(Photo Courtesy of Commonwealth Media Services)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro made a statement in Harrisburg yesterday following the guilty plea to charges including attempted murder yesterday by thirty-eight-year-old Cody Balmer, who was accused of setting fire to Governor Shapiro’s mansion in April. Balmer will be in state prison for 25 to 50 years after being sentenced under a plea deal. Balmer also made guilty pleas to burglary, loitering, terrorism, aggravated assault, aggravated arson, 22 counts of arson and 21 counts of reckless endangerment in the April 13th attack which caused damage worth millions of dollars to the mansion of Shapiro. Shapiro admitted something about Balmer yesterday when he said: “It’s especially hard to know that he tried to burn our family to death while we slept.” Shapiro told reporters after the statement that he and his wife have struggled to make sense of this whole incident that Balmer caused. Shapiro also noted that the words “attempted murder” were difficult to say aloud knowing that he was the one that Balmer was targeting.