Lockport, N.Y. (WBEN) - A man who vandalized a neighbor's fence with a violent spray-painted message containing a racial slur has pled guilty in Niagara County Court.
Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman announced on Friday that 61-year-old Howard Murphy of the Town of Niagara entered a guilty plea to the crime of Criminal Mischief in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime (Class "C" felony).
It was back on May 16, 2022, just two days after the racially motivated mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, when police responded to a call of damaged property at around 7 a.m. ET at 4613 John Street in the Town of Niagara. There, police found a racial statement spray-painted on the fence behind the residence that read, "Kill All (racial expletive)."
It was four days later when Niagara County Sheriff's Deputies arrested Murphy for the incident, which he has since admitted to.
According to the Niagara County Sheriff's Office, Murphy's neighbors were Black and had lived next to him for about 30 years.
"This was not just a property crime," said Seaman in a statement on Friday. "This was a hate crime meant to terrorize a family. To have someone deliver that message, in the climate created by the events of two days before, was a traumatic event for this family. They were in real fear that the defendant, or someone else, would take action along the lines of the message this defendant painted on their fence."
Murphy returns to court on Wednewday, April 19 to be sentenced by County Court Judge Caroline Wojtaszek, who could send Murphy to state prison for as long as 27 months to seven years.
"When this defendant is sentenced, we will urge the judge to sentence him not just for vandalism, but for the fear-inducing hate crime that he committed and plead guilty to," said Seaman.
