WOONSOCKET — Karl Pernsley and Alethia Gibson seemed like a happy couple, pleased to move into a bigger apartment three weeks ago. Donna Baxter, their upstairs neighbor at 267 High St., said Tuesday that they appeared loving and quiet.

But in the three days before Monday, when Pernsley crashed his car with Gibson in it, then jumped to his death off a Route 95 overpass in Cranston, something had changed radically.

Baxter, 36, would hear Pernsley yelling. When he came home, he would not go in the house until Gibson checked the closets and the rooms — and once inside, he was afraid to go out. He was certain, Baxter said, that somebody was waiting to get him.

“It was horrible to listen to,” she said. “It was heartbreaking.”

It was just part of Pernsley’s final weekend, in which he sought help from Woonsocket police and state police. Each concluded he was in no danger. Woonsocket police took a report; state police talked to him, then released him to his uncle, Roger Moats of Woonsocket.

Moats had offered Baxter a possible reason for his nephew’s problems, she said: he told her that Pernsley had killed a man years ago and gone to prison for it. “He said that Karl was haunted by what he had done.”

PERNSLEY DID plead guilty to murder. On an August afternoon in 1992, he and two others robbed four men of $22 in Chester, Pa., according to the Delaware County (Pa.) Daily Times. The robbery victims picked up a fifth man and returned 15 minutes later seeking revenge.

A gunfight ensued in an alley, leaving robbery victim Marvin Burton dead.

Pernsley and his group were charged in Burton’s death. Pernsley pleaded guilty to third-degree murder on June 23, 1993, and was sentenced to 7½ to 15 years, a Pennsylvania corrections spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

Sherry Tate, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania parole board, said Pernsley was paroled to a community corrections unit on July 8, 2002. The parole board’s supervision ended on June 17, 2009, she said.

ON SATURDAY morning, Pernsley went to the Woonsocket police station just before 11:30. He complained “that he was being threatened,” Lt. Eugene Jalette said Tuesday, declining to give more details.

Pernsley said someone was trying to harm him, Jalette said. But “there was no indication on the report that he was being suicidal,” Jalette said.

The Journal was not allowed to see the report.

“We get a lot of reports. Not all of them are investigated,” said Jalette. “This case was not investigated.

“There were no violations of Rhode Island general laws. If there was any indication he was about to harm himself, we would have definitely investigated further, and definitely would seek counseling for him.

“The officer did what he was supposed to do,” Jalette said. “At that point, there was nothing else to do but to document the incident.”

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, at 5 p.m., Pernsley called 911 and reported “something suspicious,” according to the state police.

He told them he was driving, and described his car, said Lisa Holley, legal counsel for the state police. The police told officers to be on the lookout for him. Troopers stopped him near the Hope Valley barracks just before 6 p.m. and took him in for questioning, Holley said.

An investigation found Pernsley’s allegations “to be unfounded,” Holley said, but troopers were concerned he was not “speaking clearly,” and called on his family to pick him up.

Holley would not discuss the complaint or release a copy, citing privacy issues.

Moats, Pernsley’s uncle, picked him up at the barracks around 8:45 p.m., according state police Capt. Kenneth Marandola and Holley.

“At that time,” Marandola said, “he was not a danger to himself or to the public. Obviously, if there was a situation where we feel that he was a danger to himself or to the public, then we would act upon that.”

Moats, reached at home on Tuesday, declined to comment.

ON SUNDAY, Baxter, the neighbor, said, she saw Gibson outside in lounge pants, crying. Gibson was pleading with Pernsley, who was in his car, not to drive.

“She kept saying, ‘Please, baby, at least put on your seat belt. I just want you to be safe,’ ” Baxter said. “His uncle Roger told him, ‘I don’t feel you’re OK. You’re too sick to be driving.’ ”

That same day, Baxter said, she and Moats saw Pernsley standing out front with a cell phone, calling the police.

“ ‘There are people out here with weapons. They are out to get me,’ ” she said she heard him say. Baxter said she looked around the yard and driveway, and saw no one but Pernsley.

“He was not in his right mind,” said Baxter, a homemaker who years ago worked with Northern Rhode Island Community Health Center in Woonsocket.

Baxter said that Moats was very worried about Pernsley. She suggested he take Pernsley to the health center.

PAUL LATRAVERSE, Pernsley and Gibson’s landlord, said Tuesday evening that Gibson, after leaving the hospital where she was treated for trauma, had stopped by to say she was going to move out.

Latraverse said Gibson told him that Pernsley had aimed his car at the exit sign he hit Monday morning, and that she had her hands on the steering wheel, trying to steer away. State police also said Tuesday that Pernsley had deliberately crashed the car.

“A guy like that going out of his mind,” Latraverse said. “Seems to me like he was looking for help.”

With reports from

Kate Bramson

dnaylor@projo.com