A Westmoreland County judge will determine if text messages sent by a woman were a criminal attempt to bully her boyfriend into killing himself, or a form of free speech.
Defense attorneys for Mandie Reusch, 36, of South Greensburg, claim charges of aiding suicide and involuntary manslaughter should be dismissed, saying her actions are protected under the U.S. Constitution.
“It was her First Amendment right to free speech. Their theory that those text messages contain very insensitive, unkind and inflammatory statements are certainly not a crime and did not lead anyone to a suicide,” said defense attorney Phil DiLucente.
Reusch was charged in May 2023, nearly two years after the suicide of Kevin Metzger, 37, of Hempfield, her former boyfriend and father of her child.
Police said Metzger died by hanging on June 18, 2021, after receiving a series of what prosecutors described as bullying text messages from Reusch. In the messages, prosecutors say she degraded her former boyfriend and urged him to kill himself to secure life insurance benefits for their child.
Police said text messages also included taunts from Reusch that Metzger would not be allowed to celebrate Father’s Day with their child and that the minor had a “new dad.”
Philip Dern, a detective with the Pennsylvania State Police, testified during a pretrial hearing on Tuesday that investigators reviewed thousands of messages, many of them hostile, between the former couple in the year before Metzger’s death. He said about 15 messages constituted bullying, including five or six sent in the days just prior to his suicide.
Investigators said Metzger was found hanging in a closet with two suicide notes near his body, one left on a bed that detectives said indicated his intent to harm himself and another that was torn to pieces and later reassembled by detectives. Details of the notes have not been disclosed.
Prosecutors say Reusch was urged to stop sending text messages about a month before Metzger’s death.
Irwin police officer Eric Ziska said Metzger filed a summary harassment complaint against Reusch in May 2021 related to messages he claimed was sent by his former girlfriend.
“I met with him at least twice at the station and did not find him to be a danger to himself or others. I called her and told her to stop sending lewd and lascivious messages,” Ziska testified.
The harassment case against Reusch was dropped after Metzger’s death.
Police filed new charges against Reusch, including aiding suicide and criminal use of a communication device, in May 2023. A misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter count was added three months later, in August.
DiLucente said that charge was filed too late and beyond the two-year statute of limitations for that count.
“This case is unusual and has never heard of before in Pennsylvania,” DiLucente said.
Testimony in the pretrial hearing was recessed Tuesday afternoon and will resume at a later date.
Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Mears said he will issue rulings on whether the evidence can support a continued prosecution of Reusch for the involuntary manslaughter count and the defense claims that all charges should be dismissed on constitutional grounds. The judge also is expected to rule on the defense’s statute of limitations argument.
Mears last month rejected a defense claim seeking a dismissal based on allegations of a conflict of interest with the district judge who presided over Reusch’s preliminary hearing in 2023. The district judge worked on the initial stages of the investigation while serving as an assistant district attorney. The judge ruled no conflict existed.
Reusch remains free on $150,000 bail.