Pa. father charged with killing wife, daughters

By msnbc.com staff and news services

INDIANA, Pa. -- A western Pennsylvania man?has been jailed on charges he killed his two young daughters and his estranged wife at separate residences that?were set ablaze.

Officials at the Indiana County Jail confirmed that Lewis Beatty, 40, was charged with three counts of criminal homicide, though online court records were not immediately available Monday, The Associated Press reported.

State troopers and Indiana County District Attorney Pat Dougherty planned?to release additional details at a news conference Monday afternoon.

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Coroner Michael Baker said the bodies were found at?separate fires, which Dougherty identified as a mobile home in South Mahoning Township, where the two girls were found, and the other at a mobile home in East Mahoning Township, where their mother was found.

Neighbors Sally and Beryl Lydic said they knew the slain family and saw Beatty just before the attacks Friday,?the Pittsburg Tribune-Review reported.?Beatty was jailed without bond on Saturday.

"It's unimaginable," Sally Lydic told WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh. "It's unthinkable. I can't fathom what made him do that."

'His way or no way'
Ron Smail, who identified himself as the father of the woman and the?grandfather of the two girls,?told the Tribune-Review the girls were Sara Beatty, 6, and Amanda Beatty, 11. They were found dead after Beatty allegedly set fire to his own home in South Mahoning Township about 7 p.m. Friday.

"We always feared this would happen, but hoped it never would," Smail told The Tribune-Review. He described his estranged son-in-law as having a temper and said he had become more controlling of his family in the past several years. "It was always his way or no way," Smail said.

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Smail said his daughter, Christine Beatty, 33, was the suspect's estranged wife and had been slain inside the mobile home she had been renting near East Mahoning, about 15 minutes away, according to the Tribune-Review.?That fire was reported about 8 p.m. Friday.

Smail said the coroner told him that all three victims bled to death from slash wounds to their throats.

The Lydics said they?believe they heard shots fired to kill the girls' pets --?a pony, goat and dog --?before the children were slain. Beatty told the Lydics?he'd been shooting groundhogs.

"He had a kind of little smirk on his face and said, 'You'd be surprised,' as he walked away," Beryl Lydic told the Tribune-Review.

The Presbyterian Church of Plumville, where the family attended church, posted the message: "We love you Chris Amanda and Sara" on a sign in front of the sanctuary.

Smail said his daughter and Beatty had separated and shared custody of the girls. He said Lewis Beatty was attempting to reconcile with Christine, who had turned down his invitation for a dinner date on Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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