At end of devastating year, Warren family gets "Home for Christmas"

WARREN

On a brand new wood floor, TraLynn Crowder, 12, carefully entered her new home on Palmyra Road Southwest to dozens of people, some wishing her “Merry Christmas” and “welcome home.”

Everyone wore shoe covers to avoid leaving behind dirt or water.

It was a joyous pre-Christmas welcome Thursday to a new home provided to her family by the Warren organization Team Sanders Inc., which refurbished the home with donated labor and materials.

The Trumbull County Land Bank donated the home, which the Crowders will own for free. Team Sanders also runs an after-school program and sponsors community events.

Team Sanders called the event “Home for Christmas.”

Right behind TrayLynn was her grandmother, Peggy Crowder. It was an emotional moment for TrayLynn, who has experienced many of them over the past six months because of the murder of her mother, Jessica Crowder, on June 24 at their home on Hamilton Street Southwest.

TraLynn actually witnessed her mother, 36, being shot by Jessica’s boyfriend, Roleigh Culver, 27, of Howland. Culver then went to a house nearby and killed himself.

TraLynn can be heard on the 911 call telling a dispatcher, “He just shot her.” Her grandmother, Jessica’s mother, told TraLynn to call 911 as the tragedy unfolded.

Team Sanders, which carried out a similar project last year, didn’t want to see the Crowder family – TraLynn, Peggy and TraLynn’s two brothers – spend any more time in the rented house where the killing took place.

Read more about the situation and their new home in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.