BY STEVE McCONNELL

Times-Shamrock Writer

Gunshots broke the silence of a cold winter day in a desolate stretch of Susquehanna County.

A rattled neighbor saw a man running through the woods beside two dogs, a pistol clasped in his hand. Two men lay dead near his family home in the rural hamlet of Great Bend, flakes of snow falling occasionally from the stark, gray February sky.

Later this year, perhaps in November, a jury is expected to determine the fate of Lloyd Richard Thomas, who maintains he acted in self-defense when two Army veterans, Gilberto Alvarez and Joshua David Rogers, surrounded his father’s 144 Pine Ayres Road home.

State police charged Thomas with two felony counts of criminal homicide for fatally shooting both men.

“We certainly know there is two people that have been shot and who shot them,” Susquehanna County District Attorney Jason Legg said last week in an interview. “I think it is going to boil down to the self-defense claim.”

Thomas’ attorney, George Lepley of Williamsport, said the prosecution’s own investigation supports the self-defense claim.

“We clearly know that he (Thomas) saw an armed intruder,” Lepley said, adding that he intends to raise the castle doctrine during the trial, a state self-defense law making it legal to use deadly force on private property under certain circumstances. Thomas, 46, of Hallstead, was released from the Susquehanna County Correctional Facility in June on $100,000 bail, Legg said.

Legg declined to comment when asked if a plea deal was on the table or under negotiation.

The trial was slated for September, but it was pushed back because of delays from a state police ballistics lab and trial motions, Legg said.

When state police pulled their cruisers to the scene of the killings on Feb. 11, they came upon Rogers’ lifeless body mere feet from his black Ford Mustang, parked in the middle of a private road.

A rifle rested inside in the car.

One bullet penetrated his abdomen, another ripped through his hand, state police have said.

Near his body and the Thomas home, troopers spotted a loaded, 12-gauge shotgun, with a shell still in its chamber; it appeared the shotgun had not been fired, a trooper testified at Thomas’ preliminary hearing in February.

A bullet pierced the pistol grip of the shotgun, leading investigators to believe Rogers, 30 of Hallstead, may have been holding the weapon when a bullet passed through his hand.

Troopers found the body of Alvarez, 28, who apparently moved from Florida to Susquehanna Countyto work in the natural gas fields and be closer to his friend, about 20 feet from the Thomas family home’s front door, according to court testimony.

He was fatally shot once in the head.

Meanwhile, troopers spotted the shooter, Thomas, walking toward his father’s home with a .22-caliber rifle in one hand, and a .45-caliber pistol in the other hand; he had marijuana stuffed in his pocket, according to court testimony.

Thomas admitted to killing the men in self-defense in an interview with state police after the shooting, but offered little else and asked for a lawyer, according Legg and arrest papers.

“He said he went into preservation mode and shot the guy,” a state trooper testified at Thomas’s preliminary hearing in February. “He indicated that he was scared.”

Thomas did not have any relationship or ties to the men he killed, Legg said.

Lepley said his client was inside his father’s home when his dogs started barking and both men surrounded the home in a “military style” raid.

One of them went to the front door, and one of them went to the back door, Lepley said.

Lepley added they also blocked the road with their vehicle.

“It’s a real good self-defense claim,” he said.

Also, state troopers later learned it was not the first time Alvarez and Rogers had been to the neighborhood that day, according to court testimony.

Earlier, Rogers returned to his home, with Alvarez, and related to his girlfriend that someone had shot his car. He and Alvarez then went back to thePine Ayres Roadarea to see who shot the Mustang, according to court testimony.

Legg said this week he is waiting for ballistics results from a state police lab to determine if the car was shot by someone.

It is not clear who may have shot the car, and investigators may never be able to prove that, Legg said.

“It’s just circumstantial at that point,” he said.

“It’s our burden to proof beyond a reasonable doubt it wasn’t self-defense,” Legg said.

Legg is not seeking the death penalty.

If convicted, Thomas could be sentenced to life in prison.