Trial Update: Frein Admits to Shooting State Troopers

He took aim and squeezed his rifle's trigger again. Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II fell silent on the pavement outside of the Blooming Grove state police barracks.

Roughly seven weeks later, during an interrogation, Cpl. Benjamin Clark and Trooper Michael Mulvey leaned in and asked Eric Matthew Frein if he meant for the second bullet to put Dickson "out of his misery."

"That sounds horrible," Frein said, his face wrenched in anguish.

"It sounds horrible but it's true," one of the interrogators asked.

Frein didn't dispute it.

On Tuesday, the sixth day of Frein's capital murder trial, the 12 jurors and five alternates from Chester County watched the entirety of his three-hour interrogation at the barracks he was accused of attacking. The 33-year-old is charged with killing Dickson, 38, Dunmore, and wounding Alex T. Douglass, 34, Olyphant, on Sept. 12, 2014.

Poor sound and mumbled phrases that made the recording at times inaudible, Frein told the two troopers he had planned, executed and fled from the shooting alone. Captured on Oct. 30, 2014, he expressed remorse for the shooting that left two children without a father.

On the two television screens in Pike County Court, Frein cried at times during the recorded interrogation. At the defense table on Tuesday, he appeared dry eyed and silent. The jury watched with seemingly rapt attention. Some took notes.

As the interview played in the courtroom, tears glistened on the face of the slain trooper's widow, Tiffany Dickson. Frein's mother, Deborah Frein, wrote in her notebook.

Interview on tape

The post-capture recording started with state troopers leading Frein, in handcuffs, into the 9 1/2 by 9 1/2 foot room in the Blooming Grove station, feet from the hallway where troopers had covered Dickson's body with a yellow emergency blanket after the shooting.

Alone, Frein rocked back and forth, trying to get comfortable, and gazed at the floor. It was a little before 8:30 p.m.

Clark and Mulvey entered and took off Frein's handcuffs. A medic cleaned the cut on his nose.

"Obviously, we've got some things to talk about," Clark said.

Frein showed them on a map where he had stashed a rifle. The police thanked him for his help.

Then, Clark went through news coverage of the manhunt and Frein's portrayal to the public. Now it was just the three of them in a room, and they could set the record straight.

In response to the troopers' questions, Frein implicated himself several times. They tried to make him comfortable. They never raised their voices. Frein drank two cups of coffee and smoked three cigarettes.

"It's your story," Clark said as he rested his hand on Frein's knee.

Frein went to his parents' house the Tuesday before the shooting on the pretense of picking up a pair of boots. He wanted to say goodbye.

He picked the Blooming Grove station because the woods across the street provided good cover. He waited for a shot for about an hour before he fired at Dickson. Douglass walked up and Frein fired a shot at him before running back to his Jeep, which he parked on a trail by a lake.

Frein crashed his Jeep into a retention pond and, in a hurry, decided to dump one of his rifles. A few days later, he crossed Interstate 84 at night and headed south to a campsite he had set up near his parents' home in Monroe County.

Frein called home to let his parents know he was still alive. No one picked up. His mother was across the street with a neighbor, Clark told Frein.

The phone call sent a signal to a cell tower, giving investigators an idea as to where he might be. State police intensified their search on the area straddling Barrett and Price Twps. for the next several weeks. They found Frein's camp by the end of September, but Frein had already left for the abandoned Birchwood resort in Pocono Twp.

He watched for aircraft overhead and figured out their patterns to avoid detection. He believed if the state police found him, he'd be killed.

At the Birchwood hangar, he waited, eating food he stashed there. Sometimes, people would come by and he'd hide. Despite a number of people reporting they'd spotted him, no one actually had.

On Oct. 30, 2014, he ate dinner, smoked the last of his tobacco and went out to watch the sunset. U.S. Marshals came upon him at dusk.

"This is it," he thought. "Here they come."

Frein explained how he'd attacked the barracks, but had not explained why. Clark pressed him further.

Frein picked the targets at random. He could have killed Nicole Palmer, a dispatcher at the station that night, but didn't. Dickson and Douglass wore uniforms and Palmer wore a red sweatshirt. The fact she was a woman and a civilian stayed his hand, he told the troopers.

Frein was discontent with his life and described himself as a 31-year-old who lived with his parents and had no prospects for the future.

"I kind of had nothing to lose," he said at one point.

There had to be more, though, and their questioning led to Frein's dissatisfaction with the government.

"Eric, let it out and say it. It's weighing you down," Mulvey said. "We've been doing this a long time. We know when someone has something to say. Light a cigarette. Take a drag."

Frein described a former girlfriend, a police officer, and said she'd spent a week in training learning about the constitution and then the rest of her time learning how to tear it up.

People can vote to change the government but "there is no one to vote for."

Clark asked if shooting people could change that. Frein nodded.

"To wake people up," Mulvey suggested.

By the end, Frein thanked them for speaking with him. It was a little before midnight.

Defense response

After the trial had ended for the day, Frein's lawyers spoke about the interrogation, the admission of which remained a point of contention as lawyers prepared for the case over the last two-plus years.

"(The investigators) were skillful, they were well trained and they got what they were looking for," Frein's attorney, William Ruzzo said. "Cpl. Clark did a masterful job of asking leading questions."

Prior to the trial, Ruzzo and defense attorney Michael Weinstein argued it should be barred from trial on the grounds that Clark and Mulvey violated Frein's Miranda rights against self-incrimination. Frein did not sign a waiver of his rights and, though he agreed to tell them where he had buried a rifle, he said early on he did not want to discuss crimes beyond that.

Pike County Judge Gregory Chelak denied the defense motion to suppress the statement and then refused to allow an immediate appeal of his ruling, prompting Ruzzo to petition the state Superior Court to review Chelak's decision.

The higher court has not yet ruled.

During opening arguments, though, Weinstein alluded to the video and said that, while the prosecution will call Frein self-serving, he said his statements were candid.

"It will give you a chance to meet Eric," Weinstein told the jurors last week. "Give you a chance to see what his life is like."

On Tuesday, Weinstein said he's glad jurors saw the video. He believes his client's remorse shone through.

"I hope it does," Weinstein said. "I think there is legitimate remorse here and I think it will resonate."

Contact the writer: jkohut@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9144; @jkohutTT on Twitter

Trial at a glance

Tuesday: Prosecutors played the three-hour videotaped interrogation of Eric Matthew Frein from Oct. 30, 2014, the night he was captured.

In the video, Frein implicated himself numerous times in the Blooming Grove ambush, at one point admitting under questioning that he fired another round at Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II to end the wounded trooper's pain.

By the end, Frein admitted he shot the troopers because of a seeming dissatisfaction with life.

Afterward, Trooper Sean Doran of the state police Forensic Services Unit testified he collected Frein's DNA by swabbing his inner cheeks. Cpl. Robert McKee, a state police bomb technician, testified he searched the hangar where Frein stayed and found no explosives. Sgt. Michael Ruhf, state police K9 specialist, also searched it and did not find explosives, he testified.

Today: The prosecution is expected to call additional witnesses beginning at 9 a.m.

Charges

Eric Matthew Frein is charged with first-degree murder; first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer; attempted first-degree murder; attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer; assault of a law enforcement officer; two counts each of terrorism and possession of weapons of mass destruction; and one count each of recklessly endangering another person, discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure and possession of an instrument of crime.

Frein pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The Times-Tribune will update its coverage of the Eric Matthew Frein capital murder trial during trial breaks. Check www.thetimes-tribune.com and the newspaper's Facebook page for videos and the latest updates. For the newspaper's complete Frein trial coverage, visit www.thetimes-tribune.com/frein.

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