Christopher Murray
Christopher Murray formally pleaded guilty on May 26 to strangling his wife Connie as the couple argued on the outskirts of Pennypack Park in Holme Circle last August.
Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner immediately sentenced Murray, 49, formerly of the 2800 block of Tolbut St., to serve 20 to 40 years in state prison in accordance with a plea agreement that the defendant reached with prosecutors. Murray is incarcerated at SCI-Graterford.
The third-degree murder plea, negotiated by Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, spared the defendant from a pre-meditated murder charge and possible life in prison. Based on the defendant’s confession to police, the prosecutor said that an argument between the Murrays over Christopher’s text messaging to another woman motivated the slaying.
After the two argued at their home on the evening of Aug. 4, Connie went out for a jog around the neighborhood. Christopher followed her in his car and confronted her near the Holme-Crispin Cemetery next to the park. The husband claimed that the conversation became heated and Connie slapped him. In response, he strangled her, leaving the couple’s two daughters, ages 17 and 12, without a mother.
After the murder, Christopher Murray reported his wife missing and led one of the daughters on a search. A pedestrian found Connie’s body the next morning.
The case went unsolved for days as police growingly suspected the husband. Surveillance video showed Connie near the scene, speaking to the driver of a car that matched her husband’s. Police administered a polygraph test to the husband, which he failed. Then he confessed. Pescatore previously announced during an April 29 court hearing that Murray had agreed to plead guilty. ••
