More than 9 years after confessing to a triple homicide, a 25-year-old man fatally hung himself in his Pennsylvania prison cell, leaving questions about the grisly murders unanswered.
Alec Kreider was convicted of fatally stabbing a close friend and the friend’s parents in 2007, but at the time of his own death last week, the motive for the killings remained unknown.
In a statement, officials from Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections said Monday that Kreider was found unconscious and could not be resuscitated through CPR. He was taken to the nearby Holy Spirit Hospital, where he was declared dead on Friday.
Kreider was 16-years-old when he broke into the Lancaster, Pa., home of classmate Kevin Haines and his parents, Thomas and Lisa Haines.
Investigators searched for a suspect, as Kreider attended Haines’ memorial service appearing distraught, according to mourners.
“We were comforting each other. He was crying,” friend Laura Humbard told People in 2007. “Alec was the most upset kid.”
It was not until Kreider allegedly told his father, Tim Kreider, a month later about how he’d killed the couple and their son that his dad turned him over to police.
The teen pled guilty at the 2008 trial, but never provided a motive, telling the court room that “there is none,” according to CBS News.
Kreider’s father told local newspapers in 2014 that when his son confessed to him, he never offered a motive, “only said something about Kevin annoying him lately.”