14 DAY TRIAL // A teenager from Jeannette, Pennsylvania is being held without bail in the Westmoreland County juvenile detention center after being charged with first-degree murder, homicide and possession of a firearm by a minor.
Maxwell Marion Morton, 16, was arraigned Friday, February 6 after shooting a classmate in the face and took a selfie of himself and the body appearing in the image. He reportedly used SnapChat to send the “evidence” to a friend, with the message “Told you I cleaned up the shells.”
Evidence failed to “expire”
SnapChat uses an expiration system that gives users the confidence that their Snaps, Chats, and Stories are deleted from the servers after their expiration date (typically a few seconds). However, the service providers cannot prevent recipients from capturing the message by taking a screenshot.
Which was exactly what the recipient of the photo did, which led to Morton’s arrest. Police said they received a copy of the photo which showed the victim laying in a chair with a gunshot wound to the face, as well as “a black male taking the ‘selfie,' with his face facing the camera and the victim behind the actor.”
Pamela Rutledge, a psychology and social media instructor at Fielding Graduate University, believes this is not a question about technology enabling unthinkable acts, but rather “a question about criminal pathology.”
Murder weapon hidden under the basement steps
Citing the police department’s affidavit, TribLive reports that Morton confessed to the killing after police searched his home and found a 9 mm handgun hidden under the basement steps.
Morton was immediately arraigned after the murder weapon was uncovered, and is now being charged as an adult. One has to wonder how cold blooded a person has to be to take the time to glorify themselves taking a selfie before fleeing the scene.