Pennsylvania man charged in 35-year-old double murder

By Elizabeth Daley

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania man was charged on Tuesday with the 1980 murders of a mother and daughter who were shot to death as they tried to flee their home after it was set ablaze, prosecutors said.

The suspect, Abraham Cruz, 54, was charged after investigators interviewed his uncle, who was sentenced for the crime last year, according to court documents.

Cruz was 18 when he and his uncle Erasmo Cruz, then 25, broke into the home near Gettysburg of the uncle's ex-girlfriend Deborah Patterson, 17, according to the court papers.

The house was set ablaze and Patterson was shot and killed along with her mother, Nancy Patterson, 41, when they tried to escape, according to the criminal complaint.

Nancy Patterson's husband was shot but survived, while two children managed to flee.

Nancy Patterson's son Keith Patterson was charged with the murders in 1981 but acquitted.

A third man, Ruperto Garcia, pleaded guilty to a burglary charge related to the case last year, Adams County District Attorney Shawn Wagner told a news conference.

Investigators had been following up on information from Deborah Patterson's siblings that she had broken up with Erasmo Cruz and that he had been abusive, prosecutors said.

Garcia told police that Erasmo Cruz warned him to be quiet following the attack, saying in the complaint that "Erasmo said he had just killed the woman that was carrying his child so don't think I won't kill your mother."

Erasmo Cruz was arrested in 2012 and pleaded guilty to two counts of homicide last year, Wagner said.

Abraham Cruz faces two counts of criminal homicide as well as charges of criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, arson and burglary. If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison.

He is currently in prison on unrelated charges, Wagner said.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Daley; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Beech)