ANAHEIM : Trial Date to Be Set in Shooting at Party
A former high school football player accused in the shooting death of a girl at a post-prom party in Anaheim pleaded not guilty Monday to a murder charge.
Paul Michael Crowder, 19, who is being held on $250,000 bail, has contended that the June 1 shooting of Berlyn Cosman, 17, of La Crescenta was an accident.
“It was definitely an accident,” said Crowder’s attorney, E. Bonnie Marshall, after her client’s arraignment in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.
A trial date in the case is scheduled to be set Friday. Because Crowder was indicted Friday by the Orange County Grand Jury under a provision of the state’s Speedy Trial Initiative, there will be no preliminary hearing.
Cosman was a popular student and star basketball player at Crescenta Valley High School who received a four-year athletic scholarship to a Missouri college. She was shot while sleeping on a sofa in a hotel room in Anaheim.
Cosman and other students rented the room for a post-prom party.
Crowder, a high-school dropout, was also at the party and apparently had been waving a gun in the hours before the shooting, investigators have said.
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