A suspect has been charged with killing his girlfriend inside a Pennsylvania hotel room, and then traveling to New Jersey to target her family, police said.
Orenthia Upshur is facing a count of “criminal homicide and related charges,” the Bensalem Township Police Department said in a statement on Tuesday. “Orenthia Upshur is currently in custody in New Jersey and facing additional charges. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office will work with prosecutors from New Jersey to determine if Upshur will be extradited” to Pennsylvania.
Upshur, of Trenton, is accused of gunning down 49-year-old Maisha Coon at a Sleep Inn along Street Road in Bensalem.
Police on Wednesday found her suffering a fatal gunshot wound inside a room at the hotel — which she’d rented the day prior — after Upshur allegedly reached out to a family member and confessed to the shooting. His unidentified relative immediately contacted state troopers, alerting them to Upshur’s admission. He also told authorities the couple had been fighting recently, adding that he overheard them arguing on the phone earlier in the night.
“Please don’t do this to me,” Coon reportedly said in a call not long before her death.
She was pronounced dead on the scene.
A short time later, police in New Jersey responded to reports of shots fired near the intersection of Parkside Avenue and Oak Lane to find Upshur barricaded in a nearby home in Trenton. Police said he fired off several rounds, all of them aimed at Coon’s family.
He was eventually arrested by Mercer County’s Tactical Response Team.
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