By JANET KELLEY and CINDY STAUFFER
Lancaster New Era
Lancaster, Pa – The plan was to pick a house, push the homeowner inside and help themselves to the “merchandise” inside, 16-year-old Emru Kebede (a native of Ethiopia) testified this morning.
On the night of May 2, when they approached Ray Diener’s home in West Donegal Township, Kebede said, they knocked and asked Diener if they could borrow his phone.
Their car had broken down, they told him.
When Diener agreed, handing his phone to Lorenzo Schrijver, Kebede recalled, Abraham Sanchez Jr. “rushes up and points the gun in the face of the man and says, ‘Don’t move! Don’t move!'”
The homeowner started to argue and struggle, Kebede recalled, telling the Sanchez, “‘Come on, don’t do this.”‘
The gun went off. Kebede said he and Robert Baker ran.
“I looked back and heard Lorenzo say, ‘Shoot him again! Shoot him again!’ I heard two more shots,” Kebede said. “…. I heard a woman scream.”
As the four got in the car and drove away, Kebede testified, “Lorenzo said, ‘At least we got his cell phone.”‘
Diener, 65, described as a well-liked and well-respected person, lay dead on the doorstep of his own home, with his wife, Barbara, hovering over him, screaming for help.
The testimony was heard this morning in a preliminary hearing before District Judge Jayne Duncan for the young men charged with criminal homicide, robbery and criminal conspiracy.
When the testimony concluded, all four were ordered to stand trial.
Kebede, of 715 Pink Alley, Mount Joy, who has been charged as an adult, testified this morning against the others: Sanchez, 18, and Schrijver, 21 both of Mount Gretna Road, Elizabethtown, and Baker, 20, of 337 Cedar Lane, Mount Joy.
All four are being held in Lancaster County Prison without bail.
At first, Kebede told Sanchez’s attorney, Anthony E. Stefanski of Philadelphia, he gave police a different version of the events, because he was scared.
But then, Kebede said he told police the truth because his attorney, Chris Patterson, told him police wanted him to cooperate.
Baker is represented by defense attorney Doug Conrad and Schrijver is represented by defense attorney Chris Lyden.
Assistant District Attorney K. Kenneth Brown prompted Kebede this morning with questions about the sequence of events that night.
Kebede testified in a quiet, flat voice, describing how the foursome had met up around 8 p.m. on May 2.
Sanchez and Schrijver had picked him up in their car, Kedebe said, asking him if he “wanted to get into something…. I took that to mean breaking and entering.”
Prosecutors said the group would commit crimes to get money to buy drugs.
Kebede said he agreed and, after stopping to get something to eat, they went to Baker’s house, found gloves and pulled a box of bullets out from under his bed, before heading out to drive around and find a victim.
They first looked at another house, Kebede said, but Sanchez decided against it because there appeared to be children inside.
When they drove along the 1000 block of West Ridge Road, around 10:45 p.m., they saw only one man, Diener, and decided his house would be the target.
After the shooting, Kebede said, they drove out into the country, stopping at one point so they could bury the gun.
Some of Diener’s family members sat in the front row of the spectator section this morning, crying and holding hands as they listened to the graphic testimony.
Northwest Regional Police Officer Harry Cleland also testified this morning about receiving the initial call to the home.
When he pulled up to the house, Cleland said, he saw “a person laying on the ground, face-down, with another person hovering over him, crying, ‘Help me! Help me! Please, help me!'”
Cleland said he rolled the man over and saw the bullet wound in his chest and thigh, and believed he was already dead.
Earlier that evening, Diener had gone to watch a Conestoga Valley High School baseball game. On the way home, he had stopped to close up his business, Crystal Pure Water, at 1644 S. Market St., Elizabethtown.
His wife, Barbara, later told police she was asleep when her husband came home, but was awakened by yelling.
She ran to the front door, pulled it open and found her husband slumped on the front doorstep.
She heard a voice say, “There’s the wife.”
Looking up, she saw two men standing 10 to 20 feet away.
She got only a quick glimpse of them before she slammed the door and ran to call for help.
For weeks police struggled to find who had done it and why such a well-liked, well-respected man had been shot.
Rewards were posted by the Diener family and friends, as well as the local Lancaster County Crime Stoppers.
Finally, after three weeks, a tip to the Crime Stoppers led police to the four young men.
Diener had been a star pitcher while a student at Elizabethtown College and went on to play professional baseball for three years.
When he and his wife returned to Lancaster County to work and raise their family, which included three children and five grandchildren, his attention turned to other matters.
In addition to his business and work in their church, he enjoyed organizing his own sporting events with friends and family members.
Diener was involved in various charity work, including the Water for the World program at Messiah College and Habitat for Humanity