Seventy-eight puppies in a van en route to pet stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania survived a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Wednesday morning, but two perished.

The two-vehicle crash, which left five people injured, happened around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday in the eastbound lanes of the Turnpike between the Willow Grove and Bensalem exits near mile-marker 346 in Lower Moreland Township, said Pennsylvania State Police.

The puppies were being transported from Ohio to various pet stores in New Jersey when the Ford E250 van they were in crashed into a Ford F350 pickup. Two pups died, but 78 survived, some with minor injuries and one with a broken leg.

Volunteers from the Southampton and Willow Grove fire companies responded for the auto rescue. They found much more.

"When we got on the scene that's when we realized there were so many puppies," said Southampton Fire Company No. 1 Chief Glenn McKenney.

Crews got all the puppies -- a handful that were running around -- off the road and got the people out of the damaged vehicles.

McKenney said once firefighters wrangled all the pups they put them on a flatbed trailer and played with the dogs to keep them occupied as they waited for the Bucks County SPCA to arrive. Most of the dogs went to the SPCA while 12 were released to the Puppy Hut pet store in New Jersey, said police.

Bucks County SPCA spokeswoman Annie Irwin, calling the situation a first in her 40 years with the agency, complemented firefighters for their hard work in wrangling the pups.

"I was so impressed with the firemen who responded to the call at 4:30 in the morning and rescued the puppies from the van and from the road," said Irwin.

A Pennsylvania state dog law enforcement officer issued violations for transporting underage puppies. The dogs' owner arrived from Ohio to claim the dogs and get them onto their final destinations. The pets were not immediately available for adoption.

Van driver Ronald Stephenson, 25, and his passenger, Forrest Sowards suffered minor injuries while the driver and passengers of the pickup suffered minor injuries, said police. The crash left traffic backed up on the Turnpike for some time.

Stephenson was cited for failing to maintain a safe distance when the pickup suddenly slowed in front of him.

The body of a missing bridge inspector was pulled from the Passaic River Wednesday morning, two days after the man was swept away in a storm surge, Passaic fire and police officials tell NBC 4 New York.

The man's body was pulled from the river in Rutherford, New Jersey, nearly 48 hours after the 47-year-old worker was swept away amid a deluge Monday. Efrain Grajeda had been a bridge inspector with TranSystems for 16 years before Monday's accident. 

In a statement, TranSystems said it suffered a great loss, and that it is fully cooperating with investigators.

"Our first thoughts are with Efrain’s family," the company added. "We express our heartfelt sympathy to them, his colleagues, and the many people whose lives he touched in his professional and personal life."  

Grajeda was inspecting the President Street Bridge Monday from a shallow canal in Weasel Brook when he and other workers were caught in a sudden deluge. 

The canal, which flows into the Passaic River, flooded within minutes, according to witness Jeremy Rodriguez. Rodriguez and another bystander, Valentin Beltran, helped to pull one worker out, but couldn't get to the other man quickly enough.

A 911 call was made at about 2:45 p.m.; a helmet and two flashlights were found in the water, the mayor said, but Grajeda, who was not wearing a life jacket, could not be located.

"It started raining so fast and the tide came up, and it happened so quick," said Rodriguez. "I feel bad, because we couldn't do nothing about it."

Firefighters and other responders had used boats with sonar and infrared equipment to search for Grajeda; the search extended for at least a mile and lasted two days before he was found. 

“I don’t want to shoot you, but I need to feed my family.”

Those are the chilling words police say a man uttered during the robbery of a hotel in New Jersey early Wednesday morning.

The armed robbery happened about 2:30 a.m. at the Red Roof Inn on Absecon Boulevard in Absecon.

The suspect entered the hotel’s front doors and approached the front desk.

He pulled out a handgun, demanded money and said to the front clerk “I don’t want to shoot you, but I need to feed my family.”

The employee gave the suspect about $400 in cash before the suspect ran out the door and left the scene in a dark-colored sedan.

The suspect is described as a male with a deep voice, approximately 6”2” with dark-colored eyes. He was wearing a black ski mask, dark green hooded sweatshirt, dark-colored gloves and dark-colored cargo style pants.

Anyone with information on the suspect is urged to contact the Absecon Police Department at 609-641-0667.

A veteran off-duty police officer allegedly chased his ex-wife in a vehicle to a Jersey Shore intersection where she crashed Tuesday, then walked up to her car and fired several gunshots, striking her multiple times and killing her as their 7-year-old daughter watched from the front passenger seat of her father's vehicle not far away, prosecutors said.

Off-duty Neptune police officer and sergeant Philip Seidle, 51, was arrested on first-degree murder, weapons and child endangerment charges in the death of his ex-wife, 51-year-old Tamara Seidle, after the shooting around 11:30 a.m. near Ridge and Sewell avenues in Asbury Park, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, police responding to a report of an unrelated motor vehicle accident in the area saw a 2012 black Volkswagen Jetta driven by Tamara Seidle turn onto Sewell Avenue. Behind that car was a silver Honda Pilot being driven by her ex-husband, Philip Seidle.

As the former couple turned their respective cars onto Sewell Avenue, the woman's car hit an unoccupied parked vehicle, authorities said. Prosecutors allege Seidle then drove his car into his ex-wife's vehicle, got out of the Honda, pulled out a handgun and approached the driver's side window of his ex-wife's car. Once he got close, Siedle allegedly fired into the driver's side window several times, then took his gun and held it to his own head.

Prosecutors said Seidle walked around the area near his ex-wife's car for a few minutes, holding the gun to his head as his 7-year-old daughter watched from the front passenger seat of the Honda. Police managed to remove the child from the scene. 

Seidle then allegedly walked to the front of the Jetta and fired several shots through the front of the windshield; it's not clear how many times his ex-wife was hit.

A 30-minute standoff between members of law enforcement and Seidle ensued, prosecutors said; Seidle had a gun to his head the whole time. Law enforcement officers talked to him and ultimately managed to convince him to put the weapon down and surrender, according to officials.

Prosecutors say video of the incident has been published on social media; they're asking anyone with video of photos to contact them at 800-533-7443. 

Prosecutors said the couple's divorce had been finalized last month and Seidle's ex-wife won custody of their nine children, who range in age from 7 to 24. While authorities declined to specify a possible motive, they said Seidle spoke about issues regarding the children prior to the shooting.

Seidle was hired by the Neptune Police Department on July 1993 and promoted to sergeant of the patrol division in January 2009.

The 22-year Neptune police veteran is currently being held in Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold Township on $2 million bail, according to prosecutors. Information on an attorney for Seidle wasn't immediately available.  

A volunteer firefighter in New Jersey has been arrested after being accused of videotaping teens using the bathroom in his home during a pool party.

Mitchell Morreale, a 45-year-old captain with the Lyndhurst Fire Department, was charged with invasion of privacy after four teenage girls reported the videotaping to police, according to The Bergen Record.

The girls had been at a pool party Friday with friends, including Morreale’s 19-year-old son, at his home on Livingston Avenue, police tell the Record. One of the teenagers noticed a light in a closet while she was using the bathroom and found what appeared to be a recording device. She called the other girls and they realized the device had been recording partygoers for about 30 minutes.

The teens recorded a portion of the footage to their cellphones and put it on a thumb drive that they later turned in to police.

Authorities charged Morreale Tuesday morning and confiscated the device, along with some of his home computer equipment. Police said Morreale had recorded himself setting up the device.

Morreale was suspended from the department, according to fire officials. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

A woman was stabbed by a stranger following an altercation at the Frankford Transportation Center Wednesday, officials said.

The woman was stabbed with an unknown object by a male after the two were involved a verbal altercation, SEPTA officials said. The pair apparently did not know each other.

After stabbing the female, the suspect ran away.

The woman walked to nearby Aria Health Frankford Hospital where she is being treated for non-life threatening injuries.

The suspect remains on the loose.

Philadelphia police are searching for two masked suspects who abducted and robbed a male and female earlier this week.

The incident happened about 3:30 a.m. Monday in the 5000 block of Erringer Place in the Germantown section.

A 39-year-old male was entering his residence when he was confronted by two masked men. The suspects ordered the male to the ground. While on the ground, a 35-year-old female exited her residence, saw the incident and was also ordered to the ground.

One of the suspects took the female’s keys and ransacked her residence.

The suspects then put a bag over the male victim’s head and walked him to a car. The female was also placed in the car and was told to “keep her eyes shut.”

After driving around for about 10 minutes, the suspects removed the pair from the car and ordered them to the ground.

While on the ground, the victims overheard one of the suspects talking on the phone saying "we got the wrong guy.”

The victims were released after several hours.

The suspects stole an iPad, jewelry and $400 in cash.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police.
 

Members of Penn State University's classically trained Concert Choir will get to take the stage alongside Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones when the band plays Pittsburgh's Heinz Field.

The legendary rock group often invites a local choir to sing backup vocals for the band during concerts, famously for the opening of the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Penn State will bring 24 singers to Saturday's show, a group largely made up of undergraduates and a few recent graduates.

Choir director Christopher Kiver says it's a different turn for his group to be playing music commonly found on iPods.

The choir will have one rehearsal with the Stones the afternoon of the concert before making its rock `n' roll debut.
 

The apparent tail of a dolphin washed up on the same stretch of New Jersey beach where a mauled bottlenose carcass was found over the weekend.

Alicia Anderer found the severed tail while walking with her kids near the surf of North Wildwood beach between 1st and 2nd Streets around noon Saturday. About three hours earlier, the front section of a 3-foot newborn bottlenose dolphin with large curved bite marks was discovered in the surf at the 4th Street beach, officials said.

Bob Schoelkopf, founding director of the Brigantine-based Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said its impossible to tell if the tail was part of the dolphin carcass without analyzing the remains. The carcass was disposed of by lifeguards. Anderer isn't sure what happened to the tail.

The dolphin was most likely dead when it was bitten by a sand tiger shark, the expert said, noting that it's not uncommon behavior for sharks to feed on mammals in the waters off the Jersey Shore. 

"Sharks are out there because they clean up the ocean. They’re the garbage men of the ocean," he said.

A dead 30-foot-long fin whale was found off the coast last week and a number of sharks could been seen feeding on the mammal's underside, Schoelkopf said.

Live dolphins aren't typically victims of shark attacks. They're usually too fast for the fish to catch, but Schoelkopf said it can happen.

"We’ve seen dolphins come into the surf zone and sharks come up and feed on them right there," he said. "It’s something that people need to be aware of, especially life guards so that they can get people out of the water if that happens."

The stranding center has been cataloging shark bites on animals that come to them. Schoelkopf said they're able to determine what kind of shark chomped down on the animals and possibly whether the specific shark is known to them.

Schoelkopf said it's important that people call the stranding center when they make finds like the dolphin remains so they could be looked at by staff. The stranding center can be reached at 609-266-0538.

A Philadelphia Housing Authority van slammed into the brick façade of a West Philadelphia day care center Wednesday morning leaving one person hurt.

The white van crashed into the Caring Center at 31st and Spring Garden streets in the city’s Mantua section around 11:30 a.m.

Children were in the center at the time but luckily the van struck the building outside the kitchen – leaving a 6 foot-by-5-foot hole in the bricks. None of the children were hurt and the day care said it continued to operate as normal aside from using the kitchen.

Medics took the van’s driver to nearby Presbyterian Hospital as a precaution, said police.

A judge in suburban Philadelphia ordered a mother and her boyfriend to stand trial on third-degree murder charges in the death of her 2-year-old son.

Shannon Matthews and Daniel Grafton Jr. appeared in Delaware County court Tuesday to be formally arraigned in the bathtub death of Matthew’s son Mason Hunt. Judge James Nilon ordered charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, aggravated assault and simple assault charges to proceed. Grafton, 31, also faces a reckless endangerment charge.

If found guilty on all counts, both could face more than 100 years in prison and more than $150,000 in fines, reported the Delco Times.

Mason, 2, suffered more than 120 bruises from beatings before being found unresponsive face down in a bathtub on Feb. 3, prosecutors said.

"Satan is living inside of them," said Carol Patterson, Mason's aunt, said earlier this year. "They are not people, they are not human beings, they are animals."

Grafton, who was babysitting, brought the boy into a doctor's office below their Norwood apartment, where Matthews worked, that afternoon saying he was not breathing, according to prosecutors. The boy had a number of bruises on his head and upper body, prosecutors said. A doctor performed CPR until paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

An autopsy found — in addition to the bruises to his head and upper abdomen — that Hunt had dozens of pinch marks all over his body, a liver laceration and bruises to his genitals, prosecutors said. Based on the findings, Delaware County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Fredric Hellman ruled the boy's death a homicide.

"To be able to do this to a 2-year-old, I don't care how bad a 2-year-old was, [he] does not deserve to be murdered," Patterson said.

Children and Youth Services had been monitoring the family following a Jan. 5 domestic dispute where Hunt had his head and eyes doused with seasoning salt, prosecutors said.

Matthews and Grafton remained jailed without bail.

A New Jersey lawmaker says he is working to require background checks for private school teachers after cellphone videos obtained exclusively by NBC 4 New York showed a Montessori school employee aggressively handling children. 

Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia (D-Hoboken) said he began writing a bill after seeing the videos of teachers at Apple Montessori School in Hoboken handling children roughly.

One video shows an aide manhandling a 23-month-old girl as she attempts t put a hat on the child; the other shows a teacher grabbing a crying child by her feet, then yanking the toddler around. 

"I couldn't believe a teacher would do that to a child," Garcia said. "We have to protect those children as well as the parents of those children, who deserve to know that those teaching their children are qualified and are keeping them safe."

Garcia said his draft would bring requirements in line with public schools and charter schools in the Garden State. 

"I want to ensure that every school is a safe environment for students by ensuring a common-sense safety measure is required of all," he said. "A simple background check can go a long way towards easing parental concerns and, ultimately and most importantly, keeping our children and students safe."

Apple Montessori, which runs 17 schools New Jersey, fired five employees after the videos were released. Among the terminated employees included both the teachers seen in the videos and the director and the assistant director of the Hoboken school. 

"We are outraged by the lack of care and concern this former employee showed," Apple Montessori School in Hoboken said after the firings. "We do not condone this type of behavior in any way, shape or form. Additionally, we are instituting new safety measures to ensure that this type of incident doesn’t happen again."

The school held a meeting for parents Friday assuring that major policy changes are coming. The owners promised they would install more cameras inside the school, and that parents could access them remotely, according to parents who were at the meeting. They also promised improved communication between the school management, owners and parents. 

Parents were also told at the meeting that the State Department of Children Services is investigating. 

A man slashed the throat of a mother inside her Philadelphia home Wednesday and her three children were home at the time. And Philadelphia Police believe the woman's boyfriend, the father of the children, could be responsible.

Philadelphia Police received a phone call about 7:30 a.m. from an individual stating that they believed one of their family members killed someone inside a home on the 4900 block of Warnock Street in Logan, said Philadelphia Police.

When officers arrived, no one answered the door. Firefighters then broke through an upstairs window where they discovered the body of a female with multiple stab wounds and her throat slashed in a front bedroom.

"She was a loving mom and a very hard worker... she tried several times to leave her attacker and she was just a victim of abuse, said a teary Linda Green, the victim's mother.

The woman's mother later identified the victim as Brittany Green, a housekeeper at a Center City hotel. After the killing, Green's boyfriend, identified by police as Gerrell Hall, left the couple's three children -- ages 6, 8 and 10 -- off at his mother's house then fled as the mother called police, said investigators.

None of the children were harmed.

"At the very least they did hear this horrible thing happen to their mother," said Philadelphia Police Homicide Capt. James Clark.

Clark told NBC10's Rosemary Connors that the couple had a "tumultuous" relationship and that it appeared they argued early Wednesday before Green's death.

"We believe he was inside, got into some type of argument with her, stabbed her multiple times and then took the children and fled from the house,” said Clark.

Syreta Randall, a home health aide who works with the victim's neighbor, said that police were at the home several times in the past few months. Green's mother and police confirmed that there was a history of domestic incidents at the home.

Police called Hall a person of interest in the homicide. Linda Green made an impassioned plea to bring her daughter's alleged killer to justice.

"Please phone into the police with the whereabouts of her attacker, the children's father, who did this in front of my grandchildren," said Green. "Help me find my daughter's killer, please."

One of the world’s most recognizable religious leaders is coming to Philly to receive a major award.

The Dalai Lama will receive the 2015 Liberty Medal for his work promoting human rights worldwide, the National Constitution Center announced Wednesday.

“We are so pleased to announce His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the recipient of the 2015 Liberty Medal,” said National Constitution Center president and CEO Jeffrey Rosen. “In his advocacy for Tibetans and for human rights worldwide, the Dalai Lama has always emphasized the ideals of freedom, dialogue and tolerance.

The visit by the spiritual Tibetan leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner will come about a month after Pope Francis comes to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families. The visits’ significance isn’t lost on city leaders.

“The city is fortunate to host two of the world’s most inspirational leaders in such a short time,” said Mayor Michael Nutter.

The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet will receive the medal in an Oct. 26 ceremony.

The Liberty Medal, given annually, was founded in 1988 to honor people who show “courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe.” Some tickets to the event will be released to the general public in September, said the Constitution Center.

After objections from The Wildwood Boardwalk Tram Service for using the iconic, “Watch the tram car, please” safety message, Atlantic City Tram Service wants a new and different safety message for their Tram.

On Wednesday, a new tram car message contest was announced. The person who submits the winning safety message will be awarded $1,000.

The Lite Rock morning show with Eddie Davis on 96.9 WFPG was announced as the partner for the contest. The rules? You cannot use the words, "Watch the tram car, please."

Deadline for entries via the Lite Rock 96.9 website is June 24th at noon. The winner was scheduled to be announced Thursday, June 25th at 8:15 a.m. on the Lite Rock morning show with Eddie Davis.

A 19-year-old New Jersey man has been arrested on charges of disturbing human remains and concealing evidence, among other offenses, in the death of an 18-year-old woman who vanished after a night at his house last year. 

Antony Freay, of Cresskill, was arrested Tuesday in the disappearance of Mila Kostadinova, who was reported missing by her family in June 2014. The remains of the Dumont woman have never been found.

Investigators said Kostadinova was in the company of several friends in the hours before she disappeared last year, and that she was last seen at Freay's home.

Freay faces a bevy of charges in the case, including failure to report the death of a person, hindering apprehension by concealing evidence, providing false information and unlawfully desecrating or damaging human remains.

He was remanded to the Bergen County jail pending an initial court appearance later Wednesday.

The investigation and search for the body of Kostadinova is ongoing.

A former Boy Scout pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing his troop leader, who he claimed had raped him over many years. 

In a tense and emotional courtroom in Newton, Clark Fredericks admitted to killing former Boy Scout leader and Sussex sheriff's officer Dennis Pegg three years ago. 

"From the time I was 8 years old until I was 12, I was sexually assaulted and raped by Dennis Pegg," said Fredericks. 

He said he never told anyone about the rapes even as, he claimed, Pegg also raped his best friend Jeff. Jeff committed suicide in 1983, Fredericks said. 

Fredericks graduated high school, still keeping the secret from his parents. 

"Dennis Pegg controlled me by torturing and killing animals in front of me, saying he would do the same to me if I told anyone about our secret," he said.

Fredericks said he felt that Pegg, as a cop, was untouchable.

But in 2012, as he watched the sexual abuse trial of Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky and then his conviction on June 11, "the next day, June 12, my shell cracked," he said.

Fredericks said he got drunk, snorted cocaine, and with friend Bob Reynolds -- who police arrested as an accomplice -- went to Pegg's Stillwater home with a hunting knife Pegg had given him back in scouting. 

"I started stabbing Dennis," Fredericks said in court. "I said, 'How does it feel raping little kids now. It's not so fun raping little kids now, is it?' At the end I slit his throat." 

Family and friends of Fredericks wept almost nonstop as he spoke. And then as he got up to leave, applause broke out in the courtroom, something the prosecutors said he'd never seen before.

One of those crying and applauding was Rose Funari, who said her own brother a victim of Pegg.

"If someone was to hurt my child, I'll be honest with you, there would be no judge, no jury," she said.

Family and friends said past accusations by others against Pegg were ignored. Prosecutor Francis Koch said there was simply was not sufficient evidence. Either way, the prosecutor would not justify an eye for an eye. 

Despite the savage nature of the killing, even the prosecutor agreed to accept the claim of passion provocation, which means a maximum of 5 to 10 years when he is sentenced in August. 

"Passion provocation could not be disapproved beyond a reasonable doubt," said Koch. 

A 13-year-old New Jersey boy was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer while riding his bicycle Wednesday morning, according to school officials and published reports. 

The Cresskill Middle School student was riding his bicycle downhill east on Grant Avenue, in the same direction as traffic, at 8:20 a.m. when he was hit by a tractor-trailer turning from Jefferson Avenue, according to Deputy Police Chief James Domville. 

The boy, identified as Young Rok Lee, was wearing a helmet but suffered head trauma, and was pronounced dead at the scene, Domville said. 

Police have not identified the driver, who was described as "extremely distraught" and taken to the hospital in shock. No summons has been issued. 

Cresskill Schools Superintendent Michael Burke notified parents of the 7th-grader's death in a letter Wednesday and said counseling staff were prepared to assist students and families.