Woman convicted in violent home invasion
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » A 27-yearold Philadelphia woman was convicted late Thursday on charges including robbery and aggravated assault for a 2016 home invasion that sent one victim to the hospital for more than a week.
Erinn Howarth was also found guilty of burglary, conspiracy to burglary and firearms not to be carried without a license following a jury trial before Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Scanlon. She was acquitted on charges of possessing an instrument of crime, conspiracy to aggravated assault and conspiracy to robbery.
Sentencing has been set for July 2 pending a presentence investigation.
One of the two victims testified at trial that he had begun a romantic relationship with Howarth about a year before his wife died in February 2016. He said he hired Howarth to clean apartments and houses he owned, as well as his own home, and had set her up to live rent free in one of his homes.
The victim suffered a punctured lung in a fall and was hospitalized for a few weeks prior to the robbery on Aug. 23, 2016, the same day he returned home from the hospital.
One of his daughters told Assistant District Attorney Gina Gorbey that she went to her father’s home on East 25th Street in Chester that day with her sister to get him set up.
While they were making lunch, she said Howarth, represented by attorney Michael Malloy, showed up looking for a bikini she had left there. The daughter said she had seen the bikini earlier in her mother’s chest of drawers and retrieved it for Howarth, who put it in a backpack and left.
The victim said he did not see Howarth when she came to get the bikini. The robbery occurred when he later went to brush his teeth around 5 p.m., after his daughters had both left.
“I was standing at the sink and a gentleman came in and stuck a gun to my head,” the victim said. “He said, ‘Tell me the combination to the safe or I’ll shoot you.’ I knew it, but I wouldn’t give it to him. I told him I didn’t have it, my daughter had it.”
The victim said the intruder was wearing a mask and gloves but he could see a heavily tattooed arm. The man shoved the victim onto his bed and bound him. He said he could not see much, but could hear what sounded like three or four people moving about his house and attempting to open the safe. When it became quiet, the man said he untied himself somewhat and left the bedroom, thinking the robbers had left.
That was when he saw his daughter’s legs sticking out into the hall from another room.
“I thought she was dead,” he said. “She was all tied up. I started untying … the cords around her neck and hands and feet.”
The victim said he could tell his daughter was breathing, but he was soon set upon by another female robber also holding a gun. The woman, also wearing a mask and gloves, did not speak, he said.
The victim was again bound, but was able to free himself some time later. He could not locate a phone, so he crawled outside and told a neighbor to call the police.
Police got the call at around 8:17 p.m. The man was sitting outside when officers arrived and immediately requested medical attention for his daughter, who was transported to a hospital in critical but stable condition.
The female victim said she had no recollection of the events. She testified that she lived with her father and had come home that night around 5 p.m. to find the front door locked. After angrily texting her sister about the locked door, she said she went to the back door. She only remembered getting up the back steps.
The female victim said she suffered a head trauma that required 14 stitches, as well as damage to her legs where she was bound. Her father said he had not suffered any injuries. They were both taken to a hospital, where the woman said she remained for nine days.
The daughter who had been at the house earlier that day said she returned to the home that night to retrieve some clothing for her father and discovered a backpack containing the same pink bikini Howarth had retrieved just hours earlier.
Investigators took Howarth and a co-defendant, Samuel Richard Johnson, into custody the next day.
Criminal Investigation Division Detective Anthony Ruggieri read several text messages at trial between Howarth and two other individuals in the days leading up to the robbery that appeared to show prior planning.
The texts identified the victim’s first name and home address, as well as discussions about the female victim’s schedule and obtaining a firearm. In two texts on Aug. 22 and 23, Howarth states that she is doing a “lick,” which Ruggieri said was a street term for a robbery.
Johnson previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burglary, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, possessing an instrument of crime and firearms not to be carried without a license. He is scheduled for sentencing next week.
Criminal Investigation Division Detective Anthony Ruggieri read several text messages at trial between Howarth and two other individuals in the days leading up to the robbery that appeared to show prior planning.