Reading police charged Oliver Paniagua-Pena with murder in the stabbing of Leonardo Mercado-Gomez.

Thursday is an arrest and an arraignment, and the two accounts do not describe the DNA the same way. The department's Friday release says DNA links him to the scene. The Reading Eagle, laying out what police said, says testing of a bicycle could not exclude him. Could not exclude is a comparison. The Eagle's count list is longer than the release. None of it is a conviction.

The Reading Police Department said in a release dated Oct. 23, 2026, that officers responded on May 9, 2026, to the 200 block of River Road for a reported stabbing and found Leonardo Mercado-Gomez suffering from multiple stab wounds. The release said EMS took him to Reading Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. It said detectives identified Oliver Paniagua-Pena, date of birth July 21, 1987, after a months-long investigation, that DNA recovered in the investigation links him to the crime scene, and that he has been charged with first-degree murder and related offenses. The release said members of the department's Criminal Investigations Division and Patrol Division took him into custody on Thursday, Oct. 22, and that the investigation remains active. The release does not list a bail amount, a judge, or a plea.

The Reading Eagle, in a story published Friday, Oct. 23, reported he is 39 and that the man who was killed was Leonardo Antonio Mercado Gomez, 56, who was walking home from his job at the Sun Rich Foods plant. The Eagle reported the counts as first- and third-degree murder, two counts each of aggravated and simple assault, and possessing an instrument of crime. It reported he was arraigned Thursday before District Judge F. Richard Drumheller and placed in Berks County Jail without bail. The department's release uses a hyphen in Mercado-Gomez. The Eagle's headline and deck use Mercado Gomez, and the story also uses Mercado-Gomez. The Eagle reported the arraignment. The release reported the arrest and the first-degree murder charge.

The Eagle's account of what police said is more specific than the release, and it is still an accusation. The Eagle reported officers were called to the 200 block of River Road about 2:45 p.m. on May 9 for a man lying in the street with what appeared to be stab wounds on his back, that he was taken to Reading Hospital, where he later died, and that a doctor at the hospital found multiple deep stab wounds to his head, face and back, and more on his left hand. The Eagle reported surveillance showed him crossing West Buttonwood Street and River Road as a person dressed in black and wearing a balaclava-style mask waited on a bicycle, and that the cyclist then rode toward him before both moved out of camera view. The Eagle reported a relative in the Dominican Republic, on the phone with him as he walked, described yelling and heard him say, "I didn't do anything to you. Oh my God." The Eagle reported a battery-powered bicycle was found near the scene, that DNA from it came back last month and could not exclude Paniagua-Pena, that both men worked at Sun Rich Foods at stations a few feet apart, that time-clock records showed Paniagua-Pena left about 15 minutes earlier, and that a coworker said he was known to ride a bicycle matching the one at the scene. The release says DNA links him to the crime scene and does not say the sample came from a bicycle. The Eagle says the bicycle testing could not exclude him. Those are the department's Friday wording and the Eagle's account of the police narrative. The counts are charges. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.