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Background: The Planet Fitness at Crossroads Plaza in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania (Google Maps). Inset: Steven Heald (Pennsylvania State Police).
New information has emerged in the case involving a Pennsylvania man accused of shooting his estranged wife’s new partner as the latter exited a gym following an afternoon workout.
Steven Heald, aged 38, faces charges including attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault, and misdemeanor stalking, as per court documents examined by Law&Crime. Heald made an appearance in Westmoreland County court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, where shocking details surrounding the incident were disclosed.
On January 13, around noon, Joshua Logan, 45, was leaving the Planet Fitness located at Crossroads Plaza in East Huntingdon Township, just outside Pittsburgh, and was heading towards his pickup truck in the parking lot, as reported by The Tribune-Review. Logan testified that a man drove up in a truck and asked, “You got a problem?” before firing at him from the driver’s seat.
The Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office asserts that Heald was the shooter, allegedly hitting Logan in the shoulder, buttocks, hip, and thigh. Reports indicate that Logan was knocked to the ground near the gym’s entrance, where Heald purportedly used a handgun to strike him in the head 15 to 20 times.
During the court proceedings, Logan, with his arm in a sling, recounted, “I was bleeding out and I said ‘You’re killing me,’ and he said, ‘Now you get it,’” according to the regional news outlet.
It apparently wasn’t just the shooting victim who believed he might die, but authorities, too. As Heald reportedly got in his black Ford truck and drove away, other members of the gym saw the wounded man and rushed to his aid. One of them was a nurse, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani told Pittsburgh-based NBC affiliate WPXI.
“Without having a person with some expertise there immediately and all of the people that were trying to stop the bleeding and do the things to try and help keep [the victim] alive, there is a high aptitude that he would not have survived,” Limani said.
First responders arrived at the scene and helped transport Logan to a nearby hospital, the district attorney’s office said. He reportedly identified Heald as his attacker, and the suspect later turned himself in to police.
It apparently did not take long for authorities to identify a likely motive. According to investigators, Logan was dating Heald’s estranged wife.
“Mr. Heald and [the victim] had had several conversations in the past, whether it be through text or in person,” Limani added when talking to reporters. “Never had a violent act between the two of them, and it was known that [the victim] was in a relationship with Heald’s estranged wife.”
According to The Tribune-Review, Heald and Logan had spoken twice face-to-face and also texted each other in the five months that Logan had been dating the woman. On the day of the shooting, Logan had strayed from his normal morning gym routine, and Heald said he went to the gym looking for Logan and saw his truck, troopers added.
Heald is being held on $500,000 bail; he has a formal arraignment scheduled for March 18.