Halloween is back on in eastern Pennsylvania after suspected cop killer Eric Frein was captured Thursday.
Frein, 31, was held in Pike County awaiting arraignment Thursday night on numerous charges, including first-degree murder, homicide of a law enforcement officer, attempted murder and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Barrett Township — just 10 miles from Blooming Grove, where Frein is accused of having killed a State Police corporal and wounded a second trooper in an ambush Sept. 12 — canceled all Halloween activities earlier this month as the manhunt for Frein wore on. But after Frein was captured Thursday, on the 48th day of the search, police said trick-or-treating could go ahead Friday.
It wasn’t yet clear whether the town’s Halloween parade, which was supposed to have been Tuesday, or its Scarecrow Race, planned for Friday, were back on the schedule, NBC Philadelphia reported.
“Trick-or-treating is on tomorrow night from 6 to 8 in Barrett Township,” Ralph Megliola, chairman of the township’s Board of Supervisors, said Thursday night. “We as a town think the kids have gone through enough.”
Like others who’d been on edge while local, state and federal law enforcement agencies scoured the countryside for Frein — a survivalist and master marksman described as “extremely dangerous” — Megliola said he was happy the ordeal was over.
“No police were hurt. Nobody else was hurt. He didn’t take any more lives. He didn’t shoot anybody else, from what I understand,” Megliola told The Associated Press. “That’s the best scenario.”
“We are so excited. We are so excited,” Annie Grill, who was celebrating at the Pour House Bar and Restaurant in Barrett Township, told NBC station WBRE of Wilkes-Barre. “We had to come out.”
Elisabeth Pipolo, the restaurant’s co-owner, welcomed the business, which had plummeted over the last seven weeks as helicopters roared overhead and investigators searched homes.
During the siege, she told WBRE, “there was no last call because people were leaving, and they didn’t want to be out late at night.”
Law enforcement officers were especially relieved.
“I’m happy he’s in custody,” Bethlehem Police Chief Mark DiLuzio, whose officers joined the search, told The Express-Times newspaper of Easton. “I hope to God nobody else was hurt, and I’m happy he’s in custody.”
M. Johnson