A 16-year-old sought in the shooting deaths of his parents was arrested early Saturday in Missouri after apparently running out of gas 900 miles from home.
Jeffrey Leigh Howorth walked out of woods and surrendered to police about 1 a.m. The family car he took after the slayings was found abandoned late Friday on I-70 near Williamsburg, Mo., police said.Howorth was charged with two counts of criminal homicide and will be tried as an adult in the deaths of George Howorth, 46, and Sue Howorth, 48, of Macungie Township in eastern Pennsylvania, prosecutor Robert Steinberg said.
Howorth was being held at a jail in Columbia, Mo., pending extradition.
Police believe Howorth ambushed his parents when they came home from work Thursday afternoon.
His mother, a church secretary, was shot nine times and his father, a utility company employee, was shot five times with a .22-caliber weapon. The couple still had their coats on when their older son, Stephen, 20, found the bodies, authorities said.
Missouri authorities found a loaded 12-gauge shotgun under the Howorth car, and a backpack and loaded .22-caliber rifle in the woods, said Capt. Robert Werts of the Pennsylvania State Police.