A 37-year-old Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to spend the remainder of his life behind bars following his conviction for the fatal shooting of a co-worker at a Lowe’s hardware store , a crime he had foreshadowed in an email sent to the company’s human resources department prior to the incident.
Lackawanna County Common Pleas Judge Margaret Bisignani Moyle formally sentenced Christopher Wasnetsky to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the fatal shooting of Jeffrey Moeller, according to court records. Judge Moyle imposed the mandatory sentence following a jury’s August verdict finding Wasnetsky guilty of first-degree murder.
Prior to carrying out the shooting, Wasnetsky had sent an email to the company’s human resources department in which he stated that he would not have killed Moeller had the organization taken appropriate action in response to his prior complaints against the victim.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by local ABC affiliate WNEP, officers with the Scranton Police Department were dispatched to the Lowe’s location on Viewmont Drive at approximately 12:30 a.m. on June 14, 2025. Upon arrival, officers discovered 44-year-old Moeller lying in a pool of blood, having sustained two gunshot wounds to the head and one to the back. Emergency medical personnel transported Moeller to a nearby hospital, where he was subsequently pronounced dead.
Wasnetsky wasted little time in confessing to the crime, placing a call to 911 shortly after the shooting.
“I’d like to report a shooting at Dickson City Lowe’s,” he reportedly told an emergency dispatcher. “I was the person that did it.”
When the dispatcher inquired about his motivation, Wasnetsky reportedly attributed the act to “months of harassment and other things.” The store manager subsequently informed detectives that the company had investigated Wasnetsky’s complaints but found no evidence to substantiate them, according to the complaint.
Wasnetsky reiterated his allegations against Moeller during his conversations with law enforcement investigators.
“He said the victim, Jeff [Moeller], had been harassing him over a period of time, and no one would do anything about it,” police reportedly wrote in the affidavit.
Wasnetsky disclosed to investigators that he had brought a handgun to his workplace with the deliberate intention of shooting Moeller and then turning the weapon on himself. He further revealed that he had practiced firing the weapon in his backyard in preparation, according to The Scranton Times-Tribune.
Surveillance footage reportedly captured Moeller operating a forklift in the store’s lumber yard at the time of the attack. Wasnetsky approached him while pushing a shopping cart, from which he retrieved a firearm and discharged it at Moeller’s chest from approximately five feet away. As Moeller fell to the ground and attempted to crawl away, Wasnetsky stood over him and fired a second shot, according to the complaint.
It was also reported that Wasnetsky had previously brought the firearm to work earlier that same week with the intent to kill Moeller, but was unable to follow through because Moeller had called in sick on that occasion.
Moeller had previously dedicated himself to being a stay-at-home father to the three daughters he and his wife shared. Once the children reached school age, he transitioned to working overnight shifts at Lowe’s so that he could continue to be present for them during the daytime hours, according to a statement written by his sister on a GoFundMe page established for the family.
At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors read aloud a victim impact statement authored by Keisha Moeller, Jeffrey Moeller’s widow, in which she addressed the court directly. “I forgive Chris,” she stated, according to the Times-Tribune. She further asserted that her husband “wasn’t a bully.”
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