A couple found dead, a son charged with murder: Family members express love, forgiveness

John Fountain wasn’t a perfect man. But he was a Christian man. 

In his 74 years, he made his share of mistakes, his family says. Who doesn’t? But he had a big heart, and though he never had a lot, he was a generous man. He loved his family – and he had a big family – and would do anything for them. 

He did his share of hard living when he was younger. He had an affinity for gin and, as a migrant worker in his younger days, he had done his share of rambling, following the crops from south Florida to the Carolinas and to Pennsylvania.  

He was a big man; they called him “Big John,” with calloused, strong hands serving as evidence of a hard life of hard work. One of his sons said when he shook your hand, it stayed shook, you could feel his strength, and his warmth. His kids called him, simply, “Pop.” 

As a Christian man, a man who loved Jesus, he knew that forgiving another for a trespass was the greatest thing a person could do. Jesus forgave the men who were to put him to death. Forgiving was something that demonstrated your faith, and your love of Jesus. 

His family believes, now, that he would forgive his son Levar for his trespasses. They believe it like they believe the sun rises in the east. 

They have no way of knowing, though.  

On Dec. 19, according to the York City police and a sworn criminal complaint containing Levar’s confession, Levar, 38, killed his father and his second wife, Mary.  

John’s family forgives Levar. It wasn’t him. The demons in his troubled and ill psyche led to the deaths of his father and his step-mother that terrible night.  

“In my heart,” Levar’s younger brother Tim said, “I know my dad would forgive my brother, because he was sick. It’s a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. We are all in pain.” 

Levar’s mother, John’s first wife, said, “Big John would have forgiven him. He would have loved him.” 

'He was just a big ole woolly bear' 

John Autry Fountain was born on March 10, 1945, in Evergreen, Alabama, a tiny town of maybe 3,700 in the deepest of the deep South in the southwest corner of the state, close to the Florida Panhandle. (His middle name came from his mother, who was a big fan of Westerns and the singing cowboy, Gene Autry.)  

His ancestors had been slaves, and when they were emancipated after the Civil War, they acquired some land and began farming. His parents worked the farm, and as was the custom at the time, they had a large family. John was one of James and Annie Jay Fountain’s 12 children, and when he was just a child, he was pulled out of school and worked the farm. That’s what they did back then, his son reasoned. 

He never got past the sixth grade and hadn’t learned to read. He later told his family that he eventually learned to read by studying the Bible while in the penitentiary in Florida, serving life for a murder he didn’t commit and was later exonerated of. (Florida court records indicate that he had served six months in jail on a charge of aggravated battery.) 

But he knew how to work hard to provide for your family. That’s what you did, work the land, and it provided a living. 

He left home early, though. His grandfather was a mean man, John had recalled to his family, driving his kids and grandchildren like the men who had formerly owned his ancestors.   

John rambled through the South, working as a migrant farmhand, settling in Florida and following the harvests – working the seasons, as they called it – from the cane fields in south Florida to the orange groves and watermelon farms north.  

He met his first wife, Marcia, in Florida. She was originally from Massachusetts and had traveled to Florida with her mother when she was a teenager. She wound up staying and got a job working in the watermelon fields.  

One night, some friends took her to a bar somewhere in central Florida, where they had migrated to work in the orange groves during the winter. That was where she first set eyes on Big John. He walked into the bar wearing a baby blue suit pinstriped in gold, a blue and yellow shirt and a baby blue tie. Her first thought, she recalled, was “I’m going to marry that man.”

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She didn’t see him again for more than a year. On July 24, 1979, the day she turned 21, her friends took her to another bar, and John was there. She said, “You ain’t getting away from me this time.”  

Their first child was born less than a year later. Another son followed shortly after, Levar, born Feb. 6, 1981, while they were living in Clewiston, Florida, on the south bank of Lake Okeechobee, where they were working cutting sugar cane. (John loved sugar cane. He’d cut off a piece and chew it, savoring its sweetness.) 

Levar was a sickly child, his mother said. He had pneumonia three times before his first birthday. They had another child, and another, and over the years, they would have 10 children -- eight sons and two daughters.   

Around that time, the Fountains lived in a small, two-bedroom, cold-water flat in Clewiston. John was always bringing people home, whether they be fellow migrant workers or just some guy he spotted walking along the highway.  

One year, when work dried up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he brought about 40 migrants home. They slept on the floor and pitched tents in the yard. Marcia was a bit upset. But John told her, “They don’t have any place to go. They aren’t getting paid. We can do this.” He was convinced it was the right thing to do.  

Marcia and John cooked a huge Christmas dinner – turkey, ham, greens, macaroni and cheese and cornbread. “Everybody ate,” Marcia said. 

“That was Big John,” she said. “He was hard as nails, but deep down, he was just a big ole woolly bear.” 

Life wasn't easy

John continued to work, following the growing seasons from south to north as the weather grew colder. His children, in the summer, often worked with him, tossing watermelons onto the back of his truck as it idled through a patch. It worked like a bucket brigade.

John would cut the melon’s stem, and one kid would throw it to another, and then another, and then to another stationed in the back of the truck. His children learned to drive when they were 5 or 6 years old, they said. They were too small to toss watermelons, so they had to pitch in by sitting behind the wheel and guiding the truck through the patch. 

It was a tough life. In the winter of ‘84, the family was living in a van, trying to get to northern Florida for orange season. It happened a lot in those years. Money was hard to come by, and the family traveled a lot, rarely settling down in any one place for very long.

Marcia was tiring of the lifestyle. She had grown up in a military home and spent much of her youth traveling from base to base as her father was transferred around the country. She never really wanted that lifestyle and vowed to settle down. 

Her mother, who was living in York, Pa., then, heard the family was living in a van and traveled south to deliver an ultimatum. There was no way her daughter and grandchildren were going to continue to live in a van. She told John that she was taking her daughter and grandchildren home with her, and that was that. If he wanted to come along, he could. 

Family moves to York

So, in early January 1985, the family moved to York, settling in a home on East Princess Street. John worked a number of jobs. He picked fruit, which he would then sell out of the back of his truck at the corner of College Avenue and Penn Street. Sometimes, he’d take produce into the Penn Street farmer’s market, selling to vendors there or trading for groceries. 

It seemed things had become more sedate. But John and Marcia’s marriage was damaged. John had fathered a child with another woman, a woman named Mary Blankenship, whom he had met while picking apples in Adams County. That wasn’t the only reason for the marriage’s dissolution. Marcia said there was plenty of blame to go around. 

After the divorce, John married Mary. They eventually settled on Wallace Street, and Marcia said they liked to spend time in the backyard, when it was quiet, studying the Bible together.  

John, she said, liked the peace. 

Marcia and her ex-husband and his new wife became friends. They would go to church together. There was no need for bad feelings. John and Mary were family, she said.  

And, she said, “You don’t turn your back on family.” 

Levar's history of mental illness 

Levar lived with John and Mary toward the end. 

Levar had had his difficulties. It really began when he was about 17. His mother, who was working for Bell Socialization Services at the time and was familiar with people suffering from mental health problems, noticed little things about her son. She could tell that something was wrong. 

When he was 21, he suddenly quit his job as a cook at Old Country Buffet, which was a surprise to his mother. He liked the job and was good at it, she said. He had been supporting himself, living in a house on Penn Street. One of his bosses called Marcia and told her that Levar was having problems, talking to himself and refusing to eat, his clothes hanging on his slim frame. 

She tried calling him the day before his birthday. He didn’t answer. She tried the following day, calling repeatedly throughout the day. He didn’t pick up. 

Marcia called John and told him, “I need you to go over to Levar’s house and check on him.” 

John went and knocked on the door. No answer. The door was locked. He called Marcia and she told him she knew he was in there and that he had to get in to check to see whether he was OK. John returned to his son’s house and broke the door down. The door appeared to have been barricaded. He found Levar in the kitchen. He was barely alive. 

John took his son to the hospital, where he was immediately sent to the Intensive Care Unit. He was severely dehydrated and malnourished. He hadn’t eaten anything in Lord knows how long. He weighed a mere 89 pounds. The doctor told his parents that had John not rescued Levar, their son would have died.  

Levar spent 10 days in ICU before being transferred to Three-Northeast, York Hospital’s psychiatric unit.  

His younger brother Tim visited every day. Tim was close to Levar. He recalled how previously they would frequently ride their bikes out to the former West Manchester Mall and spend the day playing video games at the arcade there.

Sometimes, they’d go to the movies and just hang out. At the end of the day, if Levar had any money left, he would throw it into the air at the arcade. Tim asked why he did that, and he said, “Other people need it more than I do.” 

He wasn't reliable with his meds

Tim hurt for his brother, visiting him in the psychiatric ward. Levar wouldn’t let anyone touch him. He refused to eat. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, except Tim and his mother. Marcia would hold him and get him to eat something and to bathe.  

He eventually got out of the hospital and was put on medication to treat what was diagnosed as schizophrenia. But he wasn’t reliable when it came to taking his meds, his family said. And when he was, he was sometimes combining his medications with alcohol and weed.  

Once, he returned to the hospital after going off his meds. He was in a catatonic state. He described it to his mother as being in a box filled with cement up to his face. He couldn’t move anything. 

His mother could always tell when he wasn’t taking his meds. He had a look, she said, one that sent a shiver down her spine. She would tell him, “If you don’t take your medication and give me that look, I’m going to knock you out, and you’re going to wake up in Three-Northeast.” 

For some years, he got worse. He would walk around town, talking to himself. People were afraid of him, his mother said. She’d tell them that he was harmless.  

As long as he took his meds, he was OK. The past year or so, he had moved into his father’s house on Wallace Street and seemed to be doing pretty well. 

Tim talked to Levar about two or three months ago. (Tim lives near Seattle where he works as a digital design trainer for Amazon.) They talked about old times and TV shows and video games.  

That was the last time Tim talked to his big brother. 

'He showed no emotions and asked no questions' 

On Dec. 21, Marcia became concerned that she hadn’t heard from John for a few days. That wasn’t like him. She wanted someone to check on him.  

One of her children went to John’s house and found a note taped to the front door that said, “We’ve moved back to Florida.”  

That was very strange. John hadn’t spoken about moving back to Florida, and if he were planning to do that, he would have told someone. Marcia checked with family in Florida and none of them had heard from John either.  

One of her sons kicked the door in. The house was in disarray. There was blood on the walls and on the steps leading to the second floor.  

When family members checked the house, they found John and Mary in the basement, dead, their bodies covered with a sheet. The bodies of their dogs were nearby. John was 74. Mary was 65.

Levar, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case, came downstairs, telling family members that he had been asleep for the past three days and didn’t know what was going on. They noticed dried blood on his sneakers and jeans. When they went to his bedroom, family members said, they saw that he had covered the walls with different symbols. 

Levar was taken to the police station where he was questioned by a pair of detectives. He told them that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and when he doesn’t take his medication, his anxiety flares up. He also said he sleeps for days at a time and tires easily. He told the detectives that he was a loner and his only friend is his dog. 

The detectives told him that his father and step-mother had been murdered. “He showed no emotions and asked no questions,” Detective Andy Baez wrote in the criminal complaint. 

They asked him if he knew what Miranda was and whether he had ever been Mirandized. He began reciting the Miranda warning. The detective said he was going to Mirandize him so he could ask him more direct questions about the murders and his possible involvement.

Levar began to answer questions but cut it off, saying he didn’t like the questions he was being asked. He asked one of the detectives to help him and take him to Crisis Intervention. 

The detectives left the interview room to give Levar some time to relax. When they reentered the room, they told Levar he was still under Miranda and could be given an attorney. Levar said he understood and began to talk.  

He told the detectives he had killed his father and step-mother using a sword that he had in his room. After killing them, he told the detectives, he moved their bodies to the basement and covered them with a sheet. He said he also killed their dogs “as they were known as ‘GOD’ but spelled backwards, which made them lower class dragons and they had to be killed,” Baez wrote in the complaint. 

He then told the detectives he wrote the note, taped it to the front door and retreated to his room, where he stayed for three days. 

Levar was charged with two counts of criminal homicide and placed in York County Prison without bail. 

'That wasn't him'  

Marcia said, “His father wasn’t afraid of him. Mary wasn’t afraid of him. They wanted to make sure he was OK. He just needed more than they could give him.” 

The weeks since John and Mary’s murder and Levar’s arrest have been “horrific,’ Marcia said. She takes comfort in her faith, that something good will come of this horror. “What is the purpose?” she said. “It’s not for me to understand. Something good will happen out of this. We just don’t know what it is.” 

It may be that her son gets proper treatment for his mental illness, or that others suffering from similar maladies and their families will be able to get the help they need. 

The family isn’t about to turn its back on Levar.  

“I love my brother,” Tim said. “This was a product of his mental illness, the disease he suffers from. What he did doesn’t make me hate him. That wasn’t him.” 

Marcia said, “My son, he was sick. He needs to be in a place where he gets taken care of properly. He doesn’t need to be in prison.” 

Marcia is heartbroken over John’s death. “He was my husband at one time. He’s the father of my children. He was my friend,” she said. 

“Big John would not hate anything about his son. He would have forgiven him. He would have loved him. His father would have kept loving him no matter what.”