A Pennsylvania man wearing a “Scream” mask killed his neighbor using a knife and chainsaw — and then went home to watch a movie, according to authorities.
Zak Moyer is facing one count of homicide in connection with the slaying of his 59-year-old neighbor, Edward Whitehead Jr., NBC 10 reported. Police said the pair got into an argument before the deadly violence and that Moyer returned not long after, armed and in costume.
“The suspect was wearing an all-black outfit, consisting of a mask of the ‘Scream’ character from a movie from a few years ago,” Pennsylvania state trooper Anthony Petroski told reporters Thursday.
Police found Whitehead Jr. inside his home in Lehighton on Monday with grisly wounds to his head and arm as well as defensive wounds to his hands. Petroski told WFMZ he was “struck multiple times with a knife and a battery-operated chainsaw.”
Whitehead was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital -Carbon campus, where he later died from his injuries.
Authorities quickly identified Moyer as a suspect after he was spotted on surveillance video exiting Whitehead’s home through the back door and then returning to his own home, which is right next door. From there, officers established a perimeter around the residence, where Moyer was enjoying a movie at the time.
Police said the suspect eventually started communicating with them through notes scrawled on notebook paper.
“Ed murdered women and kids. Eddie Junior murdered women and kids last summer,” one allegedly read.
Petroski said the claims are “not something we are looking into.”
Moyer, sporting a red hoodie rather than his “Scream” costume, eventually surrendered to authorities and confessed to the killing. His sister also later told police Moyer had mentioned murdering his neighbor a week before the it actually occurred.
Whitehead’s niece, Megan Bernosky, called the slaying “mind-numbing.”
“I don’t think anybody has truly had it all sit in at this point,” she told WNEP. “What actually occurred and what happened it’s been horrible.”
Moyer has since been arraigned and is being held in the Carbon County jail. A day after the slaying, his father, Francis, was arrested for harassing Whitehead’s family.