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Attempted Murder, Suicide in Sunbury

SUNBURY — A woman was wounded and a man is dead after a shooting in Northumberland County. Officers were called to a reported shooting around 8 a.m. Frida...

SUNBURY -- A woman was wounded and a man is dead after a shooting in Northumberland County.

Officers were called to a reported shooting around 8 a.m. Friday at an office complex on North Third Street in Sunbury.

"All of a sudden there was gunfire and I was like what happened? Normally, we hear that stuff around here, but that was a louder bang so it sounded closer," said Charity Miller of Sunbury.

Police in Sunbury tell us the victims are a husband and wife who were going through a divorce. The woman was headed into work when her estranged husband came up to her car in a parking lot and shot her in the shoulder while she was still in her car. He then turned the gun on himself. The woman is recovering. Her husband died.

The Northumberland County coroner identified the husband as Charles H. Bechtel, 56, of Millerstown.

"It's amazing that this would happen in the open like this, you know? Usually something like this happens inside," said Marion Carter of Sunbury.

Carter found out about the shooting on his way into the post office. It's just across the street from the parking lot where the shooting happened.

"I didn't know anything until I pulled up here," Carter said.

Jason Marks works at Totem Tags just across the street.

"Every time there's a shooting or stabbing in Sunbury, I can't wrap my head around it. To me, growing up here that's not our community. That's not what happens," Marks said.

With several people headed to work at the time of the shooting, he's glad it wasn't worse.

"Especially nowadays, you hear shootings all the time and this is, it shouldn't happen. It's a tragic event, but at least it was contained. It was two people instead of multiple people because they all go in together, and they all go into work at the same time, and if he wanted to he could have shot a bunch of them before he turned the gun on himself," Marks added.

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