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During opening statements, prosecutor Allison Ruth said 34-year-old Lawrence Crawley drove from Philadelphia to Whitemarsh Township, armed with a hammer and two knives, for one reason: to kill his ex-girlfriend, Angela Stith. As Ruth put it, if he couldn’t have her, no one could.
Crawley stabbed Stith four times so violently that the blade went 10 inches down into her chest and the handle of the knife broke off. He then ran over her with his car four times in the parking lot of her job.
Jurors also listened to the 911 call and watched surveillance video of the attack.
In the call, Stith’s Vector Security co-worker told the 911 dispatcher that the blade was stuck in Stith’s body. As Crawley started to run her over with his Chevy Avalanche, the caller screamed, saying she can’t even help Stith because he keeps running over her.
Although defense attorney Carrie Allman conceded that Crawley killed Stith, she said if he had in fact plotted the killing, then he wouldn’t have done it where people knew him and where he knew there’d be an audience.
Allman said this is not first-degree murder because there was no specific intent. She called their relationship complicated, saying the killing was rooted in rage from someone who had been set off and whose actions were out of control.
Crawley experienced third-degree burns on 27 percent of his body and was in a medically induced coma for several days.