Duncansville woman’s post-conviction relief petition rejected

Edmundson pleaded guilty to ‘savage and gruesome’ killing

A Blair County judge denied and dismissed the petition for post-conviction relief filed by the Duncansville woman serving life without parole for her role in the "savage and gruesome" 2001 killing of Shari Lee Jackson.

Kristin Marie Edmundson, now 45, pleaded guilty to first-degree homicide and criminal conspiracy to commit homicide in exchange for the death penalty not to be pursued. She was sentenced June 4, 2003, by then-President Judge Jolene Grubb Kopriva to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus a consecutive 10 to 20 years.

Edmundson, alongside Marie Louise Seilhammer, used a baseball bat and box-cutter knife to bludgeon and slash Jackson to death on May 4, 2001. The killing allegedly stemmed from a plot by Edmundson, who was jealous of Jackson's relationship with a girlfriend, and Seilhammer to lure Jackson to an isolated area in Blair County where she was murdered, according to Mirror reports.

Jackson accompanied the two women, who she thought were her friends, in a truck and was taken to a clearing in the woods along the Janesville Pike near the Blair-Clearfield line north of Tyrone. It was reported that Seilhammer struck Jackson on the head with a baseball bat. Edmundson then slashed the semi-conscious woman's throat with a box-cutter, nearly beheading her. The next day, Edmundson and two others returned to the scene and moved the body to another location, where it was set on fire.

Edmundson filed the petition, her third, on her own behalf on July 13. In it, she wrote that she was eligible for relief due to "exculpatory evidence" becoming available that "would have changed the outcome of the trial if it had been introduced." That evidence included "updated scientific facts regarding brain development in emerging adults" since the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case Miller v. Alabama, which ruled that "mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment."

In January 2013, Kopriva declined to extend that ruling to include young adults who were over the age of 18 at the time of their crimes in a hearing asking for Edmundson, along with three other defendants, to have the chance of parole, according to Mirror reports.

Edmundson argued in her petition that the Washington Supreme Court in 2021, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2024 and the Michigan Supreme Court in 2025 all held that mandatory life without parole sentences for "emerging adults" aged 18 to 20 at the time of their crimes violated their respective state constitutions.

"Much like these states, our state constitution ... falls under a broader protection to extend Miller to 18 to 20 year olds," Edmundson wrote.

In her previous petitions, Edmundson had twice asked for a new trial due to having ineffective counsel and once asked for a correction of sentence, all of which were denied. Her current petition again asked for a correction of sentence.

Judge David B. Consiglio issued a notice of intent to deny and dismiss the petition without a hearing on Aug. 11, writing that the court was "satisfied from our review of the record that there are no genuine issues" regarding any fact of the case against Edmundson and that "no purpose would be served" by holding a hearing on her petition.

Consiglio subsequently denied and dismissed the petition without a hearing on Sept. 4. He wrote that Miller v. Alabama "stressed that, after individualized assessment of the juvenile defendant, a mandatory life without parole sentence for a juvenile could still be a viable sentence." As Edmundson was

20 years old at the time of her crimes, "Miller thus provided no basis for relief."

In addressing Edmundson's argument that cited Washington, Massachusetts and Michigan court decisions, Consiglio wrote that the Superior Court of New Jersey rejected those states' rationale in 2024 as the "legislature has chosen 18 as the threshold age for adulthood in criminal sentencing." He also noted that the Supreme Court of Nebraska also rejected a request to extend the Miller ruling.

"We know of no appellate case in Pennsylvania that has extended the protections of Miller to 18- to 20-year-olds and have neither the authority nor the inclination to do so," Consiglio wrote.

Edmundson filed a notice of appeal Sept. 16.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.