Bensalem teen admits killing friend in home with hunting rifle from father's safe

A Bensalem teen will spend at least 15 years in state prison after admitting she shot and killed a 12-year-old "best friend," then messaged an acquaintance for help cleaning up and getting rid of the body.

In an appearance in Bucks County court Thursday, Ash Cooper, now 18, entered a negotiated guilty plea to third-degree murder and two related charges in the Nov. 25, 2022 death of Morgan Connors, of Abington.

Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley sentenced Cooper to serve 15 to 40 years in jail followed by seven years of state supervised probation. The judge would recommend Cooper be placed in a therapeutic community within the state prison system.

More on November 2022 fatal shooting Bensalem teen to be tried as adult in fatal shooting of 13-year-old 'best friend'

While Cooper was charged as an adult, she has been incarcerated at the Bucks County Juvenile Detention Center in Doylestown Township since her arrest.

Cooper, who was 16 at the time of the crime, was originally charged as Joshua Cooper, but is transitioning and her attorney, Paul Lang, asked the court to recognize her as Ash Cooper, officials said in court.

The murder case has been shrouded in mystery over the last 18 months with authorities releasing few details including a possible motive.

Cooper chose not to shed any light on what happened that day, opting not to directly address the court.

Instead, Lang made a statement on her behalf. The attorney referenced what he described as his client’s “difficult upbringing” and psychiatric evaluations his client has undergone her arrest.

Those evaluations were briefly mentioned Thursday, but the only detail revealed was that Cooper was judged “not amenable” to treatment through the juvenile court system, where Lang had initially sought to have the case transferred.

“This is a big step in the healing process, taking responsibility,” Lang said. “I have hope for Ash.”

Bucks County prosecutor Kristin McElroy said after the hearing that Cooper has never revealed to authorities why she shot Morgan, who police initially believed was 13.

During the hearing, the prosecutor provided Finley with a copy of a note found in Cooper’s bedroom after the murder, but its contents were not made public.

In court documents, Cooper said the two teens had been watching a Netflix series in a bedroom at Cooper's home when at some point Morgan had to use the bathroom. But before Cooper explained what happened next, her mother ended the police interview, according to court documents.

Photos: Bensalem teen Joshua Cooper Bensalem teen to be tried as adult in fatal shooting of 13-year-old 'best friend'

Bensalem police were alerted to the murder at the Top of the Ridge mobile home community after receiving a 911 call from the mother of an acquaintance of Cooper who claimed her daughter received an Instagram video chat from Cooper alleging she killed someone and needed her help.

The girl told her mother she saw blood and legs in the background.

When officers arrived at the mobile home, police saw Cooper running toward Gibson Road and she was apprehended a short time later.

Inside the home police found the body of a girl with her pants around her ankles on the bathroom floor. It appeared she had been shot, police said. The officers also saw towels drenched in blood, cleaning supplies and the strong odor of bleach.

A small hole was found in the wall near where the victim’s body was found, but neither one of the two doors leading to the bathroom had holes, police said.

An autopsy found Morgan died as a result of a single gunshot wound to her neck and thorax area. It was revealed on Thursday the coroner believed the rifle was fired at close range.

Once he was in police custody, Cooper claimed that she accidentally shot Morgan with her father’s hunting rifle that she took out of his gun safe. Cooper claimed she was able to access the gun safe because her father removed the batteries that enabled its combination lock, McElroy said.

But investigators found a text message exchange about gun safety on Cooper’s cellphone after the murder that raises doubts about her story, McElroy suggested.

In the message, McElroy said, Cooper wrote that one of the rules her father “burned into our brains” was that you never point a firearm at someone unless you intend to kill them, and never assume a firearm is unloaded, even if it's taken apart.

Authorities on Thursday also revealed for the first time an unrelated sexual assault case against Ash Cooper, which was discovered in the course of the murder investigation. She was charged in juvenile court and adjudicated delinquent, the equivalent of guilty in adult court.

McElroy said she was legally prevented from commenting on the sexual assault case, other than to confirm it occurred before Morgan’s murder.

The victim in the sexual assault case was in the courtroom Thursday and provided a written victim impact statement to the judge that was not read in court.

Allen Gold, Morgan’s legal guardian since she was 15 months old, was too emotionally devastated to attend the hearing, but he submitted a victim impact statement that McElroy read to the court.

“Parents should not have to bury a child. The human heart was not designed for such heartbreak,” Gold wrote.

Morgan was his granddaughter, but he raised her and loved her as a daughter, Gold said. Her mom died shortly before he assumed custody and her biological father was unable to care for her.

“She became my whole world from that day forward and called me dad from the day she started talking,” he said.

On the anniversary date of Morgan’s murder and on her birthday, Gold said his family and Morgan’s friends get together to remember her. They play her favorite songs, tell stories, and shed many tears.

“We will never forget that painful evening when we went to pick her up and were told there was a young girl who had been shot and we were to go to the police station,” he said. “We will never forget the officers telling us the only way to identify her was from a bracelet.”

While Finley accepted the plea agreement, the judge expressed concerns about what he described as Cooper’s “troubling history of conduct and treatment of other people,” and her lack of any “real explanation” for what occurred the day of the murder.

"The one thing that is certain is it's a horrible tragedy,” Finley said. “You won’t spend the rest of your life in jail. You have an opportunity to rehabilitate your conduct, to seek redemption. You better take advantage of that.”

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bensalem teen admits killing friend in home with her dad's hunting rifle