A Bucks County judge sentenced Orenthia Upshur to life in prison without parole after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the January 2025 shooting death of his longtime girlfriend, Maisha Coon, inside a Bensalem hotel room. Coon’s daughters’ written victim-impact statements, read in court, described a home that still feels haunted by her absence, nearly two years after their mother was killed just shy of her 50th birthday.
Upshur and Coon had been a couple for three decades, according to testimony cited by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The two had gone to the Sleep Inn & Suites on Street Road in Bensalem to talk through problems in their relationship, and investigators said Upshur shot Coon multiple times inside the room as she pleaded for her life, telling her, according to investigators, “it’s all going to end tonight.” As NBC10 Philadelphia reported, Assistant District Attorney Samantha D’Amore read victim impact statements from Coon’s two daughters at sentencing, describing the pain and trauma their mother’s death caused the family.
An Early-Morning Report Launched the Investigation
The murder investigation began at about 5 a.m. on Jan. 15, 2025, after a relative entered the Pennsylvania State Police Trevose barracks and reported that Upshur had admitted shooting Coon at a Bensalem hotel following an argument, as reported by phillyburbs.com. Authorities used cellphone-location data to pinpoint Coon’s location to a cluster of hotels in the area, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. Troopers found Coon dead from multiple gunshot wounds at the Sleep Inn on Street Road.
Investigators said Upshur then drove back to Trenton, where he shot at Coon’s older daughter, Quadira Peterson, as she got into an Uber. He was ultimately taken into custody after a standoff with the Mercer County Tactical Response Team, per the same account from the district attorney’s office, and authorities recovered the gun believed to have been used in the killing.
Daughters Remember a Mother Who Balanced Two Jobs
Coon’s daughters remembered her as a hardworking woman who often balanced two jobs at a time to support her family, including dedicated work caring for people in group homes, according to a statement from Bucks County. They described her vibrant spirit, her eye for fashion and home decorating, and her role as the life of the party among loved ones.
“My mother was denied the chance to turn 50, to grow old, to keep filling rooms with her laughter,” one of Coon’s daughters said in her victim impact statement, according to the Inquirer. Another daughter wrote that the home feels haunted by her absence, a detail first reported by NBC10 Philadelphia.
Prosecutors Call Killing an Act of Domestic Violence
Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan said Coon’s killing was an act of domestic violence that devastated her loved ones. Khan said the life sentence ensures Upshur will remain behind bars and cannot harm another member of the community, according to Bucks County’s statement.
The Inquirer and phillyburbs.com reported that Upshur is 52; both identify him as a Trenton, New Jersey, resident. Domestic violence involving firearms remains a persistent pattern across the state: firearms accounted for 66% of domestic-violence homicide deaths in Pennsylvania in 2024, and typically make up between 55% and 75% of such killings in a given year, according to data compiled by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
