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WILKES-BARRE — Jurors will return to deliberations Wednesday morning in the double-homicide trial of a Sweet Valley woman.
The dozen men and women are tasked with determining whether 40-year-old Holly Ann Crawford is guilty of two counts of criminal homicide and two counts of criminal conspiracy to commit criminal homicide in the fatal shootings of an elderly Hunlock Township man and his adult son.
Deliberations began at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and continued until Luzerne County Judge Fred A. Pierantoni III excused the jury more than 10 hours later.
Pierantoni said court will reconvene at 9 a.m. at the jury’s request. Two alternate jurors have been required to remain with the case as well.
Crawford has been on trial in Luzerne County Court for more than one week, accused in the April 21, 2014, fatal shootings of Ronald Evans, 73, and 43-year-old Jeffrey Evans.
James Edward Roche, 33, Crawford’s co-defendant and on-and-off live-in boyfriend, is set to go to trial in November on an identical set of charges.
According to testimony, Roche grew enraged while drinking and watching the movie “Boondock Saints” with Crawford and her mother Moya Linde and began threatening to kill the elder Evans.
Prosecutors say Crawford agreed she would go with Roche to Evans’s home and suggested they kill Jeffrey Evans as well because she said he killed his cat.
From the witness stand Friday, Crawford said she did not take Roche’s threats seriously because he often made similar comments. She said she made the comment about Jeffrey Evans in sarcasm.
Crawford said she considered both victims her friends, and told jurors she had received money and gifts from Ronald Evans in exchange for sex and sexual favors. Her prior relationship with Evans was a point of contention between her and the often physically-abusive Roche throughout their nearly two-year relationship, she testified.
Alexa Balma, the younger of Crawford’s two daughters, said her mother often brought up Evans as a way to pick fights with Roche and arouse his jealousy.
Crawford said that on the night of the shooting she was trying to get Klonopin or some other medication from Evans for Roche in order to calm him down.
Prosecutors argue Crawford went to the back door of the 71 Sunset Lake Road residence that Ronald Evans and his son shared in an attempt to lure him outside.
Crawford testified she was inside talking to Jeffrey Evans when she saw Ronald Evans, who she said had gone outside armed with a gun, “crumple” on the porch. She said Roche then came inside and began to fight with Jeffrey Evans, punching him in the face and knocking him to the floor.
Crawford said she ran out of the house and did not know what happened to Jeffrey Evans. When Roche emerged from the house, he placed some items in the car they had driven in order to make the scene appear as a robbery gone bad, she said.
But Assistant District Attorney Mamie Phillips in her closing statements argued it was unclear if Crawford shot the younger Evans, referencing testimony from Balma in which she said Crawford told her on April 22 she shot the man in the head.
Crawford said she did not remember making the statement but does not believe her daughter was lying.
Police found 10 shell casings at the scene, all of which expert testimony indicated came from one .22 caliber rifle.