Neighbor Terry Pursell Jr. said he came upon Tarantino's body one arm sticking out from under an arborvitae bush outside the apartments where they both lived on his way back from feeding horses at a nearby stable. It was pitch dark and pouring down rain.
"[Hill's daughter] came out screaming that her mother had been stabbed, to help her," Pursell said.
Pursell, 43, ran into the couple's first-floor apartment, where he found Stefanie Hill on the floor, struggling to breathe, blood pouring from several knife wounds. Pursell said he called on the training he received while a
Freemansburg volunteer firefighter to perform chest compressions and tie a tourniquet.
He ran outside to check on Tarantino, who had been beaten severely about the head. He had no pulse.
His clothes covered in blood, Pursell ran back downstairs, where he managed to keep Stefanie Hill breathing until paramedics arrived to administer oxygen and take her to the hospital.
"She was starting to groan and trying to talk, I thought she had a chance," said Pursell, who manages the tool department at the nearby Wehrung's Lumber and Home Center. Saddened he was unable to save Stefanie Hill, he said he might have stumbled onto the assault if he had returned from the stables a few minutes earlier.
