Pennsylvania teen confesses to murder and shows body on Instagram video chat, police say

A Pennsylvania teenager was arrested on Friday after police he say he confessed to murder in an Instagram video chat. Authorities said they later found the body of a girl in the teenager’s trailer. 

On Friday, a woman called 911 saying that a teenage boy, later identified as 16-year-old Joshua Cooper, had sent her daughter an Instagram video chat saying he had just killed someone, Bensalem Police said. In that same video, police said that Cooper “showed the legs and feet of someone covered in blood” before asking for help in getting rid of the body. 

Police went to Cooper’s home to investigate the situation. When they arrived, Cooper fled, and police said officers found a “deceased juvenile female on the floor of the bathroom.” She had evidently been shot, police said, and there were “indications that substantial steps were taken to clean up the crime scene.” 

Cooper was found soon thereafter and taken into custody. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which acquired an affidavit of probable cause for Cooper’s arrest, there was a gun safe and holster without a gun in the trailer. When police detained Cooper, he allegedly told them that “it was an accident,” The Inquirer reported.

The affidavit obtained by The Inquirer allegedly states that the victim had been at Cooper’s home earlier in the day to watch an unnamed Netflix series. Cooper had allegedly been reorganizing the gun safe before the victim’s arrival. At some point while they were hanging out, the girl had gone, unaccompanied, to the bathroom, Cooper allegedly told police.

CBS News has reached out to police for further information. 

Cooper has been charged as an adult for criminal homicide, possessing instruments of crime and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. He was denied bail and sent to the county’s Edison Juvenile Detention Center. Police are now seeking more information about the incident. 

Li Cohen

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending reporter for CBS News, focusing on social justice issues.