Police say guns discharged during fight at East Huntingdon home

A Verona woman who is on parole for stabbing a man outside a Westmoreland County strip club in 2018 is back behind bars on attempted homicide charges stemming from a fight in East Huntingdon, according to court papers.

State police said Kristin M. Kruel, 26, of Verona, handed a pistol to Orlando Holt, 32, of Pittsburgh, and demanded he pull the trigger during a fight at a Porter Avenue home in the village of West Overton, just off Route 119. A male resident of the home was hospitalized with a wounds to his head and hand and a broken rib, according to court papers.

Both suspects are being held without bail at the Westmoreland County Prison on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, theft and related offenses.

Troopers said Kruel, Holt and Tammy L. Vrabel, 51, of Mt. Pleasant, arrived at the house around 4 a.m. Wednesday when the male resident was hanging out with three friends. The man asked them to leave and Holt refused, hitting him in the head with a glass bottle, according to court papers.

Holt and the man got into an altercation when Kruel handed Holt the pistol, police said. Holt pulled the trigger but it was not loaded. As the two men wrestled over the gun, Holt loaded a round into it and the weapon discharged, but no one was hurt.

One of the wounded man’s friends retrieved a revolver and got into a struggle with Holt when another round was fired into the kitchen floor, according to court papers. Holt, Kruel and Vrabel are accused of fleeing with two guns and cell phones.

The guns were recovered by police not far away. One of the cell phones was found in Vrabel’s shed, according to court papers. She is charged with tampering with evidence and receiving stolen property. Bail was set at $5,000.

None of the suspects had attorneys listed in online court records. Preliminary hearings are set for Sept. 14.

Kruel was sentenced in September 2019 to three to seven years in a state prison and was released in May 2021, according to state records. Prosecutors dropped an attempted homicide charge in that case in exchange for Kruel’s guilty plea in connection with the stabbing outside The Filly Gentlemen’s Club along Motordrome Road near Interstate 70 in South Huntingdon.