The foster daughter of a Pennsylvania man who allegedly gunned down a pregnant Amish woman in her own house reportedly said she couldn’t believe her father was the kind of “cold-hearted monster” who could commit such a heinous crime.
Shawn Cranston, 52, was arrested early Saturday morning for allegedly murdering Rebekah Byler, a pregnant 23-year-old mom-of-two, in her isolated farmhouse late last month, authorities have said.
But Cranston’s foster daughter told JET 24/FOX 66 in Erie that she thinks the gory killing was a case of mistaken identity — the Amish family who lived in the Byler home a few years earlier had adopted Cranston’s grandson, she said.
Cranston, of Corry, wanted him back.
“Like, I could never picture my dad being that cold-hearted monster,” said Cranston’s distraught daughter, whom the network only identified as a woman in her 20s. “Never in a million years.”
“Supposedly she started yelling at him, coming in, then that’s when boom, all it took,” his daughter said. “It’s just horrifying to think that … As far as I know, he just wanted his grandson back.”
The Pennsylvania State Police arrested the truck driver outside a Dollar General store next to his home, the network said.
“It was crazy,” Julie Purpura, a Dollar General employee, told the station. “I’ve never seen so much law enforcement at once. Never once.”
Cranston has been charged with criminal homicide, criminal homicide of an unborn child, burglary and criminal trespass, police said.
Cranston was arraigned early Saturday morning and is being held without bond at the Crawford County Jail.
Cops went to the Byler home Feb. 26 after Rebekah’s husband, Andy, and a family friend found her unconscious inside their Sparta Township home, which sits about 40 miles from Erie.
Cranston allegedly slit the six-months-pregnant woman’s throat before shooting her in the head, the station said.
The family’s two other kids were still in the home, but unhurt.
“Everyone is stunned — this doesn’t happen here,” Charleen Hajec, a pharmacist from Spartansburg, told ABC News. “Everyone is talking. It’s scary and frustrating.”
“The outside world doesn’t get in,” Hajec said, adding that Spara is a close-knit community. “To have something this tragic … it doesn’t happen here.”
