Joshua Cooper Admitted Homicide on Instagram Chat: After reportedly confessing to killing someone and revealing the victim’s dead body to another youngster he spoke with via Instagram video chat, a Pennsylvania teen is charged with criminal homicide.
A “potential homicide” 911 call was made to the Bensalem Police Department on Friday at 4:11 p.m., according to a press statement from law authorities.
The caller said that her daughter had a video chat on Instagram with a 16-year-old friend, according to the police. “The 16-year-old claimed to have just killed someone during the video discussion. He then turned the video footage over and displayed a person’s blood-covered legs and feet.
According to the police, the 16-year-old in question has since been identified as Joshua “Ash” Cooper of Bensalem’s Gibson Road.
Authorities claim that Cooper begged for assistance in disposing of his victim’s body after reportedly showing the girl a video of his victim.
The cops visited Cooper’s house armed with details about the video chat from the girl and her mother. “A juvenile male rushed out of the back of the trailer,” cops reported when they arrived.
According to the police news release, when the responding officers entered the house they discovered a young girl lying dead on the bathroom floor from a gunshot wound.
The police continued, “There were also signs that significant efforts were made to clean up the crime scene.”
A short way from his residence, the defendant was apprehended by additional responding cops near Groton Drive and Newport Mews Drive (no, that is not a typo). He was taken into custody at 4:41 PM, which is precisely 30 minutes after the initial call.
Cooper, who is charged as an adult, is also accused of possessing criminal tools and tampering with or falsifying physical evidence in addition to the criminal homicide allegation.
During an arraignment, a district justice rejected Cooper’s request for bail. According to the authorities, Cooper is currently being held at the Edison Juvenile Detention Center in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
The victim’s identity has not been made public. The victim was a 13-year-old girl, the Bucks County Courier Times reported on Friday, citing court records. The victim is not a resident of Bensalem and is not related to Cooper, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to the publication.
William McVey, Bensalem’s Director of Public Safety Statement To The Courier Times
The deceased was shot once in the chest, and William McVey, Bensalem’s director of public safety, informed the Courier Times that no motive for the shooting was yet known.
According to the newspaper, “the gun was recovered inside the mobile home, and authorities are looking into who owned the firearm and how Cooper got access to it.”
The newspaper’s reading of the document claims that Cooper told the police, “It was an accident.” Cooper apparently apologized to the police and declared that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
He allegedly apparently told the police that his “dad is going to kill [him]” and that the gun in question had been kept in a safe.
The publication reported that when Cooper was taken into custody. His mother and he were interviewed, once more quoting court documents. Cooper stated in that interview that he cleaned out his father’s safe while taking “firearms” out of it. He then began organizing the ammunition.
Again quoting the affidavit, the newspaper noted that he claimed to have broken into the safe. “Replacing the batteries his father had removed, which had rendered the combination lock unusable.”
According to the newspaper’s account of the events, the two were watching Netflix together when the victim “[a]t some point… exited Cooper’s room to go to the bathroom.”
According to the publication, the defendant’s mother ended the police interrogation, so what exactly transpired after that is unknown. Bensalem is located in extreme eastern Pennsylvania, halfway between Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
