Gun-toting soccer mom found shot dead

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Gun-toting soccer mom found shot dead
Cops: Pa. woman’s 3 children were home during suspected murder-suicide
The Associated Press
updated 10:10 a.m. ET, Thurs., Oct . 8, 2009

LEBANON, Pa. - A soccer mom who gained national attention when she openly carried a loaded gun to her 5-year-old daughter's game was shot dead Wednesday along with her husband in what appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said.

Meleanie Hain and Scott Hain were pronounced dead Wednesday night at their home in Lebanon, a small city about 80 miles west of Philadelphia.

The couple's three children were home at the time but weren't hurt, police said. They were taken to stay with friends and relatives.

Meleanie Hain, 31, and Scott Hain, 33, had been having marital problems for about a week, neighbor Mark Long said. Scott Hain had left the couple's home on Tuesday, and Meleanie Hain didn't know where he was, but he returned Wednesday, Long said.

Autopsies on the Hains were to be conducted Thursday, coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum said.

Meleanie Hain made headlines after she attended a children's soccer game in a park on Sept. 11, 2008, with a handgun in plain view holstered on her hip, upsetting other parents.

The county sheriff, Michael DeLeo, revoked her gun-carrying permit nine days later.

Hain successfully appealed the permit revocation, although the judge who restored the permit questioned her judgment and said she had "scared the devil" out of other people at the game.

Harassment
Hain sued DeLeo in federal court, alleging that he violated her constitutional rights and prosecuted her maliciously when he took the permit away. She said that because of his actions her baby-sitting service had suffered, her children had been harassed and she had been ostracized by her neighbors in Lebanon, which has about 25,000 residents.

DeLeo said at Hain's appeal that he revoked her permit after fielding the parents' complaints. He said he based his decision on a state law that prohibits certain gun permits from being given to anyone whose character and reputation make him or her a danger to public safety.

After Hain sued DeLeo, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which says it tries to reform the gun industry through sensible regulations, offered to defend him for free.

"It is a case that calls out for common sense," Brady Center attorney Daniel Vice said then. "It's ridiculous to bring a gun to a child's soccer game."

A court hearing on Hain's $1 million lawsuit was postponed in May after an attorney in the case was involved in a traffic accident.



URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33220258...me_and_courts/