An 18-year-old transgender woman is facing prison time over the 2022 slaying of a 12-year-old girl, according to local authorities.
Ash Cooper, formerly Joshua Cooper, was sentenced in connection to the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Morgan Connors, according to a statement by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Cooper, 18, of Bensalem, Pennsylvania, pled guilty on Thursday to third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence in connection to the girl’s November 2022 death, the district attorney’s office said.
Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey L. Finley sentenced Cooper, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, to 15 to 40 years in state prison and seven years of probation, according to the statement. The judge also ordered Cooper to follow all the rules and recommendations of adult probation and parole and undergo psychological and psychiatric evaluations.
Paul Lang, Cooper’s defense attorney, confirmed to Newsweek in a text message on Saturday that the teen “goes by she and her.”
“Ash’s plea marks the initial but not the ultimate phase in her journey to redemption,” Lang said. “As her lawyer, I am pleased that my defense contributed to securing a favorable sentence for her, one that notably prevented life in prison.”
Shortly after 4 p.m. on November 25, 2022, the Bensalem Township Police Department received a 911 call about a possible murder at the Top of the Ridge Trailer Park on Gibson Road in Bensalem, a township located roughly 20 miles from Philadelphia. Prosecutors said that a “juvenile witness” was on an Instagram video chat with an acquaintance, later identified as Cooper, who claimed to have just killed someone.
“In the video chat, Cooper flipped the video image and showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood,” the district attorney’s office said. “Cooper then asked the acquaintance for assistance with cleaning up the scene and disposing of the body.”
Bucks County District Attorney’s Office/Getty
When officers arrived at the Gibson Road property, they spotted a Cooper running out of the back of the trailer. She was found and taken into custody soon after.
Officers went inside the trailer and found Connors dead on the bathroom floor with an apparent gunshot wound and signs that “substantial steps were taken to clean up the crime scene,” the district attorney’s office said.
Investigators determined that Cooper used a firearm from her father’s gun safe in the home to shoot the Connors, according to the statement.
“Cooper was able to get into the safe by replacing the batteries his father had removed to make the combination lock inoperable,” the district attorney’s office said.
During Cooper’s sentencing on Thursday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristin McElroy read an impact statement from the 12-year-old victim’s grandfather who described the “intense pain and heartbreak” of losing Connors.
“The human heart is not built for such heartbreak,” her grandfather’s letter read.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.