She used Facebook to lure victim on date to Millcreek Mall. His murder sent her to prison
The date turned out to be deadly.
Erie resident Lexus M. Conner set up the date on March 23, 2021. She used Facebook to contact Casey Nadolny, a Titusville resident.
Conner, 22, said she wanted to go out with Nadolny, 25. But she was really setting in motion a plot aimed at robbing him of marijuana and cash.
Conner and Nadolny shopped for sneakers and other items at the Millcreek Mall that evening.
The "date" ended not with romance.
It ended with Conner's real boyfriend at the time, Regginal D. Welch III, fatally shooting Nadolny. Welch opened fire as Nadolny sat in the front passenger seat of the Ford Escape that Conner was driving away from the mall.
Welch shot Nadolny five times as Welch came out from under a blanket in the rear passenger-side seat of the Escape. He had been hiding for hours in the SUV, preparing to rob Nadolny of a bookbag that contained pot and cash. Conner knew Welch was there, and she had helped plan the heist from the start.
"You set up a cold-blooded ambush," Erie County Judge John J. Mead told Conner on Friday as he sentenced Conner to 12½ to 30 years in state prison for her guilty plea to third-degree murder in Nadolny's death.
Conner pleaded guilty immediately before the sentencing. As part of the plea deal, the Erie County District Attorney's Office and Conner's lawyer recommended that she receive the amount of prison time that Mead imposed.
Also as part of the plea deal, the prosecution dropped all the other charges against Conner, including aggravated assault.
Girlfriend testified against boyfriend at murder trial
Conner was charged with a general count of homicide. If she had gone to trial, she would have faced the possibility of convictions for first-degree or second-degree murder, both of which carry mandatory sentences of life in prison with no parole. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is 40 years.
Conner cooperated and testified at the trial of Welch, her co-defendant. He was convicted in September 2022 of first-degree murder, a premeditated killing; and second-degree murder, a killing committed during a felony, such as a robbery. Mead in December sentenced Welch, 22, to life plus another 5½ to 11 years.
Welch, known as "Dollaz," said nothing at his sentencing hearing, though he had bragged to others after Nadolny's death that he was responsible for the killing.
On Friday, Conner spoke for several minutes at her sentencing. She cried as she apologized to Nadolny's mother and other relatives seated in the gallery.
"I cannot imagine what you are going through," Conner said.
She said she realized her sentence could not reverse the events of March 23, 2021. She said she hoped her guilty plea and sentence would remove "a little bit of weight" from Nadolny's grieving family.
"I am not asking for forgiveness, because what I did was unforgivable," Conner said.
Conner's court-appointed lawyer, Mark Del Duca, told Mead that Conner had no prior record and that the guilty plea and the recommended sentence reflected Conner's cooperation. But he offered no excuses for her behavior.
"She organized this," Del Duca said. "She was part of the conspiracy."
Prosecutor says murder case involved 'love square'
Testimony at Welch's trial showed that Conner contacted Nadolny on Facebook at Welch's urging. Welch knew of Nadolny because Nadolny had been in a relationship with another of Welch's girlfriends.
The tangle of relationships between the four people — Welch, Nadolny and the two girlfriends, including Conner — led the lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney Hillary Hoffman, to describe the situation at Welch's trial as a "love square" rather than a "love triangle."
On the day of the killing, Conner drove her Ford Escape to Titusville to pick up Nadolny, she testified at Welch's trial. Welch hid in the rear cargo area of the SUV on the trip to Titusville and back to Erie, where Conner and Nadolny shopped at the Millcreek Mall. After the SUV left the mall and headed west, Welch, now hiding in the back seat, shot Nadolny.
During the shooting, Conner drove her SUV into a utility pole at the Country Fair at the intersection of Zimmerly and Zuck roads, in Millcreek. Nadolny's body fell out of the SUV and onto the street at about 7:35 p.m.
Conner and Welch then drove to Conner's residence in Erie, where they changed clothes and went through about $2,200 in cash they found in Nadolny's bookbag, Conner testified at trial. Welch smoked Nadolny's marijuana, she said.
Mother says defendant drove her son to his death
Conner's full participation in the scheme angered Nadolny's mother, Corinda Helffrich, who spoke in court on Friday. Helffrich held a picture of her son as she stood in the well of the courtroom and looked at Conner — the same position Helffrich took when she spoke at Welch's sentencing.
Her son's death "was completely preventable," Helffrich told Conner. She said Conner "drove him to his death" instead of aborting the plot.
"You said we will never forgive you," Helffrich said to Conner. "You are right. I won't."
As he sentenced Conner, Mead — who presided at Welch's trial — acknowledged the grief of Nadolny's family. He said he fully understood Conner's role in the plot. He said her cooperation led him to accept the recommended sentence, which will make Conner eligible for parole after she serves the minimum of 12½ years. Conner will get credit for the more than two years she spent in the Erie County Prison following her arrest in May 2021.
The prosecutor who handled Friday's sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Nick Maskrey, cited Conner's cooperation in explaining the recommended sentence to Mead. Maskrey also focused more on the how Conner facilitated a plot in which she lured Nadolny to his death at the hands of Welch.
All the while, Maskrey said, Conner "acted like this was an actual date."
But it was not.
Welch was "lying in wait" for Nadolny, Maskrey said. "He was hunting him."
Other accomplices sentenced in fatal heists
Lexus M. Conner is one of several defendants sentenced recently in Erie County Common Pleas Court for their roles in marijuana-related robberies that turned fatal. The other defendants also cooperated and reached deals in which they pleaded guilty to third-degree murder rather than face convictions for second-degree murder at trial.
The other defendants also received sentences that the prosecution and the defense jointly recommended.
● On Aug. 22, Anika N. Duran, 23, was sentenced to six to 12 years in state prison. She was driving the car in which her boyfriend, Patel Grogan, 24, was unintentionally shot to death by his best friend, Adrian A. Thrower, during a botched robbery of an accused drug dealer. The killing occurred in November 2021, in the area of West Eighth and Raspberry streets in Erie.
Thrower, 26, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the middle of his trial and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in state prison.
● On July 31, Michael J. Toles, 26, and Melissa A. Seaman, 23, who were once boyfriend and girlfriend, were sentenced to 12½ to 40 years in state prison. They were both involved in a robbery scheme that ended with the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Erie resident Devin Way in January 2020 near Way's residence on Southgate Drive, just north of West Grandview Boulevard.
Seaman admitted to helping set up the ruse in which she and the other defendants planned to steal marijuana and what turned out to be $400 from Way. Toles admitted to holding a gun on Way as the plot unraveled moments before Way was shot to death. The two other defendants in the case, Jakwaris Robison, 27, and Marshawn Williams, 26, were found guilty at trial of second-degree murder and were sentenced to life plus additional time with no parole.
● One of the prosecutors who handled Conner's case, Assistant District Attorney Nick Maskrey, said on Friday that the minimum sentence of 12½ years that Conner received was consistent with the minimum sentences that Toles and Seaman received.
The case of Duran, in which she received a sentence of six to 12 years, was different because of the unusual circumstances. The District Attorney's Office in that case let Duran and Thrower, the lead defendant, plead guilty to third-degree murder after the mother of Grogan, the victim, asked for the plea deals, citing evidence that Thrower never intended to kill Grogan.
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Girlfriend of killer sentenced in fatal robbery near Millcreek Mall
