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Cranston was convicted in Crawford County of first-degree
murder, second-degree murder of an unborn child and related
offenses. He is scheduled for sentencing in late July.
“It is hard to fathom conduct more heinous than brutally killing
a young expectant mother and her unborn child in her home,”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in an emailed
release. “Our homes are supposed to be our safe haven — this
defendant violated the sanctity of home to commit these truly
evil acts.”
A message seeking comment was left for Cranston's lawyer, Louis
W. Emmi.
Police have said Byler's children, a 2-year-old girl and a
3-year-old boy, were in the home when their mother suffered
sharp wounds to her neck and was shot in the head. The boy told
investigators a man wearing sneakers had killed his mother. The
children were not physically harmed.
Members of the area's substantial Amish community attended the
trial this week.
Investigators have said they began to focus on Cranston within a
day of the killing and took several items during a search of his
home in Corry, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Spartansburg.
Byler's husband, Andy Byler, said during an earlier court
proceeding that the children told him about the crime when he
returned home from looking at possible roofing jobs. She had
been doing laundry when he left earlier that day.
“I didn’t really believe it,” Andy Byler testified last year. “I
walked in and saw her cap laying inside the door.”
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