County Prison For Man Whose Shotgun Blasts Missed Mobile Home Park Staff By Inches

A man who was arrested with a gun, a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey, and a Bible after popping off 10 shotgun rounds into a mobile home park office last summer will spend time in county prison.

Jimmy R. Stormant, 56, was sentenced Monday by Bucks County Judge Raymond McHugh to one day less than one year to one day less than two years behind bars. He was also ordered to serve two consecutive years of probation, not to contact victims or Pennwood Crossing, to stay away from drinking alcohol, and to undergo mental health and alcohol abuse counseling, according to prosecutors.

McHugh called Stormant a “model prisoner” and decided to keep him in county prison and not send him to a county correctional institution.

The sentencing comes just over two months after Stormant pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and discharging a firearm.

Stormant said in court that he was intoxicated, depressed, and planning his suicide following the incident on Alder Drive in the Pennwood Crossing community in Falls Township last September 12. He opened fire with a shotgun toward the complex office, just narrowly missing Doran and Andrea Johnson, who worked at the complex and recently told the 56 year old they were not responsible for electrical problems his home was experiencing.

At the time of the shooting, police said the shotgun projectiles missed the employees by inches.

“I can only imagine what you felt that day, and being here today, going through it again. I am sincerely and wholeheartedly sorry. I feel terrible today,” Stormant said to Doran Johnson.

“I forgive you,” Johnson responded to Stormant.

“I thought that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I seen no other way out and I felt that I had nowhere to turn,” he said. “I did what I did out of frustration, rage and pure anger.”

Stormant, who didn’t have a prior criminal record, had been out of work due to injuries he suffered at his previous job. He had worked for many years as a machinist and a truck driver.

The District Attorney’s Office said Stormant was deep in debt and suffered from alcoholism.

Before shooting up the mobile home community office, he awoke with no intention of living and withdrew his savings from the nearby Wawa. He put the money in an envelope for his mother and gave his ex-wife his dog, Stormant said in court.

An intoxicated Stormant shot up the mobile home community office and dialed his mother and ex-wife to say his farewells.

Stormant’s mother showed up to find her son after he called.

“I remember wanting to shoot myself, but I couldn’t do it in front of my mother,” he told McHugh.

During the sentencing, close to a dozen friends and relatives spoke on his behalf. His ex-wife Audrey Turnicky told the judge he was a kind man who was overwhelmed.

“He was a broken man and lost all hope,” Turnicky told McHugh. “In time, he reached a point where he felt that … not being among us was his only option.”