NEW WHITELAND, Ind. — A New Whiteland man with a long and interesting criminal past was killed by police Monday in Pennsylvania.
Forty-eight-year-old Wade Meisberger took off in a semi cab and led Pennsylvania police on a 20-mile chase that started on Interstate 81 in Frackville and ended in Hazleton.
Meisberger was wanted for a probation violation of a 1991 Indiana murder conviction. He barricaded himself in the cab behind a hockey rink and allegedly fired shots at police during a four-hour standoff before police shot and killed him.
"It was heartbreaking because I heard them say, 'Wade, surrender. Surrender!’ But he didn't. He even talked to his mom, and he told his mom that he wasn't coming home and he wasn't going back to jail,” said Hazleton resident Joann Voyda.
Meisberger's prison time started almost three decades ago for murdering his childhood friend. Meisberger used a two-by-four to beat 20-year-old Michael Sawyer to death on railroad tracks in Monroe County. Meisberger, who was 19 at the time, also slit Sawyer’s throat and fled in his friend’s Pontiac Fiero. He eluded police for a year before being featured on the TV show “America's Most Wanted” and captured in North Carolina.
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He was released from prison in 2007. Facing a probation violation in 2012, Meisberger apparently faked suicide by jumping off the Kentucky River’s Carrollton-Prestonville Bridge. But he soon posted YouTube videos proving he was alive and went back to prison.
He was released again in 2015. Just two years ago, he visited the Pendleton Correctional Facility with his dog and spoke to inmates about his mental health issues.
Meisberger lived in a New Whiteland subdivision for the past few years. Neighbors say that police visited the home where he lived just a few weeks ago. After that, Meisberger allegedly fled the state.
"It's a shock," said neighbor Chase Shumway. “You wouldn't think that would happen in your neighborhood."
Shumway said he worked for Meisberger doing landscaping and lawns a few years ago. He and Meisberger exchanged texts a little over a month ago. Shumway and other neighbors only learned the full extent of Meisberger’s criminal history after his death.
"I always believe in second chances,” said Shumway. “People always deserve second chances and if that's what he was going for, then I'm all for it."
But Meisberger was wanted for allegedly violating probation again, and was unwilling to surrender and return to Indiana.
He was originally sentenced in 1993 to 48 years for the murder of his friend. But that sentence was reduced to 30 years in 1999. He served about 18 years during two stints in Indiana prisons.