Eric Frein

Eric Matthew Frein (born May 3, 1983) is an American domestic terrorist and murderer, convicted and sentenced to death for the 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack in which he shot and killed one State Trooper, and seriously injured another.

A letter to his parents made it clear that he hoped to spark a revolution by his actions.

Eric Matthew Frein was born on May 3, 1983, in New Jersey.

He attended Pocono Mountain High School in Pennsylvania, where he was a top scorer on the school's rifle team.

Police described Frein as a "self-taught survivalist" with a grudge against law enforcement personnel.

A report on Frein cited his friends saying that, as an Eagle Scout, he was repudiated by the chief executive officer of the Boy Scouts of America Minsi Trails Council at the time, where Frein had worked.

Frein also worked at a Lewis' supermarket.

Frein attended East Stroudsburg University for one semester.

He also attended Northampton Community College (the Bethlehem Township campus and the Monroe County campus) as a chemistry major.

Three days after the shootings, a man walking his dog found a suspicious looking 2001 Jeep Cherokee partially submerged in a retaining pond or drainage basin in a swamp near the intersection of Pennsylvania Route 402 and U.S. Route 6, approximately 2 mi away from the crime scene.

The vehicle was determined to belong to Frein's parents and evidence found in the vehicle included Frein's Social Security card, information about foreign embassies, camouflage paint, and bullet casings matched to the shooting.

This led authorities to identify Frein as their only suspect.

In 2004, Frein was charged with burglary and grand larceny after he was accused of stealing items from vendors at a World War II reenactment in Odessa, New York.

He failed to attend his trial and was arrested in Pennsylvania as a fugitive from justice.

In lieu of $5,000 bail, Frein was held for 109 days in a county jail in New York on a felony charge before pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possession of stolen property to be sentenced to time served and payment of $3,120 restitution.

In 2008, Frein founded Istočni Vuk (meaning "Eastern Wolf" in Serbo-Croatian) whose Myspace page pictured Frein engaged in recreational military simulations dressed in an Army of Republika Srpska uniform.

Though he reenacted in a variety of roles, Frein preferred to portray Bosnian Serb soldiers.

Fellow reenactors believed this was not based on ideology, but the way that the ragtag look of an ex-Yugoslav field jacket stood out from others.

Pennsylvania State Police also believe that Frein made several trips to Southeast Europe.

The Eastern Wolves were one of several groups competing in "tacticals" under the umbrella organization "Red Alliance", using replica airsoft rifles with plastic BBs.

Frein was viewed as a serious reenactor with a deep knowledge of history; he was meticulous in many details, such as uniforms, but not overly obsessive in others—once even choosing a cheaper Chinese-made replica airsoft rifle over one made in Yugoslavia.

Although he looked down on casual participants playing "cowboys and Indians", he was reported to have a sense of humor.

Frein's reenactment landed him several jobs in the film industry.

He played a non-speaking role in Lustig, a 16-minute anti-Nazi film where he portrayed a German soldier at Auschwitz.

In 2009, he gave technical direction in a World War I documentary being made by Jeremiah Hornbaker, who later offered him several other jobs that he turned down.

After being identified as a suspect three days after the shooting, Frein was the target of an extensive manhunt before being captured on the night of October 30, 2014, at an abandoned airport 48 days after the attack.

In July 2014, Frein told Hornbaker, friends, and parents that he was moving to Delaware to work at a chemical company.

Police speculate that he might have taken this time to make the preparations that later would allow him to survive and evade capture.

At the time of the attack on the state troopers, Frein was living with his parents at their home in Canadensis in Barrett Township, Pennsylvania.

During a shift change late at night on September 12, 2014, outside the Trooper barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police in the Pocono Mountains in the Township of Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania, Frein opened fire with a .308-caliber rifle, killing Corporal Bryon K. Dickson II, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania State Police Trooper, and seriously wounding Trooper Alex Douglass.

On September 16, 2014, a criminal complaint against Frein was docketed in the U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the court issued an arrest warrant the next day.

Authorities speculated that Frein, driving with his lights off on Pennsylvania Route 402, had failed to see a T-junction, lost control of the car, and drove into the swamp, and then may have traveled 15 to 20 mi on foot to Canadensis, Pennsylvania, where his parents live.

The police manhunt grew from nearly 200 officers by September 17 to 400 officers by September 22 to nearly 1,000 on September 24.

Law enforcement officers included local police, state police forces from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as well as FBI, U.S. Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Though tracking dogs were regarded as a valuable tool, particularly on damp, calm days when scent dissipates most slowly, Frein successfully evaded them using "water crossings and terrain conditions."

Equipment included numerous police vehicles, particularly armored BearCats.

The FBI displayed Frein's image and the number of a state police hotline using hundreds of digital billboards in Pennsylvania and five other states.

The total cost of the manhunt came to $11.9 million.

Police believed they saw Frein several times during the manhunt, but each time were unable to approach directly due to the rugged terrain of the area, which allowed Frein to slip away.

He was convicted of the ambush in 2017 and sentenced to death.