Joshua Cooper, 16, has been charged as an adult with criminal homicide, possessing instruments of crime and tampering with evidence
A Pennsylvania teen has been arrested after allegedly killing a girl and using Instagram to ask for help with disposing the body.
Police in Bensalem say 911 operators received a call from a woman who said her daughter was shown the victim’s dead body by a 16-year-old acquaintance, later identified as Joshua Cooper, via an Instagram chat.
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“During the video chat, the 16-year-old stated that he had just killed someone,” police said in a statement. He then flipped the video image and showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood.”
The young man then asked the teen for help disposing the body, police said.
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Police were advised Cooper lived at a mobile home property in Bensalem. When officers arrived, they saw a young man running out from the back of the trailer.
The officers entered the home and found a young girl dead from a gunshot wound lying on the bathroom floor.
“There were also indications that substantial steps were taken to clean up the crime scene,” authorities said.
Police conducted a search and caught Cooper a short time later.
Cooper has been charged as an adult with criminal homicide, possessing instruments of crime and tampering with evidence. He has been denied bail and sent to a juvenile detention centre, police said.
Courier Times reported that the victim was a 13-year-old girl. Although the name of the victim has not been released, an official told the publication she was not a Bensalem resident and is not related to Cooper.
Cooper told police the gun was inside a safe and that his “dad is going to kill (him),” according to a court affidavit obtained by the paper.
He got into the safe by “replacing the batteries his father had removed, which had made the combination lock inoperable,” the court papers cited state.
The victim and Cooper were reportedly watching Netflix that afternoon, on Nov. 25. At some point, the victim “left Cooper’s room to go to the bathroom.” What follows is unclear, due to Cooper and his mother cutting the police interview short.
The victim died of a single gunshot to the neck area, according to the autopsy. Cooper allegedly told police the shooting was an accident.
Bensalem is a township of 63,000 residents located in eastern Pennsylvania, about a half-hour drive from Philadelphia.
