Murder Followed Quarrel at Prom Party, Jury Told

A young man’s reckless behavior at a prom night party turned murderous after he quarreled with a former classmate and shot her as she slept, a prosecutor said in an opening statement Monday.

Paul Michael Crowder, 19, of La Crescenta arrogantly waved a gun in an Anaheim hotel room filled with party-goers without regard for their safety, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans.

Crowder’s actions belie his claim that the June 1 shooting of Berlyn Cosman, 17, a Crescenta Valley High School basketball star, was an accident, Evans told jurors.

He brought the .357 magnum revolver “to the party as his pride, as his manhood,” Evans said.

Then Crowder “suffered a slight to his manhood” during a confrontation with Cosman when she and another young woman asked Crowder to leave the room so they could sleep.

Crowder, who had been drinking, left but was upset and cursing, Evans said.

The prosecutor also told jurors that a police re-creation of the shooting scene demonstrated that light may have been thrown across Cosman, asleep on a sofa bed, as Crowder entered the room.

Anaheim Police Detective Mike Lopez testified that when investigators replayed the scene, light from a skylight and from a lamp outside the room streamed in when the door was opened.

Crowder, a Crescenta Valley High School dropout, has claimed that the room was dark when he entered and that he could not see Cosman.

Cosman and her friends had reserved three rooms for the post-prom party. Crowder purportedly was invited by one party-goer who feared retaliation from his date’s ex-boyfriend.

Defense attorney Bonnie Marshall, who did not deliver her opening statement, has said her client tripped as he entered the hotel room about 6 a.m., causing the gun to discharge accidentally.