Staff Reports
February 21, 2006 10:51 pm
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MOULTRIE — The family of a former Moultrian teen shot to death in Texas has announced a memorial service here Thursday.
The service is one of four expected for Jennifer Crecente, 18. It will be at 3 p.m. Thursday at Harrell-Faircloth Funeral Home. An informal gathering will be held afterwards at her great-grandmother’s house, 4 Quiet Cove, in Moultrie.
Other memorial services are planned for 4 p.m. Wednesday in Austin, Texas, and 4 p.m. Saturday in Atlanta. A service in El Paso has not been scheduled yet.
Crecente lived in Moultrie from 1997 to 1999, according to an e-mail from her father, Drew Crecente, who now lives in Atlanta.
Jennifer Crecente was scheduled to graduate high school in May, the Austin American-Statesman newspaper said. Counselors were made available for students after her death.
Crecente was reported missing Thursday, and her body was found the same day in a wooded area within a southeast Austin subdivision.
Justin Allen Crabbe, 19, was charged Saturday with first degree murder.
According to a story in Tuesday’s American-Statesman, Crabbe told police he and another man, whom he called Richard, met Crecente Wednesday at her house and were going to look at a car Richard’s father was planning to sell. The three of them went to the wooded area, where, Crabbe told police, Richard started playing with a gun that had been hidden nearby.
Crabbe said he put his hand over Richard’s and the gun went off, hitting Crecente, who was standing with her back to them 20-30 feet away.
Crabbe said Richard ran away and he threw the gun into a duffel bag that was later found by detectives.
Witnesses told police they saw one person leave the wooded area, the newspaper said.
The newspaper did not identify Richard because he has not been charged; however, the reporter spoke with Richard’s father, who said his son was with him at the time the shooting allegedly occurred.
Richard’s father said Crabbe and a girl he assumes was Crecente did come to his house to look at a car he was trying to sell, but when they left his son stayed at home with a group of family and friends.
A couple of hours later, the father said, he was outside and heard a loud boom. He told the American-Statesman that he thinks it was the fatal gunshot.
The father said his son had known Crabbe only a couple of weeks and he has no idea why the suspect would implicate his son in the killing.
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