‘JFK ain’t lying dead in that room’: Man laughs off murder of ‘businesswoman’ he just met at bar, says ‘she got the short end of that stick,’ DA reports
Left inset: Travis Collins (Harrisburg Bureau of Police/CRIMEWATCH). Right inset: Ashley Sarazen (Siwicki – Yanicko Funeral Home). Background: The Harrisburg Hilton on Second Street in Harrisburg, Pa., where Travis Collins allegedly beat Ashley Sarazen to death (Google Maps).
A Pennsylvania man is on trial for allegedly raping and killing a woman at a Hilton Hotel after getting drunk all day and meeting her at a bar, telling police she was his “lady of the night” and had attacked him first — causing him to give her “a few combos,” according to cops.
“I think I broke her neck,” said Travis Collins, 32, during a 911 call to the Harrisburg Bureau of Police after allegedly murdering Ashley Sarazen, 38, on Aug. 4, according to PennLive.
“I don’t remember,” Collins allegedly told the dispatcher. “She fell on the bed and started bleeding.”
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Officers responded to the Harrisburg Hilton Hotel on Second Street at 3:10 a.m. after receiving the 911 call and found Sarazen dead — with injuries that made her almost unrecognizable — inside a hotel room, PennLive reports. Cops said Sarazen was in town visiting from the Pittsburgh area and had met Collins at the Bourbon Street Saloon on Second Street earlier in the evening. The bar is about a block away from the Hilton, as well as the Crowne Plaza hotel, where prosecutors say Collins was staying with a friend.
The pair was bar-hopping in Harrisburg after traveling there from Collins’ home in Kempton, which is about 70 minutes away, per PennLive.
After arriving at the scene, officers allegedly spoke with Collins and he claimed he had an altercation with Sarazen that led to him defending himself. “That [expletive] thing in here,” he allegedly told police while describing Sarazen and what happened. “JFK ain’t lying dead in that room, it’s some fat hooker,” Collins added, according to investigators.
Local ABC affiliate WHTM reported that Sarazen was apparently strangled to death.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Zawisky told jurors at the start of Collins’ trial on Monday that Sarazen was a “businesswoman” who visited Harrisburg often as part of her job working with juvenile criminal offenders, and that she had met Collins while drinking, PennLive reports. Police said she allegedly had a alcohol content (BAC) of .30 — nearly four times the local legal driving limit, while Collins’ was reported to be around .175-.213.
The pair went up to Sarazen’s hotel room that night after meeting and spent about an hour and 10 minutes together before Collins called his friend and allegedly said, “I [expletive] up, she’s dead,” according to prosecutors. Phone records show him allegedly talking to the pal for more than 15 minutes before Collins called 911 at around 3:06 a.m. and reported what happened.
Zawisky told jurors on Monday that Collins — who is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and about 270 pounds — changed his story multiple times about what occurred.
He allegedly settled on the claim that Sarazen, who is 5 feet, 1 inch tall and 120 pounds, “ambushed” him after he caught her rummaging through his wallet, telling cops she ripped the hotel’s landline phone out of the wall and attacked him with it, Zawisky said.
Collins denied having sexual contact with Sarazen, but her autopsy showed signs of sexual assault and her body had Collins’ DNA on it, with police finding a bite mark that he allegedly gave Sarazen on her buttocks, according to prosecutors. “You got me walking down this hallway like Cyrus ‘The Virus,'” Zawisky recalled Collins telling an officer after arriving at the Harrisburg police station, in reference to actor John Malkovich’s character — a psychopath and rapist — in the 1997 movie “Con Air.”
“Ya see this? I did this to myself,” Collins allegedly told police at one point about a paper-cut-sized scratch on his forehead, which he previously claimed Sarazen had caused.
“Nah, I’m just joking,” Collins allegedly said.
While being taken into custody, Collins allegedly told the officer who transported him that he had paid Sarazen to sleep with him that night.
“Ya hire a lady of the night and she tries to rob you,” he allegedly said. “She got the short end of that stick.”
Collins’ attorney, Jessica Bush, did not try denying the evidence and comments stacked up against Collins. She instead argued that he did not kill Sarazen with intent or malice, meaning his case does not meet the legal standard for convicting him of first-degree murder, which is the charge against him. Bush told jurors that Collins drunkenly overreacted that night after seeing Sarazen allegedly going through his wallet and he was too intoxicated to tell right from wrong. She blamed Sarazen’s death directly on Collins’ alleged drinking binge, claiming it started around lunchtime, PennLive reports.
Zawisky said it was hard to believe the allegations due to Sarazen’s condition when found by police.
“[Collins’ story] doesn’t even take into account the damage and destruction to her lower body, including her organs,” Zawisky told the jury, with him noting how Sarazen suffered severe injuries caused by Collins’ alleged rape of her. “It was extreme, and it was overkill,” Zawisky recounted. “She never made it home because of that man.”
Collins allegedly has a history of violent attacks and incidents involving women. PennLive reports that he has been charged in the past for drunken outbursts against his cousin, a former neighbor, and a random couple at a bar. The murder trial is expected to continue through the week, with Collins’ facing life in prison without the possibility of parole.
NY man who was so drunk he doesn’t remember beating his buddy to death found guilty of murder: ‘Merciless’
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Published Feb. 10, 2025, 4:06 p.m. ET42
A Westchester County man who was too blackout drunk to remember beating his buddy to death on a White Plains sidewalk was stone cold sober Monday when a jury found him guilty in the slaying.
Jare Diaz, 27, was found guilty of second-degree murder and now faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years to life behind bars when he is sentenced on March 27, prosecutors said.
“I am grateful for the jury’s verdict and for the diligent work of our prosecutorial team, which brought about this just result,” Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace said in a statement.
“The merciless beating of Mr. Guzman-Desdicho left him mangled and unrecognizable on a cold November night. This kind of violence can never become a normal part of daily life in Westchester.”
Cacace called the fatal attack “unprovoked.”
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Diaz testified last week that he doesn’t remember punching and kicking his friend Otoniel Guzman Desdicho more than 30 times after running into him following a drinking binge on Nov. 26, 2022 — despite repeatedly watching surveillance video footage of the fatal assault.
“Since the first day I was in jail until now I’ve tried to remember but I’ve been unable,” he told his lawyer, Angelo MacDonald, after testifying in a White Plains courtroom.
Diaz was distraught on the night of the attack after his wife left him and took their young son over his heavy drinking and marijuana use — and decided to go on a bender, lohud.com reported.
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He said he drank beer and Bacardi rum before scuffling with the victim around 11:30 p.m.
Two cameras captured the confrontation, including from an East Post Road laundromat, which showed the two getting into a drunken shoving match before Diaz allegedly attacked his friend, the outlet said.
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At one point the video shows Diaz dragging Desdicho on the ground.
The victim was put on life support at the Westchester Medical Center where he died three days later.
