Prom Night Death Suspect Pleads Innocent

A former Crescenta Valley High School football player, accused of killing a female basketball star at a post-prom party in Anaheim, pleaded innocent Tuesday to a murder charge.

But Municipal Judge Roger Robbins refused to lower Paul Michael Crowder’s $250,000 bail despite pleas from his attorney that the 19-year-old defendant is not a danger to society and would not try to flee.

Crowder has “no criminal history,” attorney Bonnie Marshall said. “His ties to his family are strong. His ties to the community are strong.”

Crowder is accused in the shooting death of Berlyn Cosman, 17, a popular La Crescenta student who had received a four-year athletic scholarship to a Missouri college and planned to play basketball there this fall as a freshman.

Cosman was shot June 1 while sleeping on a sofa at a hotel room in Anaheim after her senior prom. Crowder’s friends said the shooting was an accident.

Crowder, who stood silently in a chain-link cell inside the courtroom, his hands in the pockets of his yellow jail jumpsuit, was ordered to return for a preliminary hearing on June 27.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans said that Crowder showed a lack of concern for public safety, partly because the gun he allegedly used was found in some bushes outside the hotel.

Evans also argued that Crowder reportedly threatened to shoot other people that evening.

But Marshall said that Crowder feels “extremely distressed” at the death of Cosman, with whom he sometimes played pickup basketball.

Crowder’s family and friends have tried but cannot raise the money for bail, Marshall said, adding that his widowed mother owns no property.

Prosecutors have said that they plan to seek a second-degree murder conviction, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.