A Mount Union woman was arrested yesterday for her role in attempting to conceal and destroy evidence in a double homicide case in Huntingdon County.
Twenty-six-year-old Crystal Maria Frederick was charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution in a case involving the shooting deaths of two people last week in Shirley Township.
Jessica Wills, 20, of Dysart, Cambria County and Tirelle Dixon, 21, of Philadelphia were shot and killed in a rural area of Shirley Township sometime between Dec. 28 and 29.
The initial report released by Huntingdon-based State Police said a passing motorist had discovered what he believed to be a dead body in a wooded area. When troopers investigated, two bodies were found.
According to a previous article which appeared in The Daily Herald and The Daily News last week, the bodies were found about noon Wednesday at a privately-owned hunting cabin along Ridge Road. The cabin is located off a narrow dirt lane seven-tenths of a mile from Keystone Road, and it is just more than two miles from Route 522.
The article noted both victims were lying adjacent to a vehicle. Both were discovered to have gunshot wounds and were not lying together. Police said it was uncertain who had been the driver of the vehicle.
Police said in the initial report neither victim owned the vehicle, it was later learned the owner of the vehicle had loaned it to one of the victims who was an acquaintance.
According to last week’s article, investigators revealed Thursday afternoon that both bodies were clothed and there didn’t appear to be a sexual component to the crime. No weapon found at the scene.
It was then determined the murders were drug related. Frederick gave police a statement which led to an arrest later on Thursday.
A Mount Union man, 28-year-old Steven Frederick Baker, was charged in the double homicide on Thursday night. He was charged with two counts each of first, second and third degree murder as well as voluntary manslaughter, robbery and possession of a weapon as an instrument of a crime and offenses under the Uniform Firearms Act.
Police also revealed in a statement of probable cause that Baker had admitted to the shootings.
The police said the arrest of Baker took place after an intensive investigation by troopers from Huntingdon, Bedford, Rockview and Hollidaysburg state police and the Huntingdon County District Attorney’s office.
Baker was arraigned before District Justice Daniel S. Davis on Thursday night and was committed to the Huntingdon County Jail in default of bail. The case against Baker was transferred to District Justice Michael Colyer in Mount Union. Bakers’s preliminary hearing has been set for Friday, Jan. 7 at 1 p.m.
Frederick has a preliminary hearing set for Friday at 8:45 a.m. before Magistrate Colyer. She was committed to the Huntingdon County Jail in lieu of $20,000 bail. According to the state police release and information from Colyer’s office, Frederick was transferred and is currently being housed in the Blair County Prison.
