Police in Pennsylvania are questioning a second person in connection to the shooting death of a suspended teacher who was suspected of having a relationship with a then-17-year old boy.
Rachael DelTondo, 33, was gunned down in her driveway of her mother’s home in Aliquippa on the night of May 13, after going out for ice cream with two friends. Witnesses reported hearing up to a dozen gunshots.
Last week, Aliquippa issued a search warrant for the phone records of Sheldon Jeter Jr, the former football star who was found in a parked car with DelTondo in February 2016, when he was 17 years old.
Action News 4 reports that authorities also executed a search warrant at the home of Jeter’s grandfather. They were reportedly searching for evidence related to the shooting, including a gun and blood-stained clothing. According to a warrant obtained by the news station, police did to find these items in the home, and left with a Playstation gaming console, car keys, and notebooks.
The warrant also revealed that police have interviewed Jeter’s older half-brother Rashawn Bolton last week. Bolton was with Rachael the night of her murder, and reportedly told police he and Rachael had been in a romantic relationship since December of last year, and said she was afraid she was being followed.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Jeter’s lawyer said Rachael told his client that she was working as an informant in an investigation into the Aliquippa Police Department, and was set to testify before a grand jury not long after her murder.
Though DelTondo was not charged after police found her in a car with Jeter in 2016, the incident made the news after someone, later determined to have been inside the police department, leaked the story to a local newspaper Beaver Countian.
County District Attorney David Lozier reportedly said that the leak was a result of a “personal vendetta.”
According to CBS News, DelTondo was suspended from her teaching position at PA Cyber Charter School in November 2017, shortly after the police report was leaked to the media and the school. The previous month, Rachael and her fiancé Frank Catroppa called off their wedding.
Lozier told CBS News that he was unaware of a possible connection between DelTondo’s murder and any investigation of the police department.
“To the best of my knowledge there was no active investigation arising from any information she had regarding anything in Aliquippa,” Lozier said, adding that he believed the murder was a “crime of passion.”
No one has yet been charged in the murder or officially named a suspect. CrimeOnline will continue to update this developing story.
