Commonwealth v. Edmiston

OPINION OF THE COURT

Justice CASTILLE.

Appellant appeals the denial of his petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541 et seq. Because we find that appellant is not entitled to relief, we affirm the order of the PCRA court.

In October of 1988, appellant raped and murdered the two-year-old child victim in a particularly gruesome fashion. Appellant scalped the child by cutting with a sharp knife from one of her ears across her front hair line to her other ear and peeling back her scalp to the nape of her neck, thereby exposing her skull. Appellant also…