Police ambush gunman's sister calls him her 'protector'


              FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2015, file photo, Eric Frein is led away by Pennsylvania State Police Troopers at the Pike County Courthouse after his preliminary hearing in Milford, Pa. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Frein, who they said targeted state police because he was trying to foment an uprising against the government. Frein’s lawyers want the jury to sentence him to life without parole. (Butch Comegys/The Times & Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2015, file photo, Eric Frein is led away by Pennsylvania State Police Troopers at the Pike County Courthouse after his preliminary hearing in Milford, Pa. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Frein, who they said targeted state police because he was trying to foment an uprising against the government. Frein’s lawyers want the jury to sentence him to life without parole. (Butch Comegys/The Times & Tribune via AP, File)

MILFORD, Pa. (AP) - The younger sister of a man who fatally shot a Pennsylvania State Police trooper in a 2014 ambush says he was her "protector" against their abusive parents.

Tiffany Frein (freen) took the witness stand Tuesday in the penalty phase of her brother's capital murder trial. Eric Frein faces a potential death sentence for killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and wounding Trooper Alex Douglass in the attack at their barracks.

Tiffany Frein was adopted into the family when she was 4. She told the jury her father physically abused her, and she called her mother a selfish manipulator.

She says Eric Frein "made me feel like someone actually loved me."

Frein was convicted of murder of a law enforcement officer, terrorism and other offenses. He was captured after a 48-day manhunt.

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