Messages sent before the shooting became key evidence as jurors considered whether Darrell Long intended to kill his former wife.
LEBANON, Pa. — Seventeen days before Dawn Long was shot in her North Lebanon Township home, her ex-husband sent a message that prosecutors said referred to a clear line of sight into the residence and warned that their child could lose both parents. Weeks of hostile communications would later become a central part of the attempted-homicide case against Darrell Long.
A Lebanon County jury convicted Long, 63, on Sept. 22 of attempted homicide, two aggravated assault counts, burglary and harassment for the March 25, 2025, attack on Dawn. The two-day trial asked jurors to look beyond the undisputed fact that Long shot his former wife and decide whether he intended to kill her. Prosecutors built that argument partly through the attack itself, but also through what they described as a documented progression of resentment: blocked communications, messages routed through the couple’s child, anger connected to child-support proceedings and recorded remarks after Long was jailed. His attorney argued that Long intended to injure Dawn, not kill her.
The communications began before the gunfire. Authorities said Dawn had blocked Long from electronic contact after the couple’s separation and divorce. Long then sent messages to their child that investigators believed were meant to reach Dawn. District Attorney Pier Hess Graf said the jury heard evidence of 23 hostile messages in the month before the shooting. In one, Long referred to his view of the home. Another message sent days before the attack warned that the time for Dawn to change her behavior was running out, according to local reporting from the trial.
Prosecutors also told jurors that Long’s anger escalated around a child-support filing. The couple had formally divorced in October 2023, and investigators said Long no longer had a legal right to enter the former marital residence. Hess Graf said receipt of child-support paperwork was an important trigger in the events leading to the attack. Prosecutors did not present the filing itself as proof of intent; rather, they placed it alongside Long’s communications, his unauthorized entry into the home and the gun he carried as part of a broader chronology they said showed planning and mounting hostility.
That chronology reached the home on North Seventh Street on the afternoon of March 25, 2025. Dawn had returned from work and was sleeping on a couch when Long entered without permission, according to authorities and her trial testimony. She awoke to find him standing over her with a loaded .22-caliber firearm. Prosecutors said he struck her in the face with the gun before shooting her twice in the left leg. What began as an attack on a sleeping woman then turned into a physical struggle as Dawn tried repeatedly to stop him from firing again.
Dawn kicked Long backward, got to her feet and reached toward the weapon, according to Hess Graf’s account. When the gun was pointed near her face, she raised her left hand and was shot through it, causing severe damage to her index finger. She then used her other arm to grab Long and managed to force him across the room and onto the floor. At some point, the gun jammed or its magazine became dislodged. Prosecutors said Dawn saw Long trying to make the firearm work and moved toward him again in an attempt to take control of it.
Long fired again, striking Dawn in the right arm. With wounds in several limbs, she began moving toward a bedroom rather than continuing to fight at close range. Prosecutors said he shot her a fifth time, in the right leg, as she tried to get away. Dawn reached the room, barricaded the door and activated an emergency call using her Apple Watch. The Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office said she contacted 911 at about 5:17 p.m. Long left the house before police arrived. Hess Graf said he locked the door while leaving.
Investigators found Dawn wounded in both arms and legs. She was taken to a Hershey hospital and later underwent four surgeries. Hess Graf said her left hand and left leg will remain permanently affected and that she continues to experience pain. One bullet remains lodged in her femur. Long surrendered within hours. Prosecutors said that during questioning he admitted entering the home without permission, striking Dawn with the gun and shooting her multiple times. Those admissions narrowed the later trial dispute: jurors were not primarily being asked to identify the shooter but to determine the intent behind what he had done.
Another communication arrived after the shooting itself. Authorities said Long sent a final message to the couple’s child about 18 minutes after Dawn’s 911 call. In it, he complained about the house, vehicles, child support, losing his job and what he viewed as Dawn’s control over his life. The message included the words “life for a life.” Investigators said it also contained a reference to the gun and where Long had obtained it. Prosecutors used portions of that message as further evidence of his mindset close in time to the attack. The communication also provided a link between the grievances he had expressed beforehand and his actions inside the house.
By trial, prosecutors had another set of statements to present: Long’s recorded conversations from jail. Local reporting said the jury heard him say that he was glad he shot Dawn and heard remarks mocking the effect of her injuries. Hess Graf said additional calls included jokes about striking women to teach them a lesson. She told reporters that Long presented himself as a “hero” and continued to blame Dawn for the shooting. The statements were significant because the defense was arguing over intent, and prosecutors contended that Long’s own descriptions after the crime were consistent with the hostility they had documented before it.
The defense nevertheless argued that those same circumstances did not establish an intent to kill beyond a reasonable doubt. Hess Graf said Long’s attorney maintained that he wanted Dawn to suffer serious injury rather than die. That was not a meaningless distinction under the law. An attempted-homicide conviction required the prosecution to prove the specific intent to kill, not simply an intent to assault or inflict extreme pain. Long’s alleged comments about making Dawn suffer therefore could be used in competing ways: the defense could point to them as evidence that suffering was the objective, while prosecutors could ask jurors to infer lethal intent from the totality of his conduct.
Prosecutors emphasized that Long entered without permission while armed, attacked Dawn as she slept, continued shooting after she resisted and fired again while she was trying to retreat. They paired those acts with the earlier threats and the communications after the shooting. Hess Graf publicly characterized the attack as planned and said the repeated gunfire showed an intent to kill. Jurors deliberated for a little more than an hour before finding Long guilty of attempted homicide as well as both aggravated assault counts, burglary and harassment. The verdict meant they accepted the prosecution’s argument about intent.
The conviction also marked a significant change from the case’s earliest stage. When authorities announced Long’s arrest in March 2025, the initial charges included aggravated assault, burglary and harassment. The attempted-homicide case that later went to the jury reflected additional investigation and the evidence ultimately presented at trial. By September 2026, jurors had heard not only what police found at the residence but Dawn’s testimony, medical evidence, Long’s admissions, the messages and recordings from the months before and after the attack.
Hess Graf said after the verdict that Dawn had been waiting since the shooting for the criminal case to reach that point. The prosecutor has said she will ask for the maximum consecutive sentence the court can impose. Local reporting also said an appeal is expected. Long is due to be sentenced Dec. 9 before Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Charles Jones Jr., making the penalty phase the next scheduled step in a case whose central dispute over intent has now been decided by the jury.
Author note: Last updated November 8, 2026.