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

YORK, Pennsylvania — A Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to murdering his father and stepmother with a sword in their Pennsylvania home nearly five years ago.

Court documents show that 43-year-old Levar Fountain filed a plea of ​​third-degree murder in York County Superior Court earlier this month, dodging a trial that had been scheduled to begin this week. First-degree murder charges that would have carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole were dismissed. Fountain is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 8.

Authorities said Fountain told them he was off his schizophrenia medication when John Fountain, 74, and Mary Fountain, 65, were killed in December 2019 at 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, left 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 the victims’ dogs, telling authorities they were “known as ‘God’ spelled backwards, making them lower-class dragons and had to be killed.”

The York Dispatch reported that several family members told the newspaper they did not believe their mentally ill relative was the perpetrator. His sister, Caren Fountain, said he told her a few days before his plea that he did not remember committing the crime and that he would “never” have hurt the victims.

Defense attorney Clasina Houtman declined to comment, but pointed out that her office had filed papers seeking to plead insanity if the case went to trial, but that it was her client’s decision not to appear in court.

In a no-contest plea, a defendant does not admit to committing the crime but agrees that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction. Attorneys agreed during the trial that Fountain could not remember the deaths due to his mental state at the time.