A 22-Night Great Wolf Lodge Stay Ended in Two Killings

Police charged Metallica Rose Harrison, 27, with two counts of criminal homicide after she called 911 from Great Wolf Lodge on Oct. 12 and said she needed help dying. Officers found her husband, Charles Harrison, 36, and their 3-year-old son stabbed to death in Room 2030.

The family had checked into the Scotrun, Pa., resort on Sept. 21 and, on Oct. 5, pushed checkout to Oct. 13. That is 22 nights in a children’s waterpark hotel, and the killings came the afternoon before they were due to leave.

She Told 911 They Were Already Gone

Pocono Township officers were sent to 1 Great Wolf Drive at 3:13 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, for a woman in distress. The caller, later identified as Metallica Rose Harrison of Towanda, told Monroe County 911 she needed help dying and could not find the vein in her neck to stab, Sgt. Earl Ackerman wrote in the arrest affidavit.

“I’m too weak to stab my neck,” she said on the tape, according to the affidavit. She said she had knives. “That’s what I’ve been using and it’s not working … I don’t want to be here anymore.” When a dispatcher asked if she was alone, she answered, “my husband and son are already gone in the bed in the living room … They’re already gone, I’m sorry.”

Ackerman wrote that she never asked for help for either of them. Officers met her at the door of Room 2030 with bleeding cuts on her left wrist and shallow punctures on her neck. She told them she wanted to be with her husband and son.

Inside, Charles Harrison lay on a mattress on the floor with multiple stab wounds to the chest. The boy, listed in court papers as T.H. and named by relatives as Tristan Harrison, lay on a separate mattress with a single stab wound to the chest. Both were pronounced dead in the room.

A large butcher knife sat on the bathroom floor. A smaller knife sat on the sink. Both had teal green handles. Lodge staff told police those blades were not a style the resort keeps.

Twenty-Two Nights Inside a Children’s Waterpark

Great Wolf Lodge in the Pocono Mountains sells an 84-degree indoor water park under one roof, with suites built around kids’ rooms, arcades, and wristbands. Families usually come for a weekend. The Harrisons had been there since the third week of September.

Lodge security told police the three checked in on Sept. 21. On Oct. 5, two weeks in, the reservation was extended through Oct. 13. Metallica Harrison’s stepmother, April Thetga, said the trip had been framed as an early Christmas gift because the boy loved water parks, and that the length still struck relatives as odd.

Thetga said the couple had taken their 401(k) out to cover the stay, a kitchen remodel, and other bills. She said she did not know whether they had borrowed against the account or pulled the money out. “It was definitely odd, but they’d taken their 401(k) out … There was nothing we could do about that,” she said.

THE STAY AND THE LAST NIGHT

1. Sept. 21, 2026: The family checks into Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun.
2. Oct. 5, 2026: The reservation is extended, with checkout set for Oct. 13.
3. Oct. 11, 6:53 p.m.: Lodge cameras last show all three entering Room 2030 together.
4. Oct. 11, 8:12 p.m.: Metallica Harrison leaves to use a microwave in a vending area and returns about 4 minutes later.
5. Oct. 11, 10:43 p.m.: She and Charles Harrison walk to the arcade and return at 11:22 p.m. Police say the door does not open again until officers arrive the next afternoon.
6. Oct. 12, 3:13 p.m.: She calls 911. Checkout is still scheduled for the next morning.

Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso told reporters the violence stayed inside that room. “This was a contained thing. The violence, although extreme, all took place within the confines of that room and involved close family members,” he said.

The Towanda House Went Dark on Oct. 5

While the family was in Scotrun, the house they had left on Pratt Avenue in Towanda was already losing service. Investigators who searched the light beige, multi-level home on Tuesday, Oct. 13, found an electric shutoff notice on the front door. A lawn-care worker who handled the property told officers he had not seen the family in a month.

A gas shutoff notice dated Oct. 5 was still posted later that week for an unpaid balance of $29.05. That is the same date the lodge stay was extended. Metallica Harrison bought the house in her name in 2019 for $145,000.

None of that proves why they stayed 22 nights in a waterpark hotel. It does show the trip was not a clean break from bills at home. A $29.05 gas tag is a small number. Stacked next to a month with no one at the house, and a reservation that kept getting longer, it is harder to read the Scotrun stay as a simple holiday.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The booking: Check-in was Sept. 21, the stay was extended Oct. 5, and checkout was set for Oct. 13.
• The house: Police found an electric shutoff tag on the door, and a gas notice for $29.05 was posted Oct. 5.
• The yard: A lawn-care employee told officers he had not seen the family in a month.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The 401(k): Thetga said retirement money paid for the trip and a remodel; bank records in the warrant have not been made public.
• The motive: Mancuso called it one of the most perplexing questions in the case.
• The journals: Two were seized from the house; the warrant papers do not say what they contain.

Warrants also covered Charles Harrison’s 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe, the lodge room, and Metallica Harrison’s person. Police photographed her at the hospital and took a DNA sample.

Charles Harrison’s Family Had Been Cut Off for Years

At 11:50 p.m. on Oct. 12, investigators interviewed Ann Harrison, Charles’s mother, and Melissa Rivera, his sister. They told police the rest of the Harrison family had been isolated from Charles and the boy for the past three years, according to the search-warrant papers.

Rivera described the marriage as dominant and controlling. She told investigators Metallica Harrison was resentful toward the child, “never wanted to get pregnant,” and had said the boy took away one-on-one time with Charles. Public Facebook pages indicated the couple had been married about three years, which lines up with that stretch of silence.

Thetga, who is Metallica Harrison’s stepmother, gave a different picture of daily life. She called Charles a devoted husband and father who rarely lost his temper. “He was a fantastic husband. She definitely got lucky when it came to him. He just was good. He was a good father. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him fight,” she said.

She also said the family had a normal video call the day before the killings. “She had called and we’re video chatting, and then she says she loved us very much, just like she normally would,” Thetga said. Relatives, she added, still wanted a reason. “Absolutely it was a loving family. We’re just as shocked as everybody else. We’re not evil people. We want answers. They were always happy.”

Those two accounts can both sit in the file. One side of the family says they were shut out for years. The other says the household looked happy until it did not. Police have not chosen between them.

Teal Knives in the Bathroom Matched a Block at Home

Ackerman found the two teal-handled knives in the lodge bathroom, plus several bottles of medication around the room and suspected blood in a plastic container and a bathroom garbage can. Mancuso said officers pulled about 80 to 90 pieces of evidence from the room alone, with more searches still to come.

The home search in Towanda, carried out just before 3:45 p.m. on Oct. 13, is where the sleeper fact hardens. Police wrote that people who appear to plan killings often write about it first, so they were looking for journals. They left with more than 20 items.

WHAT WAS SEIZED

If the bathroom knives match a block from the Towanda kitchen, they were not grabbed off a lodge cart in a sudden fight. That is the question the warrant was built to ask. The papers do not say when the knives were packed, and they do not call the stay a plan. They do say the blades at the scene and the blades at home belong to the same set.

What the Ambulance Ride Added to the Case

Metallica Harrison was taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s Hospital-Monroe Campus in Stroudsburg, with a township officer riding along. She kept saying she was not supposed to be here, the affidavit states, and she used harsher words than that. “I fucked up, I fucked up,” she told investigators in the ambulance. “I just needed energy and strength.”

She also asked EMS how deep her wrist vein was, “so that she knew for ‘next time.’” Then she talked about the family she said she had been trying to build.

Every day I work so hard to be the best person, the best mother, the best wife. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. I was supposed to have my happy family. That’s what I envisioned since I was a child.

Metallica Rose Harrison, to EMS, per the arrest affidavit

At the hospital, Ackerman and Detective Michael Scicutella read her Miranda warnings and asked what had brought her there. She said she was “suicidal, not stupid,” and refused to talk. Except for the wrist and neck injuries, the affidavit says, officers saw no other injuries, no defensive wounds, and no bruising.

That refusal is the line that follows the 911 call most closely. She had already told a dispatcher the other two people in the room were gone. Once detectives were in front of her, she stopped. Under Pennsylvania’s criminal homicide statute, a person is guilty if they intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently cause the death of another human being. The complaint charges two counts as first-degree felonies. It does not yet name a degree of murder.

Great Wolf Lodge Left the Waterpark Running

Pocono Township Police Chief Jim Wagner called the deaths a domestic dispute confined to one room. “This is a domestic violence-related, isolated situation to a room in Great Wolf Lodge,” he said. “It’s a family tragedy.” Mancuso used a similar phrase, “violent domestic tragedy,” and said there was no threat to anyone else on the property.

Jason Lasecki, vice president of corporate communications for Great Wolf Lodge, said some guests were moved and a small stretch of hallway was taped off while police worked. The rest of the resort stayed open. “I think it’s important to highlight that law enforcement assessed the situation at the resort, determined it was isolated family incident and quickly verified there was no ongoing security concern,” he said.

The company later told remaining guests they could change dates with no penalty if they did not want to stay. In its first statement it called the deaths “a tragic domestic incident” in a guest room and sent further questions to township police.

Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac said autopsies were scheduled later in the week of Oct. 13. Those results had not been released by Oct. 14, when the home search details became public. Mancuso said more lab work would run for months. “There’s a lot more testing,” he said. “There are post-mortem exams to be conducted, and there is a review of various items of evidence.”

THE COURT FILE SO FAR

• The charges: Two counts of criminal homicide, Title 18, Section 2501, each a first-degree felony.
• The docket: MJ-43303-CR-0000313-2026, complaint 2026-00011728, filed Oct. 13.
• The lockup: Arraigned Oct. 13 before Magisterial District Judge Daniel Kresge; bail denied; held at the Monroe County Correctional Facility.
• The next date: Preliminary hearing Oct. 21 at 10 a.m. before Kresge. No lawyer is listed on the docket.

She is charged, not convicted. The affidavit is the state’s opening account, and she has not offered a public defense. The next hearing is only a test of whether that account is enough to send the case to the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on criminal charges, an arrest affidavit, and search warrants. It is for information only and is not legal, medical, or mental-health advice, and it does not decide guilt or innocence. Metallica Rose Harrison is charged with two counts of criminal homicide and has not been convicted; anyone with a legal stake in the case should speak with a licensed Pennsylvania criminal-defense attorney. Figures, charges, and hearing dates come from court papers and official statements as of the dates named above and can change as the investigation continues. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which is free, confidential, and open 24 hours a day.

On Oct. 21, Kresge will hear the township’s evidence in a case that still has no stated motive. The Harrisons had one more night on the reservation when the 911 call came in from Room 2030.