Skip to footer

Penn. couple plead guilty in Craigslist murder

Officials say Miranda and Elytte Barbour both pleaded guilty Tuesday in Northumberland County Court in Sunbury.

|
Mike Staugaitis/The News-Item/AP
Miranda Barbour enters a Northumberland County Sheriff's car after pleading guilty to second degree murder, Aug. 26. Miranda and Elytte Barbour pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a stranger they lured through Craigslist.
  • By Associated Press

| SUNBURY, Pa

A Pennsylvania couple have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a stranger they lured through Craigslist.

Officials say Miranda and Elytte Barbour both pleaded guilty Tuesday in Northumberland County Court in Sunbury. Elytte Barbour had told police they committed the crime because they wanted to kill someone together.

The two originally were charged with first-degree murder. The second-degree murder charge carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, but removes the possibility of a death sentence.

The couple married in North Carolina and moved to Pennsylvania about three weeks before they met up with Troy LaFerrara and killed him on Nov. 11 after Miranda Barbour offered him companionship in exchange for money.

The couple are scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18 in Northumberland County Court.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Penn. couple plead guilty in Craigslist murder
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0826/Penn.-couple-plead-guilty-in-Craigslist-murder
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe