Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.

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Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.
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MCPD Montgomery County police are looking for Philip Gilberti, 51, who police say may be linked to the March 13 shooting death of a woman in Kensington.
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Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.
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Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.
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Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.
• 
Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.

Dan Gross/The Gazette Montgomery County police investigate the scene where a woman was shot and thrown from a van onto Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue in Kensington on Tuesday morning. The woman was pronounced dead on the scene.

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This story was updated at 8 a.m. March 14, 2012.

The man accused of killing his wife in Kensington and pushing her body from a van Tuesday morning apparently killed himself hours later, police say.

Officers were searching for Philip Joseph Gilberti, 51, after obtaining a warrant for his arrest in the death of his wife, when they got information that he might be in a house in the 800 block of Fordham Street in Rockville, county police announced.

When they entered the house, at about 10:30 p.m., police say they found Gilberti dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The victim, Heather Lynn McGuire, 36, of Rockville, wrote in court papers this weekend that her children believe her estranged husband was going to kill her, said police spokesman Capt. Paul Starks.

“He intimidates and harms everyone I talk to. My children believe he is going to kill me if I do anything to upset him,” McGuire wrote in a police affidavit filed Sunday. She received a restraining order against him in November and then filed for divorce from him in December.

Gilberti, was arrested twice during the weekend for violating the court order restricting him from contacting McGuire.

In court papers filed by McGuire early Sunday, she wrote that he called her five times and sent her two text messages that night.

“This has been going on for many years and has been escalating,” she wrote.

Gilberti appeared at the Hallet Place home of one of McGuire’s friends shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday while she was staying there. Gilberti banged on the front door and demanded McGuire come outside, court records say. He was arrested around 4:30 a.m. at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant then released from the Montgomery County Detention Center in Rockville after posting bail.

He was arrested again hours after his release for attempting to contact her.

Several other people have taken out peace orders — commonly referred to as restraining orders — against Gilberti, according to court records, including the man who owns the Hallet Place residence and a woman who identifies herself as McGuire’s mother. The woman says that in 2009 she barricaded herself in her daughter’s home for fear of Gilberti.

The casePolice would not discuss what evidence or information linked Gilberti to the crime, said county police spokeswoman Officer Janelle Smith.

McGuire was found dead Tuesday morning in the southbound lanes of Connecticut Avenue near Knowles Avenue, Starks said.

Witnesses said they saw a woman struggling with a man inside of a green or gray van at the intersection just prior to the shooting.

Police obtained a warrant charging Gilberti with the homicide Tuesday afternoon. Starks would not comment on whether Gilberti abducted McGuire, whom witnesses say was not wearing shoes when she was killed.

Police found the van Gilberti was believed to have driving Tuesday about 12:30 p.m. that day near Wilkins Avenue and Parklawn Drive in Rockville, Starks said.

aruoff@gazette.net