Font ResizeTrooper George Ross, of state police at Gettysburg, said he was called to the area of 400 block of Big Hill Road in Menallen Township for a report of people poaching deer in an orchard.
The landowners, Terry Fetters and Tony Fetters, of Fetters Orchard in Gardners, told police they heard gunshots and came outside to see what was going on, Ross said. The owners have had poachers on their property before, but said they called after finding a small child left alone the front seat of the vehicle with open containers of alcohol in his reach, Ross added.
As the two landowners were looking into the car, Ross said, Martin Torres, 41, of New Oxford, came out of the woods to talk to them, according to police.
Torres said the two other men with him took off, and that he didn't know their names or that of the child, Ross said. The three men were acquaintances who decided to go hunting together, the trooper added.
Pennsylvania Game Commissioner David Grove checked the orchards and found a freshly killed female dear within 50 yards of the vehicle, police said.
The child, who was not in car seat, was turned over to Adams County Children and Youth Services and was later released to his mother.
Ross said police are still looking into charges against the
Torres was charged with criminal trespassing and using an artificial light in the killing of the deer. He was being held Thursday night at Adams County prison on an immigration detainer out of York and for not paying collateral on two traffic citations out of the office of Magisterial District Judge Daniel S. Bowman, according to the prison.
Ross said the other two alleged poachers would also face charges. The father of the boy would be also charged with endangering the welfare of a child, he said.
No one at Fetters Orchard could be reached Thursday, and a woman who answered at the residence of Terry Fetters said she didn't know about the incident.
