Hempfield man sentenced to serve up to 20 years after pleading guilty to fatal shooting in Forest County

A 37-year-old Hempfield man will serve up to 20 years in a state prison after pleading guilty Monday to shooting and killing a man outside a Forest County hotel in 2020 during a confrontation over a woman.

Richard M. Gardner Jr., 37, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in connection with the May 22 shooting at the Kelly Hotel in Marienville, just off Route 66. A criminal homicide charge was dropped as part of the plea.

Forest County President Judge Maureen A. Skerda sentenced Gardner to serve a sentence of 72 months to 20 years in prison at a state prison after accepting the guilty plea. He was also ordered to pay the costs of prosecution, $2,000 in fines, plus $795 in restitution, according to the prothonotary’s office.

Witnesses told state police they saw Gardner waiting in his pickup truck outside his girlfriend Renee Michelle Gordon’s apartment at the hotel on the evening of the shooting.

When Gordon arrived with a former boyfriend, Brian J. Schill, 35, of Tionesta, witnesses told investigators Gardner confronted the pair, pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot Schill, Trooper Joshua Thorpe said in court documents.

Another tenant told investigators he saw Gardner at the hotel at 7:30 p.m., just hours before the shooting, knocking on Gordon’s apartment door without anyone answering. The witness said Gardner then moved his truck “to a tree line … across from the hotel” and waited.

Around midnight, the witness told police he heard two gunshots, looked out his window and saw Gardner and Gordon there “and a body lying in the parking lot.”

Gordon told police she met Gardner in February 2020 through an online dating service. She told troopers she dated Schill for four years before meeting Gardner but planned to reconcile.

“Gordon further stated that she was surprised that Gardner had driven up (from Hempfield) to see her. She said she was planning to end her relationship with Gardner and had been communicating with him less the last week,” Thorpe wrote in a police report on the shooting.

Gardner was among those who called 911 to report the shooting and told an emergency dispatcher that the shooting was in self-defense.

He attended Connellsville High School and has no prior criminal record, according to online dockets.

Police arrested Gardner at the scene and seized a 9 mm handgun believed to have been used in the shooting and was lying on the ground near Schill’s body. Police also collected two spent shell casings, Thorpe reported.

Greensburg attorney Brian Aston represented Gardner. Aston could not be reached for comment.