State Trooper Phil Dern testified Tuesday he believes it is clear that a man took his own life at a Hempfield apartment in 2021 because he repeatedly was told to do so by his former girlfriend, Mandie R. Reusch.
Dern said the man posted messages he received from Reusch, 35, of South Greensburg on his Facebook page. The messages urged the man to kill himself, and he sent those messages to a friend in the hours before he took his own life June 18, 2021.
“I believe that is definitely what his intent was as to why he did it,” Dern said during Reusch’s preliminary hearing.
A felony charge of aiding suicide against Reusch was held for court. District Judge Rebecca C. Tyburski dismissed a harassment count.
She ruled prosecutors showed the last harassing message Reusch sent her former boyfriend, 37, was in early May 2021, making the misdemeanor charge — filed June 13 — outside of the two-year statute of limitations. But Tyburski rejected the same defense argument for the aiding suicide charge because testimony showed the pair had contact until the man’s death.
Reusch was arrested June 13 because, police said, graphic messages she sent by cellphone to her former boyfriend in 2020 and 2021 led to the Greensburg man’s death. She lived in Irwin at the time. The pair previously were in a relationship and have a child together.
While on the witness stand, Dern read explicit messages that, police say, Reusch sent the man while members of both of their families listened in the courtroom. Messages related to suicide from Reusch to the man started in at least June 2020 and continued until May 2021, he said.
“I hope you die,” Reusch wrote to her former boyfriend May 4, 2021, Dern testified. “There was multiple messages, her telling him to kill himself.”
In some of the messages in May 2021, police say, Reusch told the man he would not get to spent Father’s Day with their child and added that the child had a “new dad.” She often communicated wanting money and referred to a $250,000 life insurance policy.
“Enjoy not being a dad any more because you don’t appreciate your daughter’s mom,” Dern testified that Reusch wrote.
Sometimes, she would apologize and say she loved her former boyfriend, Dern said. But the harassing conversation would start back up. As the messages were received and months passed, the man began sending screenshots of her previous communication back to Reusch, police say.
“He made multiple comments to her via text message: ‘You keep telling me to kill myself, you want me to die,'” Dern testified.
The man reported the messages to Irwin police in May, and they filed a harassment citation against Reusch. Borough Officer Eric Ziska testified the man appeared to be upset and distraught over the situation.
“Emotionally, he was torn about doing anything to his child’s mother,” Ziska said.
The citation was withdrawn after the man’s death.
Defense attorney Phil DiLucente said he and co-council Timothy Lyon plan to file motions in hopes of getting the aiding suicide charge thrown out.
“We’re really going to argue this case in a court of law, and there’s always two sides to a story,” DiLucente said.
Reusch is free on $150,000 bail.