Christine Haveford
This is a cautionary tale for every parent out there to monitor closely what your child does online.
Sabriya McLean was a beautiful 15-year-old with her whole life ahead of her.
Like, many girls her age she had a Facebook account. It is where she met 23-year-old Cole Swaringer-Herring.
The two struck up a friendship and then arranged to meet.
They met face-to-face for the first time on Monday, when Sabriya made the 40-mile journey up to West Philadelphia to visit Cole at his parents’ apartment.
But tragedy struck when Cole stabbed Sabriya. He then tried to hide the crime by setting her body on fire in a West Philadelphia alley.
Cole viciously stabbed Sabriya more than 50 times.
He then tried to conceal her body by taking it to an alley behind his parents’ house and setting it on fire.
But smoke from the blaze set off a fire alarm in the home and firefighters responded to the scene.
Cole concealed the girl’s body by throwing leaves over it and sent the firefighters away.
His parents were out of the house at the time of the murder, but when they returned that night, he reportedly confessed to what he had done.
His devastated parents took him to a nearby police station the next morning.
When investigators came back to the scene, they found Sabriya’s body. Cole was immediately arrested on charges of murder, arson and abuse of a corpse.
Cops still don’t have a motive as to why he did such a cruel and callous act.
Because the murder was so violent, police are now working to see if Cole was connected to any other crimes.
‘It was a very violent act so we’re looking at him in connection to some other possible cases that we’ve had,’ Capt. Jack Ryan told 6ABC.
Cole already has a criminal history.
In 2013, he was sentenced to two to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery by threat of immediate serious injury.
He was facing another felony robbery case, but that was thrown out in August when a witness failed to appear in court.
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