A West Virginia teenager has been sentenced to 80 years in prison for gunning down his mother and sister in cold blood when he was just 13 years old.
Connor Crowe, 16, — who pleaded guilty in November to charges of second-degree murder, after waiving his right to be tried in juvenile court — was ordered Tuesday to serve two consecutive, 40-year sentences.
“I want to remind you that your sister was 15 at the time you murdered her,” Hancock County Circuit Judge Jason Cuomo told Crowe. “She was younger than you are right now, and you gave her no consideration, no mitigation for something less than a death sentence.”
“Your sister would have graduated high school, I think about a week or two ago,” the judge continued. “She’ll never get that opportunity to go to college. She’ll never get to walk down the aisle with her father and get married or have kids of her own. You took that from her. You gave her no opportunity to make something of herself, but you’re asking me to do that for you.”
Crowe was 13 in September 2020 when he fired several rounds into the chest and torso of his mother, Melissa Rowland, 39, and 15-year-old sister, Madison “Flo” Rowland, inside their home in Weirton, West Virginia.
After the shooting, Crowe ran outside in his pajamas and claimed that a stranger was responsible for the carnage, telling a neighbor that he shot the intruder in the shoulder with a gun that was still in his pocket.
Prosecutor Steven Dragisich had said gunshot residue was found on Crowe and there was no evidence anyone had forced their way into the home or fled from it.
Following the teen’s guilty plea, Dragisich said he will be seeking the maximum penalty allowed by law for each count.
“The fact remains, he knew what he was doing was wrong,” Dragisich said Tuesday. “He thought about it beforehand and knew it was wrong. He thought about maybe not doing it, but he did it anyway. And then he thought of a defense. All that shows the danger there and the mitigating factors are very minimal compared to what happened in his state of mind.”
Defense attorneys for Crowe cited his age as one of the mitigating factors in asking for a shorter sentence, but the judge sided with the prosecution, handing him two 40-year prison terms, to be served consecutively.
No motive for the brutal killing of the mother and daughter was ever revealed, with the prosecutor telling the station WTOV last year: “I don’t think we’ll really understand why.”
Crowe will remain in a juvenile correctional facility until his 18th birthday when he will be transferred to an adult prison.
Crowe could be eligible for parole after serving mere 15 years.
With Post wires
