In a somber courtroom, 18-year-old Ash Cooper from Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to killing 12-year-old Morgan Connors.
The murder occurred on Nov. 25, 2022, inside a trailer park located in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Cooper — a transgender woman formerly known as Joshua Cooper — and Connors were said to have been engaging in a common teen activity — watching Netflix— when the situation turned violent.
Court documents revealed by the Bucks County Courier Times indicate Morgan went to use the restroom. Cooper then reportedly began to handle and organize a gun safe belonging to her father. The sequence of events that followed remains shrouded in uncertainty.
The tragedy came to light after local law enforcement received a call from the mother of an acquaintance of Cooper. She alleged to have witnessed the aftermath of the incident on Instagram via a video call, where the body of the young Connors was visible.
“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,” the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “In that video chat, Cooper flipped the video image and showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood.”
Cooper then reportedly asked the acquaintance to help him clean up the scene and dispose of the body. That prompted the teen to tell his mother.
When authorities arrived, they found Morgan on the floor with her pants around her leg and dead from a gunshot wound, according to the Courier Times. Upon her arrest, Cooper insisted, “It was an accident,” an affidavit says.
Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley sentenced Cooper to 15 to 40 years behind bars for third-degree murder.
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