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WILKES-BARRE — A search warrant executed at city residence where a local homeless man’s alleged killer was captured earlier this month turned up a supply of illegal drugs and remains the target of an ongoing state police narcotics investigation.
State and city police on July 7 discovered Daniel Holtslander, 38, at 38 N. Hancock St. and took him into custody on charges he stabbed Kurt Swan, 49, with a pair of knives and dumped the homeless man’s body over an embankment near the Kmart at Mark Plaza in Edwardsville.
A police affidavit says Holtslander’s vehicle registration listed the residence as his home address.
During Holtslander’s arrest, law enforcement allegedly “observed a large amount of heroin and psilocybin mushrooms” inside the two-story home, according to the search warrant.
Investigators from the Pennsylvania State Police vice unit at Wyoming applied for the search warrant the same day and served it at the residence July 9, where they allegedly discovered one plastic baggie of heroin, 13 baggies of crack cocaine and four bags of mushrooms, along with a digital scale, cash and various packaging materials, according to the search warrant return.
State Police Cpl. Bill Langman, who supervises the vice unit, said Thursday the investigation remains ongoing. He was unable to comment further, he said.
No one answered the door at the residence Thursday afternoon, and a phone number for the property’s listed owner, Amanda B. Romano, could not be located.
The affidavit says Holtslander took the apart the knives he allegedly used to stab Swan and cleaned them with hydrogen peroxide at the North Hancock Street residence.
After he was taken into custody, he told investigators he was sleeping “weaponized” inside his truck in a wooded area near R&H Manufacturing when someone got inside and crawled toward him, the affidavit says.
He allegedly “lashed out” at the person and stabbed them multiple times before he turned his lights on and realized it was Swan, someone he previously drank with and considered a friend, the affidavit says.
Holtslander remains jailed without bail at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility ahead of his preliminary hearing Aug. 18.