Suspect in Rte. 422 shooting found dead

After an evacuation of a couple of hours, residents of Ruby Circle in Gilbertsville returned home late Thursday afternoon to the news that a manhunt for their neighbor John A. Yannarell, who faced charges in three violent road-rage incidents, had ended with his apparent suicide.

"There doesn't appear to be any foul play," Kevin R. Steele, Montgomery County first assistant district attorney, said in response to repeated questions about reports that Yannarell had shot himself. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

Members of the Chester Montgomery Emergency Response Team found Yannarell's body in his bedroom, Steele said. The team had arrived to serve a search warrant focused on weapons, he said.

Yannarell was a no-show Thursday at a 10 a.m. preliminary hearing on a charge of attempted murder related to the April 9 shooting of a fellow commuter on Route 422. Steele said Yannarell's neighborhood was evacuated - interrupting trash pick-up and school bus dropoffs - as a precaution.

A broken second-floor window of Yannarell's tidy white stucco house showed where police had thrown tear gas canisters after finding the bedroom locked.

Yannarell's attorney, Saul Jay Solomon, said he last spoke to his client by phone at 6 p.m. Wednesday and told him he faced new charges in two other road-rage cases.

"I told him they were trying to paint a portrait of a serial rage driver," Solomon said, adding that he told Yannarell he wasn't sure investigators "could connect the dots."

He said Yannarell, who was divorced and had a 17-year-old daughter, sounded distraught about the new accusations as well as the possibility of having to put up more bail money. Still, Solomon said, he had expected Yannarell to show up for the preliminary hearing.

Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney John N. Gradel was not as surprised by his non-appearance. "It's my opinion that he's a cornered rat right now," he said after Yannarell failed to show up for court.

Gradel had replaced the April 9 criminal complaint with one detailing three incidents. He said he had intended to seek a bail increase for Yannarell, who was released after posting 10 percent of $500,000 bail.

He said that authorities confiscated the gun Yannarell allegedly used in the April 9 shooting but that investigators had recently learned he had at least one other.

According to the new complaint, in September, Brian Ruoss of Gilbertsville was driving to work at 6 a.m. in the left lane on Route 422 near the Sanatoga interchange when the driver of a silver Buick Lucerne came up behind him and flashed his lights. The Buick driver then passed Ruoss and cut in front of him. Ruoss read the tag number to his passenger, who wrote it down.

Seconds later, the Buick driver got behind a dark-colored Saab and again flashed his headlights before cutting in front of it and jamming on the brakes. Ruoss and the driver of the Saab narrowly averted crashing.

Just before the Country Club exit off 422, Ruoss saw Yannarell slow to about 65 m.p.h. to allow the Saab to get alongside him. Ruoss said Yannarell then tossed a bottle of Gatorade at the Saab.

On Jan. 26, William Kiefer 3d reported that he was trying to merge into the right lane while traveling north on Route 100 in Upper Pottsgrove Township. When he changed lanes, the driver of a silver car sped up behind him and began tailgating. Kiefer said he tapped his brakes and the driver passed him on the left, drew a gun, and fired out the passenger-side window.

Kiefer said at the sight of the gun he ducked but he saw the muzzle flash and heard glass break. He was talking on a cell phone to his son, who told police he heard his father "scream an expletive and then heard a noise that sounded like two bricks clapping together." Kiefer was not injured.

On April 13, Kiefer picked Yannarell - who had been charged in the April 9 shooting of Elizabeth Cox of Pottstown - out of a photo lineup.

Cox told police she was driving east on 422 between Route 29 and the Oaks exit when she saw Yannarell changing lanes aggressively. Yannarell passed her on the right shoulder and she felt "a vibration and then a pain in my leg."

She assumed her car had been sideswiped and she pulled onto the shoulder. She said she followed the Buick to get its tag number and then called 911. She had been shot in a leg and an elbow.

Gradel said Ruoss did not report the Gatorade incident to police until after Yannarell's arrest because no one had been injured. The January case remained unsolved until Kiefer identified Yannarell.

In Yannarell's neighborhood, Erika Smith, 36, who has lived across the street for about seven years, said she was saddened by the outcome.

"He's been nothing but kind to us," she said, pointing to a blackened portion of her front porch.

"He put out a mulch fire that could have burned our whole house," she said, explaining that someone had inadvertently started the fire by tossing a cigarette into a planter.

Jim Rowland, 31, said of Yannarell's house that he was "shocked that there could have still been a weapon in there. I have a 2-year-old."

Smith and Rowland echoed the feelings of Yannarell's other neighbors: "Our family's hearts go out to his daughter," Rowland said.