US teen charged after girl receives video about possible murder

Joshua Cooper was arrested over the killing. Photo / Bensalem Police

US authorities say a 16-year-old Pennsylvania youth is facing a criminal homicide charge after another teen reported receiving a video from him saying he had just killed someone and showing “the legs and feet of someone covered in blood”.

Bensalem police said the girl’s mother called 911 Friday to report a possible murder and saying that her daughter had received an Instagram video from a 16-year-old acquaintance who allegedly “stated that he had just killed someone”.

“He then flipped the video image and showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood,” police said in a statement. The youth then allegedly asked for assistance with disposal of the body, police said.

Officers sent to check out the mobile home reported a juvenile male, later named by police as Joshua Cooper, running out of the back of the trailer. Inside, they found “a deceased juvenile female on the floor of the bathroom with an apparent gunshot wound”, police said. Officer also noted that “substantial steps” had been taken “to clean up the crime scene”, police said.

Cooper was arrested shortly afterward and charged in Bucks County with criminal homicide, possessing instruments of crime and evidence-tampering. As he was taken into custody, he told officers “it was an accident”, authorities said in an affidavit of probable cause.

William McVey, Bensalem’s director of public safety, told the Bucks County Courier Times that the girl was 13, was not a relation and wasn’t from Bensalem. She had one gunshot wound to the chest, McVey said. He thanked the girl who alerted her parents after receiving the video, saying her actions led to the quick apprehension of the youth.

Court documents don’t list an attorney for Cooper, who was taken to a juvenile detention centre after arraignment.