Last night's local police pursuit of a Cambria County man suspected of homicide did not yield his capture, the State College Police Department said, although a false report of his presence at Atherton Hall prompted armed Penn State Police to swarm the building.
"There was no gunman, no shots fired," said Lisa Powers, a university spokeswoman. "The man was never on campus."
Antonio L. Winkleman, 25, suspected of a Sunday murder in Cambria County, was spotted in State College early yesterday evening, according to a State College Police Department press release. He was seen near the intersection of Branch Road and South Atherton Street at about 5:30 p.m., police said.
Dozens of officers from Centre and Cambria counties converged on the neighborhoods surrounding the area, but turned up nothing, according to the press release.
Thirty minutes earlier, State College police had arrested his 20-year-old female companion, Heather Head, at the Super 8 Motel, 1663 S. Atherton St. According to the police press release, Head is a homicide suspect.
Winkleman escaped through a second-floor window at the hotel, police said.
According to a police press release, Winkleman was last seen around 8 p.m., riding southbound on Route 220 in a dark-colored Jeep Cherokee with several other people.
The Adams Township Police Department said Winkleman shot 51-year-old Scott Ickes in the rear bedroom of his own home at 6:30 Sunday night.
At about 9:30 last night, armed Penn State police officers charged Atherton Hall and locked down the building, responding to a student report that Winkleman was in the area, according to an e-mail sent to building residents by Jason Hunt, residence life senior coordinator for Atherton Hall.
Upon hearing of the code red status issued by State College police, notifying residents that Winkleman may have been in the area of Atherton Street, the student misheard and assumed police were referring to Atherton Hall, Hunt wrote.
Powers said there was no reason to activate PSUTXT, Penn State's emergency alert system, despite State College's warning and the armed university police response.
"If there had been a danger or something to warn students about, then yes, the system would have been activated," Powers said. "But there was no imminent danger."
According to live.psu.edu, text messaging among students exacerbated "inaccurate rumors."
Police and resident assistants advised Atherton Hall residents to stay in their rooms and lock their doors, Hunt wrote. Shortly before 10 p.m., they were notified the investigation was complete and all was clear.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
