehicle where she saw the victim.
Upon opening the door, he fell to the ground. She thought he was drunk. She attempted to get him moving but he was not responding. That was when she realized something was wrong. She checked to see if he was breathing or had a pulse. She said he had neither.
She had Shaffer call 911. She said Shaffer handed her the phone and said “I gotta get outta here. I’m wanted.” He then ran off. She gave CPR to the victim until the ambulance arrived.
She told police that she had never known the victim to use drugs for recreational purposes. But she did say that he gets “adventurous” when he drinks. She advised that it would be easy for Shaffer to talk him into using drugs if he were drunk.
Shaffer told police he had done heroin with the victim four or five times in the past. From the time the victim snorted his heroin to the time he went unresponsive was seconds, Shaffer said. He also noted that he used the exact same bags of heroin that the victim used. He confirmed there was no exchange of money for the drug.
An autopsy on the victim indicated that cause of death as a multi-drug overdose.
Brian Lee Schaffer, 44, 173 Luthersburg Rockton Rd., Luthersburg is charged with criminal homicide, aiding suicide, involuntary manslaughter and manufacture/delivery/possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance for an incident in DuBois on Jan. 2 when the victim allegedly shot herself. Schaffer told police they had been doing methamphetamine for three or four days prior to the shooting.
Schaffer remains in the Clearfield County Jail in lieu of $1,000,000 bail. His case has been continued to the next term of court.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, police were called to a Grant Street residence for a report of a gunshot victim. The caller, Schaffer, stated that the victim shot herself in the living room but she was still breathing.
When police arrived, the victim was sitting in the middle of the couch in the living room. The victim was transported to Penn Highlands DuBois where she was pronounced dead.
Schaffer was interviewed at the police station. Because of conflicting statements, Schaffer was asked to submit to a polygraph examination by Pennsylvania State Police troopers. During this interview, Schaffer stated he and the victim were arguing off and on throughout the night. She was accusing him of cheating on her and lying to her about it.
Both Schaffer and another man who said he had been dating the victim for nearly four months said she had mental health problems. She had been hearing voices for some time. In the hours leading up to the incident, she was having a particularly bad day, they said.
In order to settle their argument, Schaffer went to his truck and retrieved his handgun. Schaffer returned to the living room, removed the magazine from the gun and placed it to his head. “If I’m lying I’m dying,” he said.
When the gun did not go off, he told her he wasn’t lying because he was not dead. The victim said the voices in her head were bad and then demanded to see the gun. He handed her the empty gun and when she asked him how to load it, he loaded it. She placed the gun to her head and looked at Schaffer while saying: “Don’t think I won’t do it!”
As he reached for the gun, it went off. Schaffer said he wasn’t sure if his hand was on the weapon at the time or not. He denied pulling the trigger and said they did not struggle for the gun.
Schaffer confessed to purchasing methamphetamine and sharing it with her. He said she consumed a lot of meth and he quit sometime around midnight.
An autopsy determined that she died from a single shot to the head. A toxicology report showed that she had methamphetamine, ethanol and amphetamine in her system.