Police Release Names of Victims in Quadruple Stabbing

UPDATE

By Alicia Cruz
The New Jersey Newsroom.com

Police have released the names of the people found stabbed to death in their Northhampton home Saturday.

Police say the victims of the quadruple stabbing are Denise Merhi, 39, her father Dennis Marsh, 62 and her grandfather Alvin Marsh, 87 and her neighbor, 53-year-old Steve Zernhelt, who police say became victim number four after he answered cries for help.

Police said Michael Ballard, 36, of Allentown is responsible for the stabbings and they believe he may have been in a realtionship with victim, Denise Merhi.

The district attorney said in all his years as a prosecutor, it was one of the worst cases he has seen.

"This was quite a scene. A lot of blood throughout the home, not only on the floors puddled, but on the walls. It was a very difficult crime scene to see. These individuals were essentially slaughtered by this fellow using a knife," Northampton County D.A. John Moraganelli told Channel 16 WNEP TV.

Ballard is said to have been convicted of another homicide in Allentown in 1992. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in jail and may have just been released from prison before he comitted the recent murders.

Morganelli says he plans to seek the death penalty for the Northhampton quadruple homicide.



By Alicia Cruz
New Jersey Newsroom.com

Northampton County police have a suspect in custody they believe is responsible for the quadruple homicide Saturday on the 1900 block of Lincoln Avenue.

Police found the bodies of three men and a woman stabbed to death, in what Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli called, "a very grisly crime scene" around 5 p.m. Saturday.

Initially, police thought there were only two men and the woman killed, but hours later, they found the body of another man, identified as Steven Zernhelt, in the basement of 1917 Lincoln Avenue.

Police say they believe Zernhelt, who lived next door to the murder scene with his wife and three children, "heard screams for help," and when he entered the home, “he became the fourth victim."

The bodies at the house were not discovered until the suspect, who crashed his car in the nearby woods of Allen Township in an attempt to flee police, told officers what he had done.

Police have not released the name of the suspect. He was transported to an unnamed hospital where he is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries believed to have occurred during the car crash, said Morganelli.

David Zernhelt described his brother Steven as mellow, intelligent and “the type of person who wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt.”

The brothers, who lost both parents in 2007 and 2010, grew up in Allentown in a family with 10 children.

“I always believed in my brother," said David Zernhelt. "I know he died a hero."