12-year-old girl Shot Dead when she refused sexual advances of a Transgender Friend in Pennsylvania; Sentenced 40 years in Prison
Bensalem Township, PA: A Pennsylvania transgender teen has confessed to killing her 12-year-old girl and then posting images of the corpse on Instagram.
On Thursday, 18-year-old Ash Cooper (formerly Joshua Cooper) pleaded guilty to many crimes related to the killing of Morgan Connors. These charges included third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
Court records show that on November 25, 2022, while watching Netflix at a trailer park in Bensalem Township, Cooper cleaned and organized her father’s gun safe after Morgan got up to use the restroom.
What followed is murky at best, but the mother of a Cooper acquaintance called the police later, claiming to have seen Morgan’s corpse in a video call on Instagram.
The youngster informed her mother after Cooper requested the acquaintance’s assistance with the body’s cleanup and disposal.
Upon the arrival of law enforcement, Cooper was discovered “running out of the back of the trailer.”
There was a gunshot wound to Morgan’s leg, and she was found dead in the restroom.
They also discovered cleaning materials, bloodstained towels, and a strong bleach odor coming from the restroom, all of which pointed to Cooper’s attempts to clean up the crime scene.
Cooper maintained, according to an affidavit, “It was an accident” when she was arrested.
According to prosecutors, she stated in an affidavit that she had been in a sexual connection with the victim, but she never disclosed the reason behind the killing.
Also mentioned in court was Cooper’s “difficult upbringing” and the “significant remorse and sorrow” she felt as a result.
The absence of a “true explanation for what happened” and Cooper’s “troubling history of conduct and treatment of other people” were further points of concern for Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley.
Cooper was recommended for placement in a therapeutic community inside the state prison system, and he handed down a sentence of fifteen to forty years in jail with seven years of probation on Thursday.
A mental and psychological evaluation is also necessary for her as a legal adult.
