Fire broke out at a historic Chester County hotel Tuesday morning.

The blaze broke out around 10:30 a.m. at the Octoraro Hotel & Tavern at S 3rd and Market streets in Oxford, Pennsylvania, according to Chester County dispatchers.

Dispatchers said no injuries were reported.

The Octoraro, with its familiar sign, has stood in the center of Oxford borough for decades.

It’s food has earned it a No. 1 rating on Tripadvisor.com for eateries in Oxford.

No word yet on what might have caused the blaze. The fire was brought under control shortly after 11 a.m.

As SkyForce10 hovered overhead a short time later you could see multiple fire trucks at the scene with ladders raised to upper-floor windows of the three-story structure.

The Nov. 4 election in Pennsylvania at a glance:

POLLS: Open at 7 a.m., close at 8 p.m.

GOVERNOR: Democrat Tom Wolf, a businessman running for public office for the first time, has held a double-digit lead over Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, the state's former elected attorney general, since the May primaries, according to independent polls. If Wolf wins, it will break a 40-year precedent of Pennsylvania voters electing governors to two four-year terms and alternating control of the state government between the Democratic and Republican parties every eight years.

CONGRESS: The state's 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives all are open and 16 incumbents are seeking additional two-year terms. Republicans, aided by the GOP-drawn redistricting that took effect in 2012, control the congressional delegation and aim to at least retain the current 13-5 lineup. Among the most closely watched races are three in southeastern Pennsylvania -- those for the open seats in the 6th and 13th districts and the 8th District fight between third-term Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and Democratic newcomer Kevin Strouse, a former Army Ranger.

LEGISLATURE: All 203 seats in the state House of Representatives and half of the 50 state Senate seats are up for grabs. Democrats are eager to gain ground in several districts in suburban Philadelphia and scattered locations around the state. But Republicans control the Legislature -- 111-92 in the House and 27-23 in the Senate -- and worked to keep it that way in shaping the latest redistricting maps, which are being used for the first time in Tuesday's election.

Detectives are investigating a new clue in the violent abduction of a young woman from a Philadelphia street.

Carlesha Freeland-Gaither's ATM card was used in Aberdeen, Maryland, around 6 a.m. Tuesday, the woman's grandmother told NBC10. The woman previously lived and went to high school in the state. The grandmother said Philadelphia detectives showed them the picture of a man using an ATM, and the family did not recognize him. Aberdeen is about 70 miles south of Philadelphia.

Police have been searching for the 22-year-old victim since her nighttime kidnapping two days ago off sidewalk in the city's Germantown section.

Investigators and the woman's family plan to make a public plea for help during a 12:30 p.m. news conference on Tuesday. The briefing will come hours after city officials increased a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect to $15,000.

Freeland-Gaither was grabbed at the corner of W. Coulter and Greene Streets around 9:40 p.m. on Sunday, police said. The violent abduction was captured on surveillance video.

"Whoever you are, whatever you know please just help me find my daughter," Carl Freeland, her father, said Tuesday morning. "I just want my daughter back home. Whatever I have to give you. Just have my daughter back home with me and my family in a safe place."

The abductor, a heavyset man standing about 5-foot-10-inches tall, pulled the 22-year-old nursing aide down the 100 block of Coulter Street to his parked dark gray metallic Ford Taurus. Freeland-Gaither struggles to break free, but can't get away.

“We need to find this young lady, we need to find the person responsible and get him in custody and get her home safely,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey.

Witnesses tell NBC10 they watched the woman break out the rear windows of the suspect's vehicle in an attempt to escape. Police found her smartphone and glasses as well as a knife and glove at the scene.

Detectives consider the abduction random and are working with the FBI. The woman was coming home from a visit to her godson.

A SEPTA bus rolled past Freeland-Gaither shortly before the kidnapping. The woman's family tells NBC10 that the transit authority is reviewing its surveillance video as well for clues.

On Monday night, Mayor Michael Nutter approved a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the perpetrator. On Tuesday, Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5 added $5,000 to bring the reward total to $15,000.

Officials are asking for anyone with information to contact Philadelphia Police online or call the tip line at 215.686.TIPS.

"This crime is another tragedy of domestic violence. Two children have been left without a mother. There is no excuse and no good explanation for this sort of violence."

That's how Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan described a murder-suicide that left a woman and her estranged boyfriend dead and a Pennsylvania YMCA, filled with children, on lockdown.

Dennis Cassel ambushed and killed his estranged girlfriend, 41-year-old Jacinda Miller, as she arrived to work Monday evening at the Brandywine YMCA on the 200 block of Hurley Road in West Brandywine, according to county prosecutors.

An East Brandywine officer responded to the lot on the west side of the YMCA shortly before 6 p.m. to find a man, later identified by prosecutors as Cassel, kneeling over Miller's body. As the officer approached, Cassel shot himself with a semi-automatic handgun, according to investigators.

An investigation revealed that Cassel, 42, shot Miller, a mother of two, as she got out of her car, according to investigators.

The YMCA was initially placed on lockdown after the shootings. All staff and children inside the building were evacuated safely and no other injuries were reported, said Hogan.

Doctors at a nearby hospital pronounced both Miller and Cassel dead a short time after the shooting.

"Our prayers are with the families," Hogan said. "We thank the YMCA staff and our first responders for making sure that the scene was secured immediately and none of the children at the YMCA were harmed."

SUICIDE PREVENTION: If you know someone who needs help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

A New Jersey man was arrested on attempted murder charges after police say he drove off from a wreck and then allegedly tried to run down a police officer who tried to stop him.

The suspect, 54-year-old Robert Dechert, was driving a Kia on New Jersey Route 37 in Toms River at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday when his car collided with another vehicle, according to the Toms River Police Department.

Dechert allegedly sped off, but a Seaside Heights police officer saw the crash and followed him to a nearby restaurant parking lot.

Once in the lot, the officer got out of his patrol car and tried to approach the Kia. That’s when police allege Dechert accelerated toward the officer, who jumped out of the way.

The car then sped back onto Route 37, heading against traffic.

Dechert surrendered to police Monday morning at his home in Lakehurst.

Dechert is charged with attempted murder by motor vehicle and multiple traffic violations. He also had open arrest warrants prior to Sunday's alleged hit-and-run. 

The cry for help barely escaped Keisha Gaither’s throat as she begged for her daughter’s safe return.

“Please give me back my child. Please give me my baby,” she hoarsely uttered, as tears ran down her face, before a crush of local and national reporters on Tuesday.

Her baby is Carlesha Freeland-Gaither.

The 22-year-old woman was abducted by an unidentified man while walking home from a visit to her godson’s house in Germantown Sunday night. No one has heard from her since she screamed for help while being pushed into a dark gray metallic Ford Taurus that night.

“She’s a young female. She doesn’t have to go through this,” her father, Carl Freeland, said. They’re the same comments he’s been trying to get out to the kidnapper for two days.

“Whatever you’re asking for, just get in contact with me and my family. Again, not pressing no charges or nothing like that. All we want back is our daughter,” he said.

Carlesha is a loving person who is always there for others, according to her family.

"Carlesha was really a sweethart, and if you all look at that picture, you all can tell that she loved she loved animals," her sister, Brettany Gaither, said referencing the photo family members have used to tell people about her dissapearance. "She's just a free person."

She spent most of her life, from 4 years old until she was 19, living with her grandmother, Ana Mulero, in California, Maryland, which is in the southern part of the state. The woman attended grade and high school there and moved back to Philadelphia two years ago to start a career, the family said.

Once here, she lived with her grandfather. Carlesha moved out two months ago and has been working as a nurses’ aide in Penn Presbyterian Hospital’s cancer center.

“Not only did she enjoy what she was doing, the people there loved her,” said the woman’s grandmother, Ana Mulero.

Philadelphia Police are looking into a few leads in the case, but have yet to find a link to her whereabouts. They are investigating a man’s use of Carlesha’s ATM card at a bank in Aberdeen, Maryland at 6 a.m. Monday, some 10 hours after the abduction. Investigators released a series of photos of the man inside the bank and are calling him a person of interest.

Officials also asked for the public’s help in identifying the suspect’s car seen in widely distributed surveillance video.

As the search draws into its third day Tuesday night, Carlesha's family is not worried if the young woman will be returned. They believe it will be a matter of when.

“She’s a very strong person and I have a lot of faith in her and a lot of faith in God so I know she’s going to make it through,” Mulero said.

“‘I love you,’” her mother, Keisha Gaither said, speaking to her missing daughter. “All you got to do is just get out. Just come home.”

Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.

Ellen Robb lost so much blood it seeped through the grout of her kitchen floor.

The vivid memory of missing tiles and blood stains still haunts her daughter, who was 12 when her mother was bludgeoned to death while wrapping Christmas gifts in the family’s King of Prussia, Pennsylvania home.

Some jurors cried quietly as Ellen’s daughter, now 20, testified about the emotional impact of losing first her mother, and then her father. He eventually confessed to the crime and went to prison.

"I didn’t believe it for a while,” Olivia Robb said. “I had my suspicions, but it’s your father.”

Both daughter and dad took the stand Tuesday, testifying in what some court observers considered one of the more dramatic days they could recall at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown.

For Olivia, it was the first time she’d faced her father in 8 years, testifying against him in a civil suit asking under the Wrongful Death Act, for both punitive and compensatory damages.

Robb, 64, was an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 when he murdered his wife, who was about to leave the marriage. The violent and bloody details of the slaying were never revealed in a trial because Robb was able to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He’s serving a 5-to-10 year prison term.

"The family of Ellen Robb has asked that we accomplish three things,” attorney Robert Mongeluzzi said. “Bring out in court what really happened that day, put Rafael Robb on the stand to explain this, to compensate Olivia for the loss of her mother and to make sure that Rafael Robb, if and when he’s ever released from prison, does not lead a life of luxury while Ellen Robb is in a coffin in the ground.”

Robb took the stand for more than two hours, admitting he killed his wife and then tried to convince police it was a robbery. The damage to Ellen’s face, head and skull was so severe detectives initially thought she was the victim of a blast from a high-powered rifle. Mongeluzzi confronted Robb on the stand.

Mongeluzzi: “You beat her face in so badly that her brain came out of her skull.”
Robb: “I did it.” 

Robb said "Yes" when asked if he "slaughtered his wife in the kitchen."   

Mongeluzzi: "The kitchen scene looked like a horror movie."
Robb: "I’m not denying that."

Mongeluzzi: "And you created that horror scene."
Robb: "I’m not denying that either."

The defense argues the murder was a crime of passion. That Ellen pushed Rafael during an argument and he was so enraged he grabbed an exercise bar nearby and beat her to death.

If jurors believe the murder was premeditated, under Pennsylvania’s Wrongful Death Law, they could award Ellen’s estate more in damages.

Mongeluzzi’s team has profiled Robb as a controlling and emotionally abusive husband and father. He decided to murder Ellen, they argue, because her decision to leave the marriage meant he was losing control.

"Today was a momentous day. For the first time ever, Rafael Robb took the stand and had his story demolished under cross-examination,” said Mongeluzzi. “It was followed by the testimony of his daughter, who took the stand and faced down her murderous father and stood up for her mother.”

Taking the stand with a box of tissues, Olivia recounted how she got off the school bus on December 22, 2006 to find ambulances and other emergency vehicles in front of her home.

When she asked what was wrong, a police officer didn't reveal that her mother had been murdered, but said instead she'd been gravely injured. Olivia wasn’t allowed to go inside and went to a friend’s house. She explained how she came to understand in a conversation with an investigator, that her mother was dead.

"The detective just started crying and I knew that I lost my mother.”

Every morning when she wakes up, her mother’s murder is the first thing she thinks about.

"I think of all the moments that won’t be there,” she told jurors. “My mother was my best friend.”

Robb glanced at his daughter periodically, but she did not look him in the eyes.

Olivia, who is now in college, said she never wanted to see him again. Her co-counsel, attorney Andrew Duffy asked if she sometimes feels like she lost two parents.

"Absolutely. Absolutely,” she said.

Police are searching for a group of teens accused of beating two women in a Halloween attack that may have been inspired by the popular “Purge” film series.

Jessica Kelly and Bonnie Moran told NBC10 they were returning from a Halloween party, walking on Oakmont and Erdrick Streets in the Mayfair section of the city, when a group of 11 to 15 teenagers approached them.

“We were walking arm-in-arm, like most girls do, and we hear them say, ‘Look at those ugly lesbians,’” Moran said.

The women, who are not gay, said the teens then shouted homophobic slurs at them before attacking them.

“Taunted, stalked, followed on the street and then attacked,” Kelly said. “On top of that, robbed!”

The women told NBC10 the teens repeatedly punched, kicked and stomped them for five minutes. Moran suffered a concussion and injuries to her neck, and Kelly suffered two fractured ribs. As they attacked, they said, the teens referenced the 2013 horror movie “The Purge.”

“All I kept hearing was, ‘Purge! Purge! Do it! Do it! The Purge,’” Moran said.

Both the original film and its 2014 sequel depict a night in which crime is legal for 12 hours without any consequences. Police have not confirmed whether the attackers were actually inspired by the movies. 

In August, rumors spread that attacks inspired by the films were coming to Philadephia. Those rumors were debunked, however.

A 16-year-old girl and 18-year-old man were both arrested in connection with the attack. Both teens are charged with robbery, assault and reckless endangerment. Police continue to search for the other teens involved.

If you have any information on the incident, please call Philadelphia Police.

Two Camden County men are facing charges for allegedly taking photographs of two teens engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Burton Gersh, 68, would instruct a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old to perform sexual acts while Les Sidweber, 73, photographed the minors, according to investigators.

The suspects brought the teens from the Philadelphia area to their Cherry Hill, New Jersey homes, where the crimes took place, authorities said.

Both Gersh and Sidweber face two counts of production of child pornography. Each man could face up to 60 years in prison if convicted.

Local police assisted the FBI with the investigation.

Philadelphia’s Streets Department will start collecting fall leaves from the city’s curbs Nov. 10.

But there are regulations to follow to ensure the leaves are picked up on the designated days for each neighborhood.

Rake ‘em, don’t bag ‘em!

The streets department will only collect leaves that are neatly raked to the curb or in biodegradable paper bags. This reduces contamination so the leaves can be recycled. Additionally, residents are urged to avoid mixing trash into the bagged leaves since they won’t be usable.

The city carefully selected areas that receive a significant amount of leaf buildup. People who wish to recycle or remove their leaves, but are not in an area selected for the collection program, can head to any one of four sanitation centers to drop off their bagged leaves or one of 22 locations spread out throughout the city on Saturdays starting Nov. 10 (excluding the Saturday following Veterans Day and Thanksgiving) until Dec. 13.

Leaves can be reused for composting, although Philadelphia will not be hosting any composting workshops this fall. Philadelphia will publish updates on their plans with autumn’s leaf recycling program as they continue to collect the foliage.

Pro tip:

Composting leaves is not easy since they are highly acidic. It's hard to know how leaves will react while they decompose. It's easier for the streets department to collect the leaves for recycling than try to re-purpose the leaves at  home.

A gunman entered a Philadelphia pizza shop and demanded money from the woman behind the counter only to make off with nothing.

Philadelphia Police released video Wednesday of the Oct. 29 holdup inside Key Food Pizza at 2329 E. York St. in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood.

In the video you see a masked man wearing a dark-colored hoodie standing outside the restaurant just after 10 p.m. After looking around, the man struggles to figure out the pull door, before entering the restaurant and pointing a gun at a woman behind the counter and a customer in the waiting area.

The 25-year-old woman behind the counter refused the gunman’s request for money, and after a brief conversation, the man left without taking anything, according to police.

Investigators asked that anyone with information contact police detectives at 215-685-9962 or 215-686-3243.

Police in central Pennsylvania are investigating two cases in recent months in which a man entered Amish homes, fondled females as they slept and then left.

Lancaster Online reported Wednesday that members of the Lancaster County Amish community say there may be other, similar incidents that haven't been reported.

The newspaper says that in both cases the man spoke to the victims, and nothing was taken from the homes.

Police are advising people to keep their houses locked and report any suspicious activity.

Anyone with information about these incidents or others is urged to contact state police at 717-299-7650.

The Education Department's Office of Civil Rights says Princeton University violated Title IX of the law by improperly handling complaints of sexual violence and failing to end a sexually hostile environment for one student.

The department says it has reached an agreement with the university in New Jersey to resolve a civil rights investigation that stemmed from complaints made by multiple people. It says the university has agreed to re-examine how it handled cases going back three years.

It also says it will make other changes such as educating students and staff about the issue and coordinating better with local law enforcement.

A university spokesman had no immediate comment.