Man indicted for shooting Pittsburgh area postal worker

Eric Kortz, 53, was indicted for firing a gun during a crime of violence and murder of a U.S. employee on Wednesday by a federal grand jury in western Pennsylvania.

The shooting originally occurred on October 7th in Collier Township, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. Louis Vignone, the victim, was on his daily mail route. Police have said that Kortz told investigators that he drove up, stopped in front of the postal vehicle, and opened fire.

He then dropped the gun and ran to the borough police department to report the crime he had just committed minutes earlier.

He remains in jail and could be facing a life sentence if he gets convicted.

Vignone and his family lived next door to the Kortz family for quite some time. Kortz told authorities that he thought that the postal service poisoned him and his family with cyanide when they were neighbors, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Kortz is being represented by a public defender.