Glenwood Pysher IV was trying to reconnect with friends when a mistaken address led residents to call 911.
UPPER POTTSGROVE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — At about 12:32 a.m., Glenwood Earl “Bubba” Pysher IV was still communicating with friends after walking to the wrong house. Within minutes, the 22-year-old college student was fatally shot by a responding police corporal, according to his family and prosecutors who later charged the officer with voluntary manslaughter.
The compressed timeline has become one of the defining elements of the Aug. 23 shooting. What began as a mistake over where friends were gathering moved rapidly through a frightened homeowner’s 911 call, an officer’s arrival at the rear of a Snyder Road residence and a confrontation captured on police body camera. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele later said the recording showed Pysher with his hands raised and no weapon as former Upper Pottsgrove Township Police Cpl. Sean Farrell fired twice. Farrell, 58, is presumed innocent of the criminal charge unless proven guilty.
Hours earlier, Pysher had been celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday. Prosecutors said the group had visited area bars and later was driven by a designated driver to the birthday celebrant’s home. Pysher then decided to walk roughly a half-mile toward another friend’s house. His mother said alcohol, darkness and confusion contributed to him making a wrong turn. He arrived instead at a house occupied by people who did not know him. Believing it was where his friends were gathered, he went to the back of the property and tried to get someone inside to open the door.
Erin Pysher, his mother, said her son was essentially calling out to people he believed were his friends. To those actually inside the house, however, the late-night activity looked very different. The residents were startled by the stranger at the rear door and called authorities about what they believed could be an attempted break-in. That distinction — a confused visitor on one side and residents who believed their home might be under threat on the other — explains why police were sent to the property, but it does not answer the separate question prosecutors later examined: whether deadly force was justified after Farrell arrived.
Before police reached him, Pysher’s friends apparently realized he was at the wrong location. His father told The Associated Press that Pysher had contacted friends and was waiting for them to retrieve him. Other reporting said he sent information that allowed the group to identify where he had ended up. Pysher’s mother told WPVI that he was on the phone with friends at about 12:32 a.m. She said that based on what the family later learned, he had been shot by about 12:35 a.m. The exact second-by-second chronology remains part of the evidentiary record, but the broader sequence occurred extremely quickly.
Farrell was the first officer to reach the Snyder Road home. According to the district attorney’s findings, his body camera recorded him moving down the driveway with his handgun already drawn and using a light mounted on the weapon to illuminate the property. He stopped behind a parked car and saw Pysher near the back patio. The officer announced that he was police and ordered Pysher to show his hands. He then told him to raise his hands and get on the ground. The video, as described by prosecutors, showed Pysher raising his arms as instructed.
But Pysher did not immediately drop to the ground. Prosecutors said he continued walking toward Farrell with his hands raised while the officer repeated his commands. Farrell again told him to get down, then started warning him to stop. The district attorney’s office said Farrell fired before completing that warning. Two rounds struck Pysher in the chest. Investigators calculated that he was about 17 to 20 feet away from the officer at the time. Steele said Farrell was positioned behind a vehicle and that Pysher was unarmed.
The first description Farrell allegedly gave to a fellow officer painted a more threatening scene. A criminal complaint cited in local reporting says Farrell described Pysher as charging toward him while screaming and refusing to get down. Steele later said the footage did not show Pysher charging or acting aggressively. Instead, the prosecutor said, Pysher had his hands up and was listening at least to the command to show them. That gap between the officer’s reported description and the video became a central issue in the prosecution and prompted sharp criticism from the family’s attorney.
Investigators also examined what options Farrell had before firing. The district attorney said the officer carried less-lethal equipment, including a Taser, and did not use it. Steele concluded that the combination of distance, cover, Pysher’s empty raised hands and the absence of a weapon meant the young man did not present a threat that legally justified deadly force. On Sept. 1, a little more than a week after the shooting, prosecutors charged Farrell with voluntary manslaughter. The filing represents the government’s accusation, not a finding of guilt.
The charge shifted the public understanding of the case. In the first days after Pysher’s death, his parents knew that he had mistakenly gone to the wrong home and that police had been called, but they said they did not understand why the encounter ended with gunfire. Surveillance cameras at the property also reportedly recorded portions of the incident, though WPVI said it had not been given access to that material during the initial investigation. Once prosecutors announced their findings, the body-camera footage became the clearest publicly described account of the moments immediately before the shots.
The shooting also froze plans Pysher had been making for the start of school. He had transferred to Saint Elizabeth University in New Jersey and was preparing to play baseball there. Family members repeatedly described the sport as a major part of his identity. He was also a son and brother in a family that remembered his easygoing humor and habit of announcing himself when he came home. His mother told WPVI that he would walk through the door joking that her “favorite kid” had arrived. His funeral was held Aug. 31, the day before prosecutors announced the charge against Farrell.
Farrell’s employment ended almost as quickly as the criminal case began. After prosecutors filed the charge Sept. 1, Upper Pottsgrove Township suspended him without pay. Township Manager Joseph Geib said Farrell voluntarily retired the next day, effective immediately, after serving with the department since 2005. Township officials also announced an internal review of police policies, training protocols and field responses. That administrative examination is distinct from the criminal case and could address broader questions about how officers are expected to approach uncertain calls involving possible trespassers or break-ins.
Farrell surrendered to Montgomery County detectives after the charge was filed. His bail was set at $75,000, and he was ordered to surrender weapons to state police as a condition of release, according to published accounts. Early court reporting scheduled a preliminary hearing for Sept. 10. No reliable later disposition was established in the material reviewed through Sept. 30. The prosecution therefore remains unresolved publicly, as do some of the questions the Pysher family raised in the days after a wrong turn transformed a birthday celebration into a fatal encounter.
Author note: Last updated September 30, 2026.