David Sumney: Man who murdered his mom in bathtub had waterboarded his girlfriend just weeks earlier
PENNSYLVANIA, HARRISBURG: A Pennsylvania man who murdered his mother in her bathtub before taking selfies covered in her blood had allegedly strangled and waterboarded his girlfriend in a hotel just six weeks prior. David Sumney, 33, despite his violent past, managed to evade capture in the summer of 2019, after New Jersey police failed to enter his arrest warrant into a national crime database. On September 2, 2019, Margaret Sumney, 67, was found dead in her bathtub at her South Fayette, Pennsylvania, home.
About two months before his mother’s horrifying death, Sumney’s ex-girlfriend claimed she was tortured by the accused killer for three days in a hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, before being saved by a bellhop who found her in the room after the pair failed to check out on July 16, 2019. Local police identified the suspect and obtained a warrant to arrest Sumney for attempted murder the same day but never acted upon it. The victim (who does not want to be named) and Sumney’s family said he instead managed to slip through the cracks after authorities failed to log the warrant into the National Crime Information Center, which would have alerted out-of-state police to arrest him. David Sumney is facing only 20 years in jail after pleading guilty earlier this month to third-degree murder in connection with his mother's death in 2019.
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Sumney had a warrant out for his arrest in New Jersey after allegedly torturing his girlfriend in an Atlantic City hotel in July that year, but after cops failed to enter the warrant into a national crime database, Sumney escaped and was then able to fly to Denver and return to his home state Pennsylvania where he was later arrested for assaulting a Lyft driver, but his outstanding warrant went unnoticed. Just a few days after that, he killed his own 67-year-old mother, Margaret Sumney, in her home. He snapped selfies of his own blood-smeared face, flashing a ‘thumbs up’ sign, and video of him washing his mother’s mangled corpse in the bathtub where she was found. He had been originally charged with homicide as well as abuse of a corpse, robbery, and theft by unlawful taking, but those charges were later dropped. If he had been convicted of the more severe charges, he would receive a mandatory life sentence. Instead, he now faces a maximum of 20 to 40 years behind bars when he is sentenced in Judge Edward Borkowski’s courtroom on a single charge of third-degree murder. That means Sumney, who has spent three years in jail awaiting trial, could get released in 17 years, at age 51.
"We’re all fearful that he’ll get out because he could not be rehabbed," Sumney’s ex-girlfriend told DailyMail.com. "He’s a multiple violent offender. And now he might get out at 51 and do the same thing again. I’m just very disenfranchised with the criminal justice system." On the morning of September 2, 2019, Peggy, Margaret’s other daughter called the police to do a wellness check while informing them that David Sumney, staying in the house and had a history of elder abuse. In July 2015, he was charged with assaulting his father. In August 2014 and November 2016, he was charged with assaulting his mom. But according to his family, the charges were downgraded in those cases as well to misdemeanor assault and harassment. "My sister (Margaret) would plead to the judge and say, ‘well if he gets rehabilitation,’ and the judge would go easy on him," Ann Shade told DailyMail.com. "She was in the hospital a couple of times and would not want to say that David put her there. If she didn’t do what he wanted, he’d pull her hair a lot and drag her up the steps." "He was able to play the system,’ Shade said. "After how many times he’d end up in court, they should have known to keep him locked up for a while."
Police found Margaret Sumney's beaten and lacerated body in a bathtub on September 2, 2019, two days after her son took the grisly photos. They later search Sumney’s iPhone and found hundreds of photos of the crime scene. His phone’s browser revealed he had researched handling a corpse, including 'How long do you wait to dispose of a body?’ Shade, sitting with several other relatives, audibly gasped in the gallery, muttering 'no' when Assistant District Attorney Michael Pradines insisted to the judge that the family supports the deal when, in fact, they don't. Only the victim's youngest daughter, Peggy, signed off after the prosecution argued this would guarantee he'll have no chance at an appeal. Relatives said the only true justice would be for him to spend the rest of his life in prison. "This is definitely not justice for my mom and it's definitely not keeping society safe," the victim's elder daughter Ellen, insisted. "I don't understand how Pennsylvania doesn't see him as dangerous enough to want to convict him of first-degree murder." "To ever let him out?" she continued. "I don't even have words for it. I don't think you could fix David. Somebody who takes pictures, selfies as they murder someone. He's a killer. That's all he is. And I believe he would definitely kill again."