Man on trial for murder of wife, step-daughter

UPDATE: Fulton County District Attorney Travis Kendall said he announced during jury selection on Jan. 19 that the case would no longer be a death-penalty case. However, the change was not reflected in the online court record at the time of our reporting. 

MCCONNELLSBURG - For the first time in almost 20 years, a death-penalty case is going to trial in Pennsylvania's 39th judicial district, this time out of Fulton County.

Anthony Lyn Hollenshead, 36, will be tried on two counts of criminal homicide starting Monday. Fulton County District Attorney Travis Kendall filed notice of "aggravating circumstances" in July 2015, making the case a death-penalty case.

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Pennsylvania's 39th District, which includes Franklin and Fulton counties, has only seen two death-penalty cases in the last 25 years. Both came out of Franklin County, for homicides committed in the 1990s.

Hollenshead is accused of fatally shooting his wife and daughter, Laura Hollenshead and Jaedi Weed, respectively, with a 20-gauge shotgun at around midnight May 5, 2015, according to police.

Both women were found in front of their home in the 1200 block of Great Cove Road, in Big Cove Tannery.

During Hollenshead's preliminary hearing, troopers testified to the scene they found upon being called to the home. Two girls, related but not identified by police, were home during the shooting.

Hollenshead allegedly admitted to police to shooting his wife and daughter, saying it happened after an argument, according to court documents.

Hollenshead was not at the home when police arrived, having fled, but later peacefully surrendered, according to police.

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Hollenshead was being held at Bedford County Jail while awaiting trial, according to online court records. He was denied bail after being charged with first-degree homicide.

The only other cases that involved the death penalty in the district in the last 10 years were for Jeffrey Miles, Kevin Cleeves and Carl Varner. In each case, the death penalty was taken off the table before the cases went to trial. 

Cleeves took a plea to first-degree murder in the 2012 deaths of his estranged wife, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's mother, to avoid the death penalty. Miles and Varner had the notice of aggravating circumstances withdrawn before their cases went to trial, but were both convicted of murder and are serving life sentences. Miles was convicted in 2013 and 2014, respectively, of the murders years earlier of Kristy Dawn Hoke and Angie Daley, while Varner was convicted with Jason Shauf in the 2012 death of Victor Hugo Campos-Olguin 

Fulton County currently has no inmates on death row, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered a "moratorium" on death-penalty cases in 2015, declaring that the system was flawed and needed to be addressed before death sentences could be carried out.

No cases in the 39th district, aside from Hollenshead, have been filed as death-penalty cases since the moratorium. 

Becky Metrick, 717-262-4762