Authorities say Caleb Hayden Fosnaugh fled North Carolina after two people were found shot to death in a home on Daphne Lane.
VASS, N.C. — A 25-year-old Ohio man is charged with murder after authorities said he broke into a home in Moore County on Valentine’s Day and fatally shot his former girlfriend, Kateryna Tovmash, and her boyfriend, U.S. Army soldier Matthew Wade, before fleeing north.
The killings drew attention across North Carolina because they joined several threads at once: a domestic violence case, the death of an active-duty Fort Bragg soldier, and the loss of a 21-year-old Ukrainian refugee whose family had come to the state after fleeing war. Investigators identified Caleb Hayden Fosnaugh as the suspect the same day and later arrested him in Coshocton, Ohio. He has since been returned to Moore County, where he faces two murder charges and a felony breaking and entering charge.
Deputies said they were called to a home on Daphne Lane in the Woodlake community of Vass at about 7:45 a.m. on Feb. 14. When they arrived, they found Tovmash, 21, of Vass, and Wade, 28, dead inside the residence. The sheriff’s office later said Fosnaugh, who investigators identified as Tovmash’s former boyfriend from Ohio, had left the area before law enforcement reached the house. WRAL reported deputies believed he fled around 8 a.m. and quickly alerted other agencies because they thought he might head back to his hometown in Ohio. Sheriff Ronnie Fields said in a statement after the arrest that authorities were grateful for the quick coordination that helped take the suspect into custody. By later that day, officers in Coshocton, Ohio, had found and arrested Fosnaugh without incident after a search that stretched across state lines.
Authorities have said Fosnaugh, 25, is accused of killing both victims and entering the house unlawfully, but they have released only limited detail about what happened inside the home. Investigators said Tovmash and Fosnaugh had previously been in a relationship while both were living in Ohio. Even so, the sheriff’s office said early in the case that it had not determined a clear motive. That left several questions open, including how long Fosnaugh had been in North Carolina before the shooting and whether anyone else inside the home witnessed the attack. Family accounts reported by local outlets said some of Tovmash’s younger siblings may have been in the house at the time, though the sheriff’s office did not publicly confirm that point. Officials also have not publicly described the weapon used, whether forced entry was visible, or whether any prior protection orders or earlier police calls were tied to the people in the case.
The deaths also brought fresh attention to the two victims’ lives. The sheriff’s office identified Wade as a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg. His relatives told WRAL that he had recently started dating Tovmash and had been living with her in Vass while serving in the Army. His sister, Megan Wade, said he had always wanted to join the military and was excited about a coming trip to Italy. Another sister, Courtney Miller, told the station that he loved making people laugh. Tovmash’s friends and family described her as part of a Ukrainian family that had escaped the war after Russia’s invasion and settled in North Carolina. ABC11 reported she had grown up in Ukraine with friend Kiril Pryshchepchuk, who later said her death was hard to understand because she had come to the United States looking for safety. Friends also said she helped care for her younger siblings after the family resettled.
The setting added to the shock in Moore County. Woodlake is a residential community near Vass, a small town southwest of Raleigh, and the killings unfolded on a holiday morning inside a home rather than in a public place. Early local reports said the search for the suspect prompted warnings within the neighborhood while deputies canvassed the area and looked for a white 2018 Ford Mustang they believed Fosnaugh might be driving. The case quickly spread beyond the county because it involved a suspect with ties to Ohio and victims whose stories connected Fort Bragg and the Ukrainian diaspora in North Carolina. For members of that community, the killing of Tovmash cut especially deep. ABC11 reported that some Ukrainian immigrants in the state were still shaken by another high-profile killing of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte months earlier, making this case feel not only personal but part of a larger sense of fear and grief among people who had already fled violence abroad.
The legal case moved quickly after the arrest. Authorities in Ohio took Fosnaugh into custody the day of the shootings, and he remained there until he waived extradition. Moore County officials said investigators brought him back to North Carolina on Feb. 18. He then appeared in court for the first time the next day. During that hearing, his defense team asked the judge to order police and prosecutors to preserve all evidence gathered in the investigation. ABC11 reported that a capital defender was appointed to represent him, and the judge ordered that he be held without bond at the Moore County Detention Center. Court coverage from WRAL and ABC11 said he faces two counts of murder and one felony count of breaking and entering. His next court date was set for March 11. As of the latest local reports, prosecutors had not publicly announced whether they would seek additional charges or whether the state would pursue the death penalty.
Outside the courtroom, the public picture of the case has been shaped as much by mourning as by police updates. Pryshchepchuk, Tovmash’s childhood friend, told ABC11 that he had lost the friend he had known his whole life. He said she was close with her siblings and cared deeply for other people, a memory that matched family descriptions of her role at home after the family fled Ukraine. Wade’s relatives, speaking to WRAL, remembered him in simpler terms, as a funny younger man who had finally built the military life he had long wanted. Those tributes have stood in contrast to the sparse official record, which still leaves many basic questions unanswered. What is clear, though, is that investigators moved fast enough to stop a man they believed had already driven hundreds of miles, and that two families on different paths to North Carolina are now tied together by a case that began in a quiet Moore County neighborhood and is only starting to move through court.
Fosnaugh remains jailed in Moore County without bond, and the next public milestone in the case is the March 11 court date, when prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to return before a judge as investigators continue building the homicide case.