Police say an Emporium man killed a woman inside her own home, and then showed up at a Sheetz covered in blood.

Police say Michael Courtney, 34, stabbed the victim twice in the neck, and then disoriented, with blood on his clothes, went for help.

“He actually went to Sheetz looking for a phone to call 9-1-1,” says Cameron County District Attorney Jeanne Miglicio.

Police say Courtney used the store phone, and came out with his hands up around 8:30 p.m., saying he “cut” her.

They walked to the home, where police kicked in the door and found Deborah Gerlach, 45, dead on the floor, according to the criminal complaint.

“I’m still in shock over it,” says friend Debra Shady.

Shady and other friends in Gerlach’s old building say she told them that Courtney had once beat her up, and that he would come pounding on her door. She’d recently moved here to 92 Wood Street.

“I was walking by over town and she was letting her dog out or in or something and she said hi,” says nearby hair stylist Rose Moore.

An IT man who did work at her old building is shocked.

“We’d see her all the time because we felt really bad for her because of the things that’s been happening to her,” says neighbor Lawrence Stadden.

One of those was a case where Gerlach was driving and hit an 11-year-old girl getting off a school bus in St. Marys last month. Police say charges were almost ready to be filed. Now, Gerlach’s death has closed the case.

“It’s just a sad thing to happen and nobody deserves to die like that,” says Stadden.

“It’s only a block away from me. I literally walked a block away to the scene,” says Miglicio.

The complaint says Courtney claimed the two were both playing a “tit for tat” game with the knife.

“He talked of a story of of an accident,” says Miglicio.

But, Miglicio says the evidence didn’t support his claims. Courtney was arraigned around 4:30 a.m. on homicide charges and was taken to the McKean County Jail, where he’s being held without bail.