Crime & Safety

Man Charged in Schuylkill Township Shooting

John McCaffrey, 46, allegedly shot a man in his Quarry Lane home on Friday.

One man ended up in intensive care and another is in jail on $750,000 bail following an alleged shooting in a home on Valley Forge Mountain on Friday.

Schuylkill Township Police arrived on scene in the 1700 block of Quarry Lane at 1:13 a.m. on Sept. 2 for a shooting. Officer James Hennessey met a woman in the house who directed him down to the lower level.

At the foot of the stairs, Hennessey wrote in a criminal complaint that he saw the victim, a male, on a bloodied carpet with a trail of blood leading from an adjacent room. Another man was cradling the victim.

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Though conscious at the time, the victim couldn’t answer questions, according to police. The man who was cradling the victim was identified as John McCaffrey, 46, who lives in the home. McCaffrey told police he wasn’t sure what happened, Hennessey wrote in the criminal complaint.

A corporal on scene then asked McCaffrey who shot the victim, and, according to police, he replied, “I don’t know how it happened … I love him.”

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In the adjacent room where the blood trail led, police reported seeing a Lugar pistol, broken glass, blood stains and wine bottles on the floor. Emergency personnel reportedly told police that the victim was shot twice in the back.

When questioned further by a detective from Tredyffrin Township, McCaffrey told the detective he had four to five glasses of wine and that he is on prescription pills. McCaffrey told police he may have taken a valium a few hours before the alleged shooting, according to the criminal complaint.

“He further stated that he didn’t know how [the victim] got hurt, and when the gun went off he doesn’t remember having it,” according to the criminal complaint.

The detective also questioned the woman at the house. She allegedly told police she had one beer with McCaffrey, the victim and another man before going upstairs at approximately 8:15 p.m. on Sept. 1. The third male left the home at approximately 9:30 p.m. The woman went to bed an hour later, and was awakened at 1 a.m. by McCaffrey, according to the criminal complaint.

“[The woman] stated that McCaffrey came upstairs to use the bathroom and she said ‘hi’ to him,” the complaint states. “[Then], approximately five to 10 minutes later McCaffrey came back up into the bedroom and got a Lugar pistol from a bedside table.”

The woman told police she knew the gun was loaded because McCaffrey told her that it was previously. Five to 10 minutes after McCaffrey retrieved the pistol, the woman allegedly told police she heard a single gunshot.

The victim was transported to the trauma unit at Paoli Hospital where he was admitted to intensive care. His injuries reportedly included a skull fracture, a broken rib, a collapsed lung, a fractured jaw and a laceration to the leg.

“Due to the nature and location of the victim’s injuries and the path of the gunshot wound it is improbable that any of these injuries were self-inflicted,” Hennessey wrote in the criminal complaint.

Police arrested McCaffrey and charged him with two counts of aggravated assault, attempted homicide, simple assault, attempted simple assault, possessing an instrument of crime and reckless endangerment. He was arraigned and sent to Chester County Prison with bail set at $750,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 8 at 10 a.m. in district court. 


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