Gun-toting Pa. soccer mom’s autopsy results due

LEBANON, Pa. — An autopsy was planned Friday for a suburban mother who last year shocked other parents by openly carrying a loaded handgun at her daughter’s youth soccer game and this week was found shot dead with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide.

Meleanie Hain, who ran a baby-sitting service and became a voice of the gun rights movement, and Scott Hain, a parole officer, were found dead Wednesday inside their home in Pennsylvania Dutch country, but their three children were unharmed.

Police Chief Daniel Wright said he planned to disclose more about the case following autopsies expected to be performed Friday.

The couple’s children were at a nearby house when police arrived Wednesday night to answer 911 calls from neighbors, Wright said.

Meleanie Hain’s mother, Jenny Stanley, told WGAL-TV that the children, ages 2, 6 and 10, were “hanging in there.”

“I’m devastated,” Stanley said. “I lost my daughter. I lost my best friend. The children lost their parents.”

Neighbors said the Hains were not outgoing, and several said Meleanie Hain wore her holstered gun regularly when walking the dog or going to the grocery store. They said the children ran outside Wednesday night and reported that their father had shot their mother, but Wright declined to disclose what investigators have concluded about how the deaths occurred or what the children saw.

Aileen Fortna, who lives two doors away, said her husband noticed the two oldest children running past their house and crying. She watched as authorities removed the Hains’ dead bodies overnight.

Fortna said the children told another neighbor that “daddy shot mommy.” A police chaplain answered the door at that neighbor’s home Thursday and declined to comment.

“I’m shocked at the whole thing,” Fortna said. “I’m surprised she didn’t defend herself.”

Wright said more than one weapon was recovered from the home. He acknowledged reports that the couple might have been having marital difficulties.

Meleanie Hain, 31, had run a day care at her home, and children’s toys remained scattered in the front yard Thursday. A car parked in the driveway bore a badge-shaped sticker that read “NRA law enforcement.”

Hain made headlines in 2008 when she attended a soccer game of her daughter, then 5, at a park with a Glock handgun holstered on her hip in plain view.

Nine days later, the sheriff revoked her license to carry and conceal a gun, citing a state law that prohibits certain gun permits from being given to people whose characters and reputations make them dangers to public safety.

A county judge overturned that decision but questioned Hain’s judgment and said she had “scared the devil” out of people at the Sept. 11, 2008, game.

Hain claimed the sheriff’s actions destroyed her baby-sitting service, resulted in her children being harassed and made her feel ostracized by her neighbors in Lebanon, which has about 25,000 residents.

The Hains filed a federal lawsuit against Sheriff Michael DeLeo and the county, alleging he violated Meleanie Hain’s constitutional rights and prosecuted her maliciously. The suit was pending when she died. Her attorney, Matthew Weisberg, said he hopes to continue the litigation.

Weisberg said Hain told him about six months ago she and her husband, who was 33, had separated and three months ago she wanted to pursue a protective order against him. He said she wanted to have her husband’s name removed from the lawsuit but that never happened.

“Whether they’d reconciled in the last couple of months, I don’t know,” Weisberg said.