Man was cooking dinner before he got knife and killed woman and her child, PA cops say

Authorities responding to a report of stabbings at a Pennsylvania home earlier this week arrived to find the 32-year-old suspect outside with “blood and cuts to his hands.”

Inside the home, his girlfriend and her 5-year-old daughter were dead after suffering “massive blood loss” from stab wounds to their heads, necks and torsos, according to a probable cause statement from Pennsylvania State Police. Two others were seriously hurt.

State troopers and the Southern Regional Police Department were called to the stabbings at about 7:20 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22 in Hopewell Township, according to a news release.

Christine Fousek and the child, identified only as R.R., were found dead inside the York County home’s basement, police said. In a GoFundMe, loved ones identified the daughter as Rylee Ann Reynolds, “the cutest, sweetest little girl you could ever meet.”

“They were selfishly taken by the hands of a cruel monster,” Alicia Roman-McCutcheon wrote. “This is such a horrific loss for the family and friends they had.”

The other injured victims were Fousek’s mother and brother, according to the GoFundMe. Police say 63-year-old Jacqueline Fousek and 28-year-old Joseph Fousek were found upstairs with severe stab wounds.

Keith Kretzer, of Edgewood, Maryland, faces two counts of homicide and two counts of attempted homicide. He was Christine Fousek’s boyfriend, according to the York Daily Record.

‘He heard screaming’

In an interview at the hospital, Joseph Fousek told authorities he was playing video games with headphones on “when he heard screaming,” according to the affidavit. That’s when he says Kretzer barged into his upstairs bedroom with a large knife.

“Kretzer immediately began stabbing him,” Joseph Fousek reported, before he tried fighting Kretzer for the knife.

Joseph Fousek says he managed to get the knife away, at which point Kretzer ran from the room as 911 was called.

‘Snapped out of it’

After Kretzer was taken into custody, he told police he had made dinner in the basement while Christine Fousek and her daughter were in the room, according to court records.

“Kretzer believed that something took control of him and made him get a knife,” police said. “The force that took control of him made him stab (the woman and child)” before he went upstairs and stabbed two others.

He reported that while struggling with Joseph Fousek for the knife, he “snapped out of it” and ran outside toward a field, authorities said. He later told police, “I (expletive) up and went and killed people.”

State troopers seized suspected marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms and paraphernalia from the home, according to police. Authorities noticed a “strong odor of marijuana” coming from the house, though authorities have not said if drugs were involved in the killings.

Hopewell Township is about 100 miles southwest of Philadelphia.

This story was originally published August 24, 2022 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Man was cooking dinner before he got knife and killed woman and her child, PA cops say."