BLOOMING GROVE TOWNSHIP — State police still don’t know where Eric Matthew Frein is hiding, but believe he has at least two guns and might be acting out a fantasy sparked by his participation in a Cold War Eastern European military re-enactment group.
Frein, 31, remains the only suspect in the Friday night fatal shooting of one state trooper and critical wounding of another outside the Blooming Grove barracks in Pike County. Residents in the heavily wooded area where Frein was last spotted were warned Wednesday to lock their doors and secure sheds and other outbuildings.
Lt. Col George Bivens, deputy commander of operations for the state police, said he believes Frein is likely still in the general area, but police are following up on out-of-state tips.
“The search is still heavily focused in this general area,” Bivens said.
Officials released new photos of Frein on Wednesday, showing his head shaved in a wide Mohawk they say the Monroe County man sported to “mentally prepare” for the attack. They also disclosed that he has traveled to Europe within the last few years, but would not say what he did there.
“As I did the other day, I’d like to directly address Eric Frein again,” Bivens said. “Eric, in the event you are listening to this broadcast on a portable radio, while cowering in some cold damp hiding place — we are coming for you. And it’s only a matter of time until we bring you to justice for this cowardly attack.”
Also Wednesday, a report of a Frein sighting briefly shut down a neighborhood at the edge of East Stroudsburg University, but police found no sign of him there.
Police believe that Frein, of Canadensis, has a .308-caliber rifle with a scope and an AK-47 with him. A .308 rifle was used in the ambush at the state police barracks, authorities say.
The search for Frein involves more than 150 law enforcement officers and has spread to other states. Frein’s family has been cooperating with investigators, officials said.
The officials warned that anyone who might be helping Frein will be prosecuted.
Police say Frein took cover in the woods before the 11 p.m. shift change Friday and opened fire at Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson, 38, killing him.
Trooper Alex T. Douglass, 31, was shot in the pelvis and is recovering at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton.
Hundreds attended Dickson’s viewing Wednesday afternoon at Marywood University in Dunmore, Lackawanna County. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Thursday at St. Peter’s Cathedral in downtown Scranton.
Police activity at the barracks was intense. Entrances and exits to the filled-to-capacity parking lot were blocked off by officers toting shotguns. Members of the FBI’s SWAT team gassed up their sport utility vehicles and bought food and coffee from a nearby convenience store.
About 25 miles to the south, state police and campus police locked down several blocks just west of East Stroudsburg University on a tip that Frein was spotted near a Wawa about 3:45 p.m. and walked into a house.
“State, regional and campus police locked down Ridgeway Street for a time and have been on site to investigate the house and area surrounding it,” East Stroudsburg campus police Chief Robin Olson told university students in a 6 p.m. email. “There was no sign of the suspect and the lockdown on Ridgeway has been lifted.”
In his email, Olson says the Frein sighting report was “one of many reported sightings throughout the region, and it is the responsibility of all police officers to investigate such sightings. Investigation of all such reports has thus far remained negative. There is nothing to prove that Mr. Frein is in the area.”
The residential development where neighbors found Frein’s Jeep, Blue Heron Woods, is now reopened. The Jeep was pulled from the retaining pond where Frein dumped it. In the woods nearby, voices echoed Wednesday and a search plane flew overhead. State police patrolled area roads, stopping to look at pedestrians and talk to construction workers.
Schools in the Poconos took extra security precautions in light of the ongoing manhunt for Frein. The Pocono Mountain and Wallenpaupack Area school districts closed all of their schools again Thursday.
College campuses where Frein apparently attended class in the last 10 years also are on alert, but they are staying open.
A social media message sent to Northampton County Community College students Wednesday night urging students to be vigilant about their personal safety indicated Frein had taken classes at the college’s main campus in Bethlehem Township and its former Monroe County campus in Tannersville as well as at East Stroudsburg University.
“We have been monitoring this situation carefully,” Student Affairs Vice President Susan Salvador said. “”After conferring with the police last night and again today, we have remained open and intend to remain open unless the situation changes.”
Additional security officers have been added to the current Monroe County campus in Tannersville as a safety precaution, but students and staff should follow the advise of state police and “go about their everyday business” but remain alert to their surroundings and immediately report any suspicious activity.
Police documents revealed the first moments of the shooting. According to a criminal complaint, an employee at the Blooming Grove barracks said she heard what sounded like a firecracker and then saw Dickson lying on the ground. She approached him and he told her he had been shot and needed help.
The woman tried to call 911 but was “unsuccessful,” the documents say.
Other shots were heard at the barracks and some activity was caught on surveillance video, according to the complaint.
Officials refused to identify the military re-enactment group Frein participated in, but said he seems to have an interest in the Serbian conflict. A photo of him wearing what appears to be a Serbian-style uniform has been circulating on the Internet.
According to The Associated Press, in 2004 Frein was charged with burglary and grand larceny after police accused him of stealing items from vendors at a World War II re-enactment in Odessa, N.Y.
He failed to show for his trial and was arrested in Pennsylvania as a fugitive from justice, Lt. Craig Gallow of the Schuyler County Sheriff’s Department in New York told the AP.
At Dickson’s viewing in Dunmore, four state troopers on horseback stood silently under a gigantic America flag while an army of officers, clustered together in matching uniforms of blue, green and gray, stood in a line that wrapped around the university’s Rotunda building.
Civilian friends and family of the trooper left the Rotunda dabbing their eyes and embracing.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane, state Sen. John Blake, D-Lackawanna, and state Rep. Kevin Haggerty, D-Lackawanna, were among the dignitaries.
Scranton police are alerting motorists to be prepared Thursday for traffic congestion and intermittent road closures before and after the funeral as the procession makes its way from Marywood University to St. Peter’s Cathedral between 9 and 9:30 a.m. and again between noon and 1 p.m.
Reporter Frank Warner of The Morning Call and the Reuters News Service contributed to this story.
