Philadelphia Daily News
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NEIGHBORS SAY Walter Oswald was a miserable man who used alcohol and drugs to dull the memories of his son’s violent death eight years ago.
They say Oswald, 56, often would sit in the disheveled yard of his rancher in Greenwich Township, Gloucester County, with his beloved dog at his side, chugging cans of beer and menacing neighborhood children.
After the dog died in a house fire last year, neighbors say, Oswald only got nastier.
“He was just evil,” neighbor Crystal Fox said yesterday as police stood outside the home marked by boarded and broken windows.
On Saturday night, authorities believe, Oswald shared his misery one last time, fatally shooting his wife, Donna Harbula, just hours after police removed him from her nearby Logan Township home during a domestic-violence incident.
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said Oswald and Harbula had a history of domestic violence, but that Harbula, 52, perhaps had had enough, filing a temporary restraining order against Oswald shortly after Saturday’s incident.
But Oswald wasn’t charged after the incident, and he allegedly made his way back to Harbula’s place after police dropped him off at his half-charred home in Greenwich.
A spokesman for Logan police could not be reached for comment.
Authorities say the temporary restraining order had not yet been entered into “automated records” when New Jersey State Police picked up Oswald around 10 p.m. Saturday, lying in a ditch on Route 130 in Salem County. He was about 2 miles from Harbula’s home and carrying a Remington shotgun in a bag.
Oswald, who state police said appeared to be drunk, was charged with weapons possession — but with no outstanding warrants, he was released pending court. Oswald then was driven home by a police officer for the second time that day.
Police surrounded Oswald’s home Monday night, when he became a suspect in Harbula’s death. And when a SWAT team entered the home yesterday afternoon they found the tall, bulky man dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“Like father, like son,” said former neighbor Gertrude Pihs, recalling how Oswald’s violent death echoed his son’s final moments.
On April 2, 2001, Walter Oswald Jr., 27, was seen driving a stolen Cadillac in Camden. After a lengthy pursuit, he slammed into another car at an intersection near the Deptford Mall in Gloucester County.
Wanted in connection with three murders in Florida and surrounded by police, Oswald Jr. shot himself in the head.
“They said that he had never been the same since his son died,” neighborhood resident Laura Massey said yesterday.
Outside the small home in rural Logan Township where Harbula lived, neighbors spoke of a beautiful woman hampered by hip problems and trapped in an abusive relationship.
“Any guy would have been happy just to be seen with her,” said Richard Bond.
Harbula’s brother found her body around 7:54 p.m. Monday and called police. Investigators said she died from a single gunshot wound to the head and found two shotgun shells outside, near a partly open window.
Bond said he saw Oswald hiding in bushes near the home around 4 p.m. Saturday, but no one recalls hearing any gunshots later that day.
Seeing Oswald drunk or acting bizarre was the norm, Bond said.
“The cops were here so many times, you got used to it,” he said. “They’d pick him up and he’d be right back out.”
Greenwich Township Mayor George Shivery Jr. lived next-door to Oswald and said he tried to get the troubled man some assistance through county agencies.
“This is a shame it had to end this way,” Shivery said yesterday.
Court records show that Oswald has a history of offenses, including several disorderly conduct and drug charges. He missed a hearing Monday for two charges of eluding in Gloucester County.
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