TUNKHANNOCK, PA — A jury in Wyoming County found 39-year-old Phillip Walters guilty on all counts Tuesday afternoon, including first-degree murder, in the 2018 homicide retrial of his girlfriend, 24-year-old Haley Lorenzen.
The panel of 10 women and two men reached its verdict after just a few hours of deliberation, capping a week-long trial at the Wyoming County Courthouse. The first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Investigating officers stated that Walters strangled Lorenzen in late December 2018 before discarding her body in the Susquehanna River. Her remains were discovered six months later floating downstream near Plymouth.
Walters was initially convicted of the murder in 2020. However, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned the original verdict in 2024, ruling that expert medical testimony regarding the cause of death relied improperly on hearsay statements rather than physical evidence and should not have been admitted.
Following the second conviction, Walters was remanded into custody to begin serving his life sentence.g
