Christina Spicuzza’s family called her killer a coward.
Calvin Crew, who marched the Uber driver into the cold, dark woods three years ago, ignoring her pleas to spare her life, didn’t show up for his own sentencing on Monday.
It went on without him.
Crew, 26, of Pitcairn, was ordered to serve the rest of his life in prison plus an additional 13-26 years. He was convicted in February of first-degree murder for killing Spicuzza, 38, of Turtle Creek on Feb. 10, 2022.
“Only a coward,” Spicuzza’s fiance, Brandon Marto, said of Crew, “a coward who couldn’t be here today to face this.”
Marto asked the judge to mete out harsh punishment for the death of Spicuzza — a woman who told Crew as she asked for mercy in her final minutes that she was a mother of four.
“I want him to suffer. I want him to sit for years,” Marto said. “I beg you, please just leave him. In jail. For eternity.”
While Crew chose not to come to court — which is unusual but not unprecedented — Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski noted that during the defendant’s pre-sentence investigative interview, Crew proclaimed his innocence and said he intends to appeal.
“He did state he recognized the impact of the crime on the family of Ms. Spicuzza,” Borkowski said.
At trial, prosecutors said Crew forced Spicuzza, an Uber driver, to ferry him across eastern Allegheny County for nearly an hour before marching her into the woods in Monroeville and fatally shooting her.
Some of her last moments were captured on video from a dashboard camera as she spoke with Crew. Spicuzza pleaded for her life as Crew, wearing a black face mask, hat and hood, pressed a gun to her head.
Spicuzza had picked up Crew about 9:15 p.m. Feb. 10, 2022, and was supposed to take him from Pitcairn to Penn Hills, according to a criminal complaint filed against Crew.
Police said Crew killed Spicuzza and left her body in a wooded part of Monroeville. Afterward, they said, several payment and banking apps were accessed on Spicuzza’s phone.
During the exchange in the car, Spicuzza told the man later identified by investigators as Crew, “Come on, I have a family.”
Crew told her that he did, too, according to a criminal complaint. He grabbed her long ponytail in his left hand to control her head and told her to drive.
“I’m begging you, I have four kids,” she pleaded, asking him to take the gun off the back of her neck, according to the complaint.
Crew told her to do what he said and “everything will be alright,” the complaint said. Seconds later, police said, he reached forward and grabbed the dashboard camera with his right hand. The video ended at 9:34 p.m.
Marto reported her missing that night after he lost contact with her, and she never came home.
‘No mercy’
During the sentencing hearing on Monday, Crew’s defense attorneys did not present any witnesses, but did describe to the court their client’s troubled childhood.
Attorney Adam Reynolds told the judge that Crew was 3 years old when his father killed himself.
Later, Crew was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder and was assigned to special education classes in elementary school.
He has an adjusted IQ level of 79, making him borderline intellectually impaired.
As an adult, the attorney said, Crew had trouble with money management, which was exacerbated by the birth of his son.
“He never seemed to grow out of that immaturity,” Reynolds said. “His failure to appear for this sentencing today is still evidence of that immaturity.”
Reynolds asked the court to impose the mandatory life sentence for first-degree murder but not add more time for the crimes of robbery, kidnapping, robbery of a motor vehicle and carrying a firearm without a license.
“What purpose does a consecutive sentence serve?” Reynolds asked. “He will die in a cell.”
But Spicuzza’s family members urged Borkowski to give Crew as much time as he could.
“I ask the court to show you the same mercy you showed my sister as she begged for her life. None,” Chantelle Spicuzza, the victim’s younger sister, wrote in a statement read in court by the prosecutor.
Cindy Spicuzza, the victim’s mother, told the court their family urged prosecutors to dispense with the capital case against Crew just days before trial was scheduled to begin.
“Truly, you should have the death penalty, but we asked for mercy and life without parole,” she said.
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But, Cindy Spicuzza continued, Crew should be shown no kindness.
“You showed no mercy, no remorse,” she said. “There should be no mercy showed to you.”
Marto urged the judge to impose the most severe sentence.
“This is not over for us. It never will be.”
Marto said that Jesus and faith were important in Spicuzza’s life.
“She would want me to tell Calvin Crew he would be saved if he accepts Jesus Christ as his savior,” Marto said. “I want him to rot.”
Painful reminders
The family described Christina Spicuzza as kind and resilient with an infectious laugh — a loving mother who was the foundation of her family.
“She always had an encouraging word for others when they were down,” her mother said.
Chantelle Spicuzza wrote in her letter that even the joyful memories she and her three brothers have of their sister hurt.
“Every shared laughter is now a painful reminder of what we have lost,” she wrote.
Marto’s mother, Deborah Marto, who considered the victim to be her daughter-in-law, said Spicuzza’s youngest child, who was 7 when she was killed, doesn’t remember much about her.
“It’s more like the photos are proof they had a mother,” Marto said.
She called Spicuzza the light of her son’s family.
“The impact of this evil monster’s actions have crushed us,” she said.
“I know the broken heart of my son, but Christi would be so proud of how he’s raising the kids.”
Brandon Marto described his fiancée as the foundation of their family.
“She loved her children more than anything, and she loved me,” Marto said. “She made me a better person.
When they first met, Marto said, he was an alcoholic.
“I was half lost, quite out of control,” he said. “But she saw something in me.”
For the first four years of their relationship, Marto said, she was patient and showed him another way to live.
“I wanted to spend the rest of my life making up those first four years,” he said. “But that has been cut short.”