Selinsgrove man convicted of first-degree murder in shooting death of his estranged wife

Mar. 14—MIDDLEBURG — A 35-year-old Selinsgrove man was convicted by a senior judge today on first- and third-degree murder charges for fatally shooting his estranged wife during an argument on April 18, 2022.

Brad A. Bailor repeatedly admitted to shooting Leslie M. Bailor, 32, at their South Market Street home in Penn Township, according to testimony presented during a Snyder County Court bench trial, without a jury, before Senior Judge Harold F. Woelfel Jr.

The judge also found Bailor guilty of an offense involving an instrument of crime.

Sentencing has been deferred to a later date. A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life prison term.

State police communications operator Timothy Toth testified Bailor told him he shot his wife following a brief argument, according to testimony at the trial.

"She was screaming at me. I don't know what I did. I (expletive) shot her," Toth recalled of the conversation he had with Bailor during three separate calls.

Toth said Bailor called authorities to summon help for his wife, but refused repeated requests for him to exit the house without the loaded 9-mm weapon he admitted having.

"They (police) don't want to shoot you, but if you have a gun, they may," Toth testified he told Bailor.

Cpl. Ryan Marcinko, Sgt. Michael Brubaker and Trooper Michael Palange described surrounding the home and yelling at Bailor to drop the weapon when he walked outside holding a gun in one hand and a cigarette in another.

After going back into the house, Bailor came outside about a minute later wearing a different shirt and tossed the gun into the yard, Palange said.

In custody, Bailor told officers his wife was in the bedroom and "believed she was still alive," Palange testified.

Brubaker testified Leslie Bailor was lifeless on the bedroom floor with two apparent bullet wounds in her chest and a pillow near her body.

An autopsy determined she had been shot four times.

Brosius also played a lengthy videotape of an interview Trooper Alec Leiby did with Bailor at the Selinsgrove police station during which he repeatedly described shooting his wife.

On the tape, Bailor said he was estranged from his wife of nine years with whom he had four children and one step-child, calling it a "miserable" marriage marked by infidelity in the last couple of years.

On the day of the shooting, Bailor said on the videotaped police interview, the couple argued about which one of them would pick up their children from his mother's Millmont home later that day.

Leslie Bailor became angry and screamed at him before attempting to slap him, he said, prompting him to "smack her" twice.

When she picked up her phone and began calling what Bailor said he assumed was police, he retrieved his loaded 9-mm pistol and told her he could "make things worse" before shooting her.

On the tape, Bailor could be seen and heard sending a voice message via his smart watch to a friend admitting shooting his wife.

"I was afraid it was going to happen," he said.

Witnesses testified that the weapon retrieved at the scene contained no serial number and that Bailor said he usually stored the 9-mm outside the house, but had kept it in a bedroom drawer for a few days before the shooting.