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EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: Aaron Pennington, a Massachusetts father of four, allegedly locked eyes with his 9-year-old daughter before he fled from the home where he is accused of executing her mother, leaving the couple’s children alone with their dead parent blockaded in a bedroom, according to the victim’s aunt.
Brenda Hull, who raised her niece, Breanne “Breezy” Pennington, told Fox News Digital this week she believes Aaron Pennington is still alive and on the run two years after the Oct. 22, 2023 murder.
“He looked his daughter in her eyes as he drove off, knowing he was leaving her responsible for four children with a dead mother,” she said.
She is the oldest. The other children were 2, 5 and 7, authorities said at the time.
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Aaron and Breanne “Breezy” Pennington in an undated family photo. She was found dead in their bedroom on Oct. 22, 2023. He has been named both a suspect and person of interest but has been unaccounted for since then. (Facebook/Aaron Pennington)
State police recovered the 35-year-old Pennington’s white BMW a day after the murder, parked at Camp Collier, a Boy Scouts campground. But they never found the suspected killer, despite a weeks-long manhunt involving aerial surveillance, K9s and boots on the ground.
Pennington is accused of shooting his 30-year-old wife three times in the back of the head as she slept in their home in Gardner.
Then he allegedly blocked the bedroom door with a dresser, climbed out the window and gave his oldest daughter, 9, a “death glare,” she said, before he left and never looked back.
The children had been waiting to go to church at the time, Hull said.
“He waited till she was asleep and helpless,” Hull alleged in a phone interview with Fox News Digital. “He snuck up behind her and planted three bullets in the back of her head.”
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Aaron Pennington is suspected in the murder of his wife Breanne Pennington, 30, at their home on Cherry Street in Gardner, Massachusetts, on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. (Massachusetts State Police)
Hull said that after their father left, the children ran to a neighbor’s house for help, and members of the family’s church called 911 after forcing the door open and finding Breezy dead.
The Penningtons and their children were members of the Mormon church, Hull said.
“The church friends came, [and] they found her in bed, still warm to the touch,” she said.
Although early reports suggested that the children heard their mother crying before they went for help, Hull said that would be impossible due to the nature of her injuries. She said it was likely the husband they heard, before he left out the window.
The suspected murder weapon is a Walther pistol the victim had been given by her grandfather, Hull said. Aaron Pennington had spent the prior day frantically searching the house for something, she added. She now believes it was the gun.
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Aaron Pennington in an undated family photo provided by his wife’s aunt. His whereabouts have been unknown since October 22, 2023, when he is accused of gunning down his wife, Breanne “Breeze” Pennington, with their four children at home. (Courtesy of Brenda Hull)
Aaron Pennington had a history of mental illness, she told Fox News Digital, but she questioned whether he used it as an excuse to get out of undesirable work and to receive a discharge from the military that included disability benefits.
“His history is every time Aaron had responsibility that he didn’t want anymore, he would all of a sudden be mentally ill,” Hull claimed.
She conceded, however, that police recovered notes about suicide from his phone, but she said they may have been a ruse.
“I have five years of journals that he wrote in every day,” she said. “There is no mention of suicide or depression in his journals. And I mean, zero.”
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Breanne “Breezy” Pennington was a 30-year-old mother of four when police say she was shot and killed in her home. They suspect her husband, Aaron Pennington, whose whereabouts are unknown. (Facebook/Breezy Pennington)
He and her niece had a deteriorating relationship, she said, and the shooting happened just a day after Aaron Pennington returned from a visit with his parents in California.
He borrowed an undisclosed sum in cash from his father, according to Hull, and allegedly told a friend on his way home from the airport that he was “10 steps ahead of everyone.”
“There’s no planning in a murder-suicide, right? It’s usually like somebody snaps,” Hull reasoned. “The only reason you need to be 10 steps ahead, my boy, is because you’re gonna run. The only reason you need cash from daddy is because you’re gonna run.”
She said that before the slaying, he had talked about living off the grid, and she added that she believes that’s exactly what he’s doing now.
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The Penningtons’ home in Gardner, Massachusetts, pictured in a Google Maps Street View image. (Google Maps)
“Nobody hides their car and then hides themselves to commit suicide when they know they have four children that they supposedly love, right? Who would then be entitled to their death benefits,” she said.
She also noted that the campground remains in use and no one has uncovered remains linked to Pennington there. It’s also a 10-mile hike from a cargo rail line that she argues he could have stowed away on to get out of town.
Pennington is a White male who police described as standing 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighing around 175 pounds. He has blonde hair and blue eyes, but Hull said he may have changed his hair in the years since the slaying.
She also said he has “gnarly teeth” and “very round eyes.”
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Aaron Pennington pictured with a shaved head. While he has been described as blonde haired and blue eyed, the aunt of his murdered wife believes he may have changed his appearance in the two years he’s been unaccounted for since her shooting death. (Aaron Pennington/Facebook)
Hull is urging her niece’s husband to turn himself in, for their children’s sake.
“I want him to know that his children are asking about him, that they love him, that they have good memories of him, and they want to see him,” she said.
State police did not immediately respond to questions about where the search for Pennington stands today.
They have previously asked hunters, hikers and people with trail cameras near Camp Collier to be on the lookout.
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Aaron Pennington is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who sees him is asked to call 911.
Anyone with information that could help investigators is asked to call state police detectives assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office at 508-832-9124 or Gardner police at 978-632-5600.