PENNSBURG, Pa. — The manhunt for a Marine veteran suspected of killing his ex-wife and five of her relatives amid a child custody dispute has spread to two suburban Philadelphia counties.

Some schools were closed Tuesday, hospitals and other public places increased security and residents remained on heightened alert, even as officials lifted a shelter-in-place order for parts of Bucks County, where a knife-wielding, fatigue-clad man resembling suspect Bradley William Stone attempted a carjacking Monday night.

The killings and the manhunt through neighborhoods and woods echoed two other Pennsylvania tragedies: George Banks shooting and killing 13 people, including five of his children, at two locations in Wilkes-Barre in 1982; and Eric Frein’s 48 days on the run through the Poconos after a shooting in September killed a state trooper and injured another.

Monday’s shooting rampage started before dawn at the home of Stone’s former sister-in-law in Souderton and ended about 90 minutes later at ex-wife Nicole Stone’s apartment in nearby Harleysville, prosecutors said.

Stone’s former wife, 33-year-old Nicole Stone, was found dead after a neighbor saw Brad Stone fleeing just before 5 a.m. Monday with their two young daughters.

Police then made the grim discovery of five people killed in two other houses: Nicole Stone’s sister, brother-in-law and 14-year-old niece were dead. A 17-year-old nephew was left clinging to life. And her mother and grandmother had been fatally shot.

Brad Stone and his ex-wife had been locked in a court fight over their children’s custody since she filed for divorce in 2009. He filed an emergency motion early this month, although the resulting Dec. 9 ruling remains sealed in court files.

“She would tell anybody who would listen that he was going to kill her and that she was really afraid for her life,” said Evan Weron, a neighbor at the Pheasant Run Apartments in Harleysville.

He said Nicole Stone would talk frequently about the custody dispute.

“(Nicole) came into the house a few times, a few separate occasions, crying about how it was very upsetting to her,” Weron said.

Neighbors woke to the sounds of breaking glass and gunshots coming from Nicole Stone’s apartment early Monday. They alerted authorities after seeing her ex-husband racing away with the children. The girls later were found safe with his neighbors, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.

She declined to discuss the weapon or weapons involved in the slayings, and said authorities did not know if Stone was traveling on foot.

Stone, who’s white, about 5-foot-10 and 195 pounds, likely was wearing military fatigues and may have shaved off his facial hair, said Ferman. She added that he sometimes used a cane or walker.

“As I stand here right now, we do not know where he is,” Ferman said at an evening news briefing.