PHILIPSBURG -- The boyfriend of 21-year-old Racheal Lynn Perryman told police they were hunting after dark Saturday in a remote area in Union Township when he mistook his girlfriend for a deer and "accidentally" shot her.
This was revealed Wednesday in search warrants filed by Philipsburg state police wanting to search the car the couple drove and the home they shared in Port Matilda.
Court papers filed in another case identify Perryman’s boyfriend as Troy Tierney, and her Myspace.com social networking site says they were living together and engaged.
Police say the boyfriend called police for help about 8:30 p.m., according to the search warrant, saying Perryman was shot in a grassy road off Governor’s Road, about a half mile from Rattlesnake Pike. The coroner pronounced Perryman dead of a shot to the chest fired by a muzzleloader. It was the last day of hunting season for that rifle.
Police said they searched Perryman’s Ford Taurus parked near the scene and the couple’s Front Street home to verify her boyfriend’s story that the pair were using spotlights to hunt deer at night.
The warrant, filed at District Judge Allen Sinclair’s Philipsburg office, states police also wanted to "prove or disprove that a disturbance/ fight/assault" happened either in the car or their home before the couple left to go hunting around 5 p.m.
"Investigators learned from additional interviews that there may have been a history of domestic violence between Perryman and that 25-year-old male," police wrote in the search warrant.
According to the paperwork, police recovered a Varmint hunting light kit from the vehicle, along with a plastic garbage bag, 14 prescriptions, two blood-soaked tissues, two bloody pages of the Centre Daily Times, and a small green notebook.
Nothing was recovered from the apartment.
Perryman’s boyfriend told police the shooting happened "sometime" after dark, which District Attorney Michael Madeira -- who is otherwise tight lipped about this investigation -- says is against state law.
"It is against the game laws in Pennsylvania to hunt after dark, and obviously for safety reasons, you can’t do that," Madeira said. "Anybody that’s a hunter knows that ... if you’ve heard the expression ’deer in the headlights look,’ that’s because the deer will stop and pause to see what’s going on. And when people hunt with lights at night or when they hunt at night it’s because deer are less leery of human presence."
Madeira said he won’t comment on suspects or leads because the investigation is ongoing. He said Wednesday that he reached out to investigators and has spoken to them at least twice.
Perryman’s boyfriend told police he had taken some medications that Saturday but denied drinking any alcohol.
Court papers say he told police he’d obtained the gun he used at about 3 p.m. that day. They do not say how he obtained the weapon.
In their search, police said they were looking for receipts or other materials that may help retrace the couple’s steps that day, or any writings that "may show the state of mind for either the man or Perryman," police wrote.
Based on the court paperwork, it appeared none were found.
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