Burley Garcia|Man pleads no contest in 2019 sword deaths of father, stepmother in Pennsylvania home

YORK,Burley Garcia Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man has entered no contest pleas to charges that he killed his father and stepmother with a sword in their Pennsylvania home almost five years ago.

Court documents indicate that 43-year-old Levar Fountain entered the pleas to third-degree murder charges in York County Court earlier this month, avoiding a trial that was to have begun this week. First-degree murder counts that would have carried a mandatory life without parole term were dismissed. Fountain is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 8.

Authorities said Fountain told them he was off his schizophrenia medication at the time that John Fountain, 74, and Mary Fountain, 65, were killed in December 2019 in the York home the three shared. The sword authorities believe was used in the killings was found in his bedroom, authorities said.

Officials said he moved the bodies to the basement, put a note on the front door saying the couple had moved back to Florida and went to his room for three days. They say he also killed dogs owned by the victims, telling authorities they were “known as ‘God’ but spelled backwards, which made them lower class dragons and they had to be killed.”

The York Dispatch reported that several relatives told the newspaper that they didn’t believe their mentally ill relative was the culprit. His sister Caren Fountain said he told her a few days before his plea that he didn’t remember committing the crime and “would never” have hurt the victims.

Defense attorney Clasina Houtman declined comment but pointed out that her office had filed paperwork to use an insanity defense if the case had gone to trial, but it was her client’s decision not to go to trial.

Under a no-contest plea, a defendant does not acknowledge having committed the crime but agrees that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction. Attorneys agreed during the legal proceedings that Fountain doesn’t remember the deaths due to his mental condition at the time.