SPARTA TOWNSHIP, CRAWFORD CO., Pa. (EYT) — New details about the cause of 23-year-old Amish mother Rebekah Byler’s death have been revealed in newly released court documents.
According to a search warrant application filed in Magisterial District Judge Amy Nichols’ office before a search of the crime scene, Byler suffered a laceration to the front of her neck in addition to a “scalping wound” on her head.
Shawn C. Cranston, 52 of Corry, was arrested on suspicion of Byler’s murder on Saturday, March 2.
Shawn Cranston mugshot courtesy of the Crawford County Jail.
Cranston has been charged with Criminal Homicide, Criminal Homicide of an Unborn Child, Burglary, and Criminal Trespass.
He was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Amy Nicols and has been denied bail as per the Rules of Criminal Procedure, given the nature of the charges. He is currently being held at the Crawford County Jail.
A probable cause affidavit that usually accompanies the complaint against an accused criminal is conspicuously absent in this case as police keep details close to their vest.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Police were called to the residence of Andy and Rebekah Byler on the 21800 block of Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township, Crawford County, at approximately 12:26 p.m. on Monday, February 26, 2024, by a family friend who dialed 9-1-1.
- Byler was found unresponsive on the floor in a pool of blood.
- Byler was six months pregnant with the couple’s third child.
- Byler’s two children are “toddler age.”
- Byler’s neck was slashed and she had a gunshot wound to the head, according to the criminal complaint.
- Family members told the media they saw a red Jeep driving back and forth along the road and parked in Byler’s driveway the day of the murder, according to WJET.
- An autopsy was performed by Dr. Eric Vey of the Erie County Coroner’s Office on February 27. No autopsy report has been made public.
- Cranston was arrested outside a Dollar General store in Corry, next door to his home. A red Jeep was towed from the location, according to WJET.
- “I could never picture my dad being that cold and heartless of a monster. Never in a million years,” said a woman identifying herself as Cranston’s foster daughter to WJET.
- Cranston’s self-identified foster daughter said she believes he went to the house to get his grandson, who was adopted by an Amish couple who lived in the house before the Bylers, according to WJET
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