Montgomery County Man Convicted Of Sexually Assaulting & Killing 10-Month-Old Daughter

NORRISTOWN, PA — A jury has convicted Austin Stevens, 31, of Lower Providence, on charges that he sexually assaulted and then killed his 10-month-old infant daughter in the fall of 2020, according to social media reports.

It took the jury 90 minutes of deliberation before finding Stevens guilty on charges included first-degree murder, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the October 2020 killing of Stevens' baby girl, Zara Scruggs, according to tweets from Montgomery County courthouse reporter Carl Hessler, Jr., who writes for the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown.

The tweets, which began around 2 p.m. Thursday, quoted Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann, Jr., as saying that this case was a "new level of horror for me, to see a father sexually abuse & kill their child & then be so cold & cavalier about what he did after the fact."

A county medical examiner had said that the infant child had injuries consistent with blunt force trauma to the head but also that the baby had severe rectal trauma, which served as evidence of sexual assault.

Stevens reportedly spent time after the killing performing Google searches on items like, "How do you know if a baby is dead?"

In comments outside the courtroom that were tweeted by reporter Hessler, prosecutors said that they appreciated the jurors' service since the case affected the jury greatly due to the graphic nature of the crime.

Stevens will be serving out a term of life imprisonment since he was found guilty of first-degree murder, for which there is no possibility of parole in Pennsylvania.

Stevens did not address reporters and said nothing as he was led out of the courtroom Thursday afternoon by sheriff's deputies.