Ash Cooper, formerly Joshua Cooper, being escorted by authorities (WCAU screenshot)
An 18-year-old transgender woman in Pennsylvania will spend up to four decades behind bars for killing a 12-year-old girl, fatally shooting the child and then bragging about the deed in an Instagram video chat in which she even showed the little girl’s body.
Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey L. Finley on Thursday ordered Ash Cooper, formerly Joshua Cooper, to serve a sentence of 15 to 40 years in a state correctional facility for the 2022 slaying of young Morgan Connors, authorities announced.
Finley handed down the sentence after Cooper formally pleaded guilty to one count each of third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
During Cooper’s sentencing hearing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristin M. McElroy read a victim impact statement penned by Morgan’s grandfather in which he described the “intense pain and heartbreak” that followed the loss of his granddaughter, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
“The human heart is not built for such heartbreak,” he wrote in the letter.
The investigation into Cooper began at about 4 p.m. on Nov. 25, 2022, when someone called the Bensalem Township Police Department and reported a possible homicide at the Top of the Ridge Trailer Park in the 1400 block of Gibson Road, about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia.
“From the call, investigators learned that a juvenile witness was on an Instagram video chat with an acquaintance, later identified as Cooper, who claimed to have just killed someone,” prosecutors wrote in the release. “In the video chat, Cooper flipped the video image and showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood. Cooper then asked the acquaintance for assistance with cleaning up the scene and disposing of the body.”
Once there, first responders spotted a juvenile running out the back of the trailer. A perimeter was set up around the area, and Cooper was apprehended a short while later.
Inside the trailer, authorities immediately located a dead juvenile female, later identified as Morgan, lying on the floor of the bathroom, suffering from what appeared to be a gunshot wound and was declared dead at the scene.
Authorities noted evidence indicating that someone had taken “substantial steps” to clean up the crime scene.
During the investigation, authorities learned that Cooper used a gun owned by her father to kill Morgan. The gun had been locked in a safe inside Cooper’s father’s home, but Cooper was able to get into the safe “by replacing the batteries his father had removed to make the combination lock inoperable,” prosecutors said.
