Teenager murders father and uses his money to throw drug-fuelled parties
Crystal Brooke Howell shot her father with a shotgun while he was asleep
A woman who killed her father in his sleep before throwing a drug-fuelled party has been sentenced to 30 years in jail.
Crystal Brooke Howell, a 20-year-old from North Carolina, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder after shooting her father in the head while he took a nap.
Howell was 17 when she shot Michael Howell, a former Columbia County News-Times sports editor.
She then went on to hide the body in a shed and used her father’s money to move friends into his eight-bedroom house for drug-fuelled parties.
“She then started to drive his car and spend his money. She had her friends move in, had a drug-fuelled party, and even had a stripper pole installed in the kitchen,” said Assistant District Attorney Jeff Jones said in a Haywood County DA news release, according to the Huffington Post.
Mr Howell’s body was discovered by guests a month later when they tried to move a pinball machine into the shed, according to WYFF4.
Howell had apparently just been caught shoplifting and came home and thought about killing her father. She disposed of the bullet shelling and sofa and sold the weapon to cover her tracks.
Her aunt, Brenda Ellis, claimed Howell is mentally ill.
“I can tell you there is a lot more wrong with Crystal than has come out,” Ms Ennis told the Columbia County News-Times. 'There have been so many issues but they have compounded by all that she has been through over the years.”