Upstate Teen Convicted of Strangling 14-Year-Old Girlfriend in Pregnancy Scare
An upstate New York teenager has been convicted of strangling his girlfriend after she told him she might be pregnant with his child. Both were 14 at the time.
Raymond Wright Jr. was found guilty Monday of second-degree murder following roughly five hours of jury deliberations. Samantha Humphrey disappeared in 2022, and her body was discovered months later in the Mohawk River in Schenectady, according to the Times Union.
Humphrey’s father, Jeffrey Humphrey, rushed to the courthouse in an attempt to hear the verdict but arrived as his daughter’s now-18-year-old killer was being led away.
“So I didn’t get to see the look on that monster’s face,” he told the Times Union.
“But I got to see the look on the face of the monster that made the monster,” he added, referring to Wright’s mother, Kristi Kenyon. She stormed out of the courtroom after shouting a profanity-laced protest.
Wright and Humphrey had been in an on-and-off relationship when, during a late-night walk in November 2022, she told him she might be pregnant. Prosecutors said Wright strangled her and threw her body into the Mohawk River.
Wright acknowledged that the pair had a physical altercation but maintained that he left Humphrey by the river while she was still alive.
However, Christina Tremante-Pelham, Schenectady County’s deputy chief assistant district attorney, said Wright could not explain an hour-and-a-half gap in his account.
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“And that’s of course because he was killing her and disposing of her body,” she said.
Humphrey’s body was recovered three months after she disappeared. A medical examiner did not determine until May 2025 that she had died from strangulation.
Investigators found that Humphrey’s phone had been used to search for pregnancy symptoms, though it was never established whether she was pregnant. Wright’s search history included queries about how bodies decompose in water.
Humphrey’s relatives sobbed as the verdict was read. Wright’s mother then erupted and left the courtroom, accusing jurors of overlooking evidence tied to another person whose DNA was found on Humphrey’s sleeve.
The defense had also argued that the 14-year-old might have taken her own life.
Wright was convicted as a juvenile and faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in January.
Humphrey’s father said the conviction ensures Wright cannot hurt anyone else.
“Hopefully, the danger that he poses won’t be ignored in his parole hearings,” he said, asserting that previous warnings had gone unheeded. “As it unfortunately was when we went to certain local agencies and told them about the danger he posed more than a year before he killed Sam.”
