Stray bullet kills Pennsylvania man at Thanksgiving dinner
A man eating Thanksgiving dinner inside a home in the Philadelphia suburbs was killed by a stray bullet that pierced a window, authorities said.
The victim, Edilberto Miguel Palaez Moctezuma, 25, was shot in the torso just before 9:30 p.m., Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a press release issued Friday. He was flown to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
No one in the home was involved in the argument outside that apparently sparked the shooting, prosecutors said. The suspected gunman remains at large.
Suspect Kevon Clarke, 19, of Norristown, fired several shots in the area during a dispute with relatives over liquor that had gone missing from a gathering earlier in the day, officials said. He is named in a warrant charging him with first-degree murder, reckless endangerment and weapons offenses.
Steele described the victim as “an innocent man who wasn’t safe even in the confines of his own home.”
“Mr. Palaez Moctezuma was murdered while eating Thanksgiving dinner inside his home, and to be clear, he and his family were not involved in the dispute," he said in the release.
Police said that surveillance videos and an analysis of the bullet hole helped them determine that the bullet had came from Clarke’s location. They also hope to speak with two other men seen running from the scene.
A phone number for Clarke could not be found on Friday.