SPARTANSBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Voice Police arrested a man Saturday accused of murdering a pregnant Amish lady final week.
Shawn C. Cranston, 52, of Corry, is charged with prison abolish, prison abolish of an unborn tiny one, burglary and prison trespass.
In accordance with courtroom documents bought by Business City News, Cranston allegedly broke into the house of Rebekah A. Byler, 23, of Sparta Township final Monday and killed her by “taking pictures [her] in the pinnacle and/or slashing her throat.”
Police said she used to be chanced on dreary by a household member gleaming sooner than 12:30 p.m. They said her two teenagers were furthermore contained in the house when her physique used to be chanced on.
Cranston used to be denied bail at a preliminary arraignment early Saturday morning attributable to the assorted of a life sentence, and is being held at the Crawford County prison.
Court docket records show he has a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 15. He has no longer requested a public defender.
The killing disturbed the agricultural community in northwestern Pennsylvania, where of us allege the Amish secure alongside successfully with their neighbors in the recount.
Police started their investigation Feb. 26 after Byler’s husband, Andy Byler, chanced on her physique contained in the house rapidly after noon.
Trooper Cynthia Schick told The Related Press on Thursday the investigation and autopsy possess given police an plot of what abolish weapon could well had been musty.
Two young Byler teenagers at the house were no longer harmed, Schick has said.
The Bylers’ home is located alongside a grime facet road in a in actuality distant farming recount. Rankings of Amish turned out for calling hours Thursday night at a condominium in the neighborhood. Many arrived by buggies lit by headlights alongside the slim nation roads.
Residents said the Amish had a long-standing presence in the recount and mix successfully with the surrounding community. Amish and non-Amish focus on over with every other’s homes, and the Amish work jobs for the non-Amish and attend events love fish fries, they said. Neighbors had been elevating cash to attend the Byler household.
The Amish generally apply total Christian beliefs and practices but are no longer homogeneous, in accordance with the Younger Heart for Anabaptist and Pietist Analysis at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. They are identified for clear-reduce dresses and for counting on horses and buggies for transportation. Native congregations assist a diversity of principles and restrictions relating to costume, the usage of workmanship and participation in American society.
The total Amish inhabitants is as regards to 400,000 of us in hundreds of settlements across 32 states, Canada and Bolivia. Pennsylvania has certainly one of many greatest concentrations of Amish.
Mike Gagliardi
Mike Gagliardi is a researcher with the Business City News Community Desk.