PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A Bucks County man was charged Monday with killing his mother on her 72nd birthday this past weekend.
Sean Rivera, 28, from Berwyn Road in Morrisville, is accused of drugging his mother, Carol Clark, then driving her to Philadelphia and shooting her multiple times.
According to charging documents, Rivera’s older brother, who lives in New York, called police saying Rivera sent him a text that said, “911.” When the brother got to the home that Rivera lived in with his mother, he says Rivera told him their mother “got sick and passed away.”
Rivera later told his brother that Clark had a heart attack and was in a hospital in Frankford. The brother checked with hospitals in the area, but couldn’t find her. That’s when The Falls Township Police Department put out an alert, asking the public for help finding Clark.
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Police say investigation into the matter began Sunday afternoon following a domestic dispute report between the two brothers. Detectives arrived at Rivera and Clark’s house later that day with a warrant to search the home and Rivera’s car, finding two firearms, as well as a Home Depot receipt, a padlock and an empty padlock package, and bolt cutters.
The affidavit of probable cause says Rivera eventually told police he put fentanyl in his mother’s iced tea Saturday night, then around 2 a.m. on Sunday, drove her to the Frankford Friends Behavioral Health Center on Walnut Street in Frankford, cut the lock off a shed and shot her five times. He then left her body inside the shed.
Police say they found her body in her wheelchair in the shed, covered with a blue tarp.
In addition to criminal homicide, Rivera is being charged with kidnapping to facilitate a felony, kidnaping to inflict terror or injury, aggravated assault, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of an instrument of crime, possession of a weapon, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint and recklessly endangering another person.
Police say Rivera was remanded to Bucks County Correctional Facility without bail.