A grey backpack was discovered by a grounds manager at Foulkeways at Gwynedd
The discovery of a handgun in a backpack connected police to a speeding driver who eluded them the day before, said reports.
Steven Vincent DePaul, 23, of Hamilton Street in Norristown, is facing felony charges of Receiving Stolen Property and Carrying a Firearm not to be carried without a license, as well as misdemeanor charges of fleeing or attempting to elude and officer, after an incident that began on Aug. 5, reports said.
Lower Gwynedd Township Police Department was called to the Foulkeways at Gwynedd at 1120 Meetinghouse Road for the report of a gun being found, police said. The facility director and grounds manager of the development met with police upon arrival around 1:41 p.m. on Aug. 6.
The grounds manager said he’d noticed a grey backpack in a ditch approximately 30 feet away from Perimeter Drive, near the K Building around 10 a.m. that day, according to reports. He said when he continued about his business for the day, and returned to the area around 1:20 p.m., the bag was still there, police said.
The manager opted to look inside the bag, police said, and noticed a gun inside of a gun case, along with unknown pills, forcing him to call police. Police said that they too looked inside the bag and found a plastic, blue Girsan handgun case. Inside the case, reports stated, was a beige Girsan MC28 SA-T pistol with aftermarket optics attachments. The gun was loaded with 11 9mm live rounds in a black magazine, said police.
Additionally, police said they found, inside the bag, a white pill bottle with the letter “h” logo on the outside with 27 non-controlled substance pills, as well as a College Hunks Moving Junk T-shirt, a notepad, and a medical examiner’s certificate for a commercial driver’s license. According to reports, the notebook detailed log-in information for an email starting with “Steven.DePaul” and the certificate included DePaul’s name and Norristown address.
Police said that the gun they recovered was listed as stolen from Philadelphia. While an arrest was made by the Philadelphia Police Department in the matter, the gun had never been found, said reports.
On Aug. 5, around 8:51 p.m., police said they had been conducting a stationary traffic detail on Sumneytown at Brushtown Road when a white or grey vehicle was clocked going over 70 mph in a 35-mph zone, traveling westbound on Sumneytown Pike.
According to reports, police activated lights and sirens in an attempt to stop the vehicle, but it continued traveling at a high rate of speed and police lost sight of it, deciding not to pursue.
As police worked to locate DePaul regarding the gun incident, reports stated that they recovered cell phone data from T-Mobile to track his movements. As the only subscriber to the phone account, police said that the name and billing address matched that of the information on the backpack’s contents. The call detail records noted that DePaul’s cell phone was present in the area of Foulkeways at Gwynedd and Beth/Alexis Drive on Aug. 5 between 8:51 and 11:10 p.m., police said.
According to police, research on DePaul continued with an insurance claim database review, which found DePaul to have filed a claim on his personal automobile policy on Aug. 6. The date of loss on the claim was listed as Aug. 5, and the name and address once again matched DePaul’s information as found in the backpack, reports stated.
Per the insurance report, police said DePaul was listed as both the claimant and the insured, and he reported he’d lost control and hit a median causing a collision. The vehicle involved, a silver 2017 Hyundai Accent, was registered to DePaul, police said.
Police said that, by analyzing the tow records from the accident, Depaul’s vehicle was towed from the area of Alexis Drive in Lower Gwynedd around 11:20 p.m., which was less than 1,000 feet from the backpack’s discovered location. Reports also noted that police had confirmed DePaul was employed and received income from an LLC “doing business as” College Hunks Moving Junk. DePaul did not have a concealed weapons permit.
DePaul was arraigned on Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m. and is being held in County Jail unable to post a $10,077 monetary bail. He is slated to attend a preliminary hearing on Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. with Magisterial District Judge Suzan Leonard.
All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using public court records.
