Dennis L. Cassel was a 42-year-old White/Caucasian male connected to Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and listed in funeral information as being from Christiana. He died on November 3, 2014, after a violent encounter outside the Brandywine YMCA in West Brandywine Township, near Coatesville. Online reports identified him not as the person targeted in the initial shooting, but as the man authorities said fatally shot 41-year-old Jacinda Miller, a fitness instructor and mother of two, as she arrived for
work.
The incident unfolded shortly before 6:00 p.m. in the YMCA parking lot. Miller was getting out of her vehicle when Cassel, described by prosecutors as her estranged boyfriend, ambushed her and shot her. The shooting caused the YMCA, which had children and other members inside at the time, to go into lockdown. Authorities characterized the case as a domestic-violence murder-suicide.
After Miller was shot, Cassel reportedly remained near her body. One account said he told a bystander to call 911. When police arrived, Cassel was found kneeling over Miller. As an officer approached, Cassel used a semi-automatic handgun to shoot himself. Both Cassel and Miller were taken to Brandywine Hospital, where they died from their wounds.
Because Cassel died at the scene after shooting himself, there was no surviving suspect to arrest in connection with Miller's killing. Online reports identify Cassel as the alleged shooter and Miller as the homicide victim. No trial, conviction, sentencing, or later punishment followed, because the accused perpetrator was dead. The case appears to have been closed as a murder-suicide rather than prosecuted through the courts.
Funeral information for Cassel stated that he was born in Coatesville and was survived by his wife, Teresa L. Evans Cassel, his son, parents, brother, and stepbrothers. His funeral services were described as private. The public reporting around his death, however, centered on the parking-lot shooting at the Brandywine YMCA and the domestic-violence context that left Miller dead and Cassel dead by suicide.
