3 Sentenced To Prison In Murder Of Woman, Wounding Of Her Sister
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Three men have been sentenced to prison in the murder of an eastern Pennsylvania mother more than a year and a half ago.
The defendants, now 18 and 19, were all juveniles at the time of the June 2020 slaying of 21-year-old Rosemarie Mistler on the west side of Scranton, The (Scranton) Times-Tribune reported. They were among five teenagers arrested in the case.
Police said Mistler was shot in the head as she sat on the front porch and her sister wounded in the ribs after a group of juveniles went to the home to confront another youth in an ongoing dispute. Gunfire erupted when the teen emerged from the home, police said.
Lackawanna County Judge Margaret Bisignani Moyle on Friday sentenced 18-year-old Nasir Williams of Wilkes-Barre to 12 to 40 years on a third-degree murder plea. Nineteen-year-old Londell Wright of Scranton was sentenced to 10 to 20 years on a plea to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder. Nineteen-year-old Rashawn Henry was sentenced to four to eight years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.
The judge told each defendant that upon release they will be young enough to have a full and productive life — and she reminded them that their actions had denied Mistler the same possibility. "It's just tragedy compounding tragedy," she said.
All three defendants apologized for their actions. "If I could change it, I would," Williams told her, describing the shooting as an accident. "I'm sorry."
The judge said a dispute among juveniles would likely have been settled without guns, and seeing the current carnage was "just more devastation, more devastation all around."
The cases against the other two teens, who were 15 and 16 at the time, were transferred in juvenile court.
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