Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. sentenced Orenthia Upshur to life without parole for killing Maisha Coon.

A guilty plea to first-degree murder is the conviction on that count, and the life term is the sentence imposed Monday. The district attorney's release says there were related charges and does not name them. The Inquirer reported the count he pleaded to as first-degree murder. The Inquirer also reported he shot at Coon's older daughter in Trenton. The district attorney's account of the Trenton arrest describes gunfire and a standoff, and it does not say he shot at a daughter. Her name is not in this story.

The Bucks County District Attorney's Office said Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, that Orenthia Upshur, 52, of Trenton, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in Bucks County Court to first-degree murder and related charges in the Jan. 15, 2025 killing of Maisha Coon, 49, also of Trenton, and that Common Pleas Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. then imposed the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The office said the two had been together for three decades and had gone to the hotel to address relationship problems. District Attorney Joe Khan said the shooting robbed Coon of her life and that the life sentence means Upshur will spend the rest of his days behind bars. The Inquirer reported Upshur told Judge Bateman he wanted to take accountability for killing Coon by pleading guilty to first-degree murder, and that Bateman sentenced him to a mandatory term of life in prison. The Inquirer reported Bateman told him, "The facts of this case could not be graver," and, "You took someone's life, someone presumably who you loved a great deal, for no reason." The Inquirer reported Upshur told the judge he was appalled by his actions, wanted to take full accountability, and wishes he could take back what happened. The office's "without the possibility of parole" is the sentence it announced. The Inquirer's phrase is "a mandatory term of life."

The office said the homicide was the morning of Jan. 15, 2025. It said the investigation began around 5 a.m., when a relative of Upshur walked into the Pennsylvania State Police Trevose barracks and reported that Upshur had admitted shooting Coon in a Bensalem hotel room. It said the relative told troopers the couple had been arguing and that an argument was overheard on a phone call around 12:30 a.m. It said phone location data pointed to a cluster of hotels, and that troopers checked the Sleep Inn on Street Road, learned Coon had rented a room, and found her dead of multiple gunshot wounds in Room 317. It said Bensalem detectives recovered three spent casings and evidence that a bullet went into the room below. The Inquirer reported prosecutors said Upshur shot Coon in the head and leg inside a room at the Sleep Inn & Suites on Street Road that they had rented together. It reported defense attorney Deborah Weinman said each had accused the other of infidelity, that they had seen a marriage counselor, and that the stay was meant to help them work on the relationship. The head and the leg are the Inquirer's account of what prosecutors said. The three casings and the room below are the district attorney's office.

The office said that before Coon was found, Trenton police responded around 4:30 a.m. to a 911 report of shots fired, that arriving officers heard more gunfire, and that they saw an armed man, later identified as Upshur, run into a nearby residence. It said a multi-hour standoff with the Mercer County Tactical Response Team ended in his arrest, and that officers recovered the firearm used in the homicide. It said that in a four-hour interview with the New Jersey State Police he confessed, and that investigators said that while Coon pleaded for her life he told her, "It's all going to end tonight." The Inquirer reported that after the shooting he drove to a relative's house, confessed there, drove back to Trenton, and shot at Coon's older daughter as she got into an Uber, and that Trenton police took him into custody after a brief gunfight. The daughter is not named here. The office's release does not describe a shot fired at a daughter, and it describes a multi-hour standoff rather than a brief gunfight. Those are two accounts of the hours in Trenton.

The office said Assistant District Attorney Samantha D'Amore read victim impact statements written by Coon's two daughters, and that one wrote, "The home feels haunted by her absence." The daughters are not named. The office also identified D'Amore as the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case. Bensalem Public Safety Director William McVey said the department is relieved that justice was served and thanked the district attorney's office. The office said the investigation was joint work by Bensalem police and the district attorney's office, with the Pennsylvania State Police, Trenton police, and the New Jersey State Police. The guilty plea is a conviction on the counts he admitted. The life term is the sentence Judge Bateman imposed. The related counts are still unnamed in the release. He can still ask a higher court to review the judgment.