Woman Pushed Ex to Suicide with 'Heinous' Messages, Video of Her Having Sex with Another Man: DA Says

Criminal charges against Mandie Reusch in Greenburg, PA were announced by Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole W. Ziccarelli on Tuesday; Reusch has been charged with aiding suicide, a felony, as well as harassment, a misdemeanor, following the death of Kevin Metzger.

Metzger, with whom Reusch shares a child, was found dead inside his home on June 18, 2021, following a request for a welfare check from a friend who was unable to reach him. His death was determined to be a suicide and, according to the DA, a letter inside his apartment and messages posted to his Facebook page the same day his body was discovered detailed "a trail of torment and solicitation."

"Mr. Metzger may still be here today if those messages did not influence and encourage him to take his own life," said Ziccarelli. The press release from the DA said the messages from Reusch were "continuous and unrelenting for months," saying the "level of bullying, harassment and threats rose to a criminal level in this particular case, and we will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law."

According to state police court documents via Penn Live, the messages from Reusch began on May 5, 2021 while Metzger was away at military training. She allegedly said she was moving in with a new man, who would be their child's new father. "I hope for [the child's] sake that you do kill yourself. She would be better off not even knowing you," Reusch allegedly wrote in one WhatsApp message.

She also allegedly messaged Metzger about having sex with her new boyfriend on Mother's Day "while your daughter calls him daddy," told him he would "burn in hell" and she'd dance on his grave and sent him a video of her having sex with another man. Reusch is also accused of telling Metzger he would "never ever see" their child again.

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Metzger complained to the police about Reusch's alleged behavior in May 2021 and she was instructed to stop sending messages. When they reportedly continued, she was charged with harassment; in some of those messages, according to court docs, Reusch indicated she would keep their child away from Metzger on Father's Day.

On the day of his death, two days before Father's Day, Metzger posted some of the alleged messages to his Facebook page -- and messaged a friend saying, "This gets known to the world. I can't do this anymore. She needs punished. The courts are too slow."

Reusch was arraigned Tuesday morning and has a preliminary hearing scheduled for June 27, 2023.

Her lawyer, Phil DiLucente, told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that to "suggest that my client was the one, under the statute, who aided in that and intentionally caused it by force, duress or deception, is wrong."

Speaking with the Daily Mail, he also downplayed any comparison between the case and that of Michelle Carter -- who was convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of Conrad Roy III after she was deemed to have persuaded him to kill himself in 2014 -- by saying Carter "was actually telling him reinforcing him to do it, planning it, the methods and the means, you don't have any of that here, what you have is an emotional relationship between two persons involving their child."

Though he said the messages could be considered "immoral," he added, "I do not see it fitting a criminal charge such as aiding a suicide. There was no coercion, duress, there was there was no methods and means."