Woman killed in crossbow attack shot by husband, police say
NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA -- Charges are pending against a Philadelphia man who investigators accuse of murdering his new wife with a crossbow.
42-year-old Pamela Nightlinger was pronounced dead at Aria Health/Torresdale at 10:34 p.m. Sunday.
Her husband, identified by family as 40-year-old Paul Kuzan, is in custody.
Police tell Action News he has given a full confession to murdering his wife with the crossbow. The couple had been married for just nine days.
911 calls came into police Sunday night just before 9:30 p.m. from a home in the 3100 block of Willits Road.
"I just heard banging on the door and my son screaming and someone saying 'help,'" neighbor Margie Maldonado said.
Maldonado says Nightlinger came stumbling through her front door, bleeding heavily from a wound to her chest.
"She was on the floor, gasping for air and it was terrible, blood pool all over the place," Maldonado said.
She died a short time later at the hospital.
Police tell Action News that moments before, Nightlinger and her husband had been arguing inside their home.
"He went and got his crossbow. He loaded it. She was sitting in a chair. He fired one time," Philadelphia Police Captain James Clark said.
The arrow entered Nightlinger's chest, traveled through the chair, and lodged in a wall.
That's when Nightlinger ran to the neighbors who called police.
They saw Cuzan, naked, at the front door ranting incoherently. He was taken into custody without incident.
Neighbors said Cuzan had been acting very strangely lately. They called police just last week.
"He was completely exposed. A woman we thought was his sister, now we know, wife, came out with a robe and said he didn't take his medication," neighbor Sean Thompson said.
Others said, while Kuzan had trouble in the past, they knew him as a kind man who would never do something like this.
"I heard the news this morning, and I was hysterical. To us, he was a wonderful man," neighbor Patricia Tyron said.
The couple had children from previous relationships, but none of them were in the home at the time.
Nightlinger's family reached out to Action News to say that her two daughters, ages 13 and 16, are grieving the loss of their mother. They are surrounded by the love of family and friends.
