Rebekah Byler was a 23-year-old Amish mother of two living with her husband, Andy, on a small farm in rural Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The couple was expecting their third child when Rebekah was violently murdered.

Pathologist Eric Vey from the Erie County Coroner's Office ruled her death a homicide and said she was killed by a gunshot wound to the head and by having her throat cut.

Five days after her murder, 52-year-old Shawn C. Cranston was arrested and charged with her murder and the murder of her unborn child.

A woman purporting to be Cranston's foster daughter speculated shortly after his arrest that the murder was one of mistaken identity, saying that the Amish couple who lived on the Byler's farm previously had adopted his grandchild. He went to get the child back, she told the media. This has proven to be false. A motive for the murder is yet unknown.