Left inset: Joshua Fowler (Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Whitney Fowler (GoFundMe). Background: The home where Joshua Fowler and Whitney Fowler lived together in Grafton, N.Y. (WRGB/YouTube).
An upstate New York man has admitted to killing his wife, father, and grandmother in a vicious fit of gun-fueled domestic violence, according to law enforcement in the Empire State.
On Monday, Joshua Fowler, 26, pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in the second degree, according to Rensselaer County court records.
The underlying incident took the lives of the defendant’s wife, Whitney Fowler, 27; his father, Wilson Fowler, 55; and his grandmother, Anita Crandall, 69, as Law&Crime previously reported.
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On June 18, at the family’s shared residence on South Road in Cropseyville, law enforcement was already well aware of the trouble brewing by the time the spree of killing had been completed.
At around 6:30 p.m., Whitney Fowler called 911 to discuss an altercation between herself and her husband. Then, while she was still on the line, the dispatcher heard several gunshots ring out.
And, in a sense, the call was nothing new.
Law enforcement had visited the residence on numerous occasions in the past for domestic calls. And the killer’s mother acknowledged a long history of untreated mental health issues with her son.
“I told his father when he was 15 years old, ‘You need to get him mental help because he’s going to kill somebody someday,'” his mother, Eleanor Crandall, told Schenectady-based CBS affiliate WRGB.
The day of the shooting provoked a cascade of loss and endings.
“To me, my son died that night, too,” Eleanor Crandall said. “I hate him. And that’s a very strong word in my vocabulary. I don’t use that word unless I have to.”
At around 6:50 p.m., when state troopers and Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at the scene of the crime, Fowler was outside the house, still brandishing the rifle used to kill his family.
Whitney Fowler was dead outside; Wilson Fowler and Crandall were found deceased inside.
Outside, Fowler refused to drop the weapon – despite repeated commands to do so, according to New York State Police.
The admitted killer’s intransigence resulted in the use of a Taser-like device and he was arrested without further incident.
Law enforcement, at a press conference after the arrest, mused that the defendant had been trying to pressure deputies and troopers into an instance of so-called “suicide by cop.”
Initially, the defendant was also charged with a lone count of murder in the first degree. That charge was dropped in exchange for his plea. With the rescission of the more serious charge, Fowler no longer faces the prospect of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Today, Joshua Fowler took accountability,” Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly said in a press release announcing the plea deal. “I would like to thank the New York State Police for their emergency responsive and investigative efforts in this case that has led to securing justice for the families of the victims.”
Prosecutors say the defendant answered questions in court on Monday to confirm his legal culpability for the murders.
Still, the defendant is likely to spend significant time behind bars because he admitted each crime was a “separate and distinct act,” committed by “shooting each with a rifle in a separate shot within the same incident,” according to the press release.
Fowler faces sentences of 45 years to life for each charge.
He is slated to be sentenced on Jan. 26 by Rensselaer County Court Judge Jennifer Sober.
“If he hears it, I hope he realizes the things that he did and knows that they’re wrong and knows that he just took somebody’s mom, somebody’s family, somebody’s sister, somebody’s daughter,” Alexa Moak, a longtime friend of Whitney Fowler, told Albany-based ABC affiliate WTEN. “He just took them away.”
