My name is Alexia Connelly. My sister, Crystal Leschner, was only 38 years old when she was murdered. She was murdered by her boyfriend, Montel Reed. Montel was a 26 year old man from Pittsburgh PA. He stabbed her 56 times… There were several domestic violence incidents where he got into trouble for harming Crystal. My sister was in the process of leaving Montel. She was packing her things up and was talking about how she’d return home very soon… She came home in an urn. Only days after being released from jail for a domestic violence incident against her, he stabbed her to death on December 27th of 2021, wrapped her in plastic, stuffed her in a large suitcase, and placed the suitcase in a shed. Crystal was in there for several days before she was found. While she was dead, Montel Reed harmed another individual on New Years Day. This individual was lucky to make it out alive. While in jail for the crime committed on New Years Day, my sister was found.

This is a prime example that THINGS NEED TO CHANGE! The goal of this petition is to get abusers longer jail time for domestic violence disputes. With longer jail times, we’d like for domestic violence to be changed to a felony in the state of Pennsylvania. The laws are not strong enough to help protect victims! There also needs to be more bail requirements to make it more difficult for abusers to be released so soon. More often than not, an abuser is jailed and released only shortly after, which often results in them going back to hurting their victim(s) or even murdering them. There also needs to be a domestic violence registry available to the public. Nobody needs blindsided and people need to be protected!

1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence.

20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States.

1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.

1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.

On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.

The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.

72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.

https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS All sources above are from this link.

Even though officers are permitted to make such a warrantless arrest, not every arrest is made correctly, and the arrest can be successfully challenged in court under the right circumstances.

https://www.davidcohenlawfirm.com/domestic-violence Source above is from this link.