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Coroner: No drugs involved in chain saw murder-suicide

Published  June 24, 2015 12:20pm PDT
Associated Press

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a suburban Philadelphia man who killed his ex-wife and then himself with a knife and chain saw wasn't under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The Montgomery County coroner concluded after toxicology tests that 48-year-old Charles Peppelman had no drugs in his system and an amount of alcohol so small that it "is not worth mentioning."

Dr. Walter Hofman told The (Doylestown) Intelligencer that the man may have acted out of rage alone in the March 31 killing.

The coroner said earlier that Peppelman and 41-year-old Nicole Peppelman had gaping abdominal wounds. Nicole Peppelman was also choked and stabbed.

The couple's divorce was finalized more than a year earlier in January 2014.