What is the final verdict and sentence, if any, in the Dauphin County trial of Travis Collins for the death of Ashley Sarazen?
Executive summary
Travis Collins was convicted in Dauphin County in the August 2023 beating and strangling death of Ashley Sarazen, and a judge imposed a life prison sentence so that, as one report put it, he “will have every day for the rest of his life to sit in prison” for the crime [1][2]. Prosecutors had also pursued rape-related charges tied to the case, but reporting documents the murder conviction and life sentence as the central legal outcome [3][4].
1. Verdict: jury rejected self-defense and found Collins guilty of murder
After several days of testimony and four days of trial proceedings, jurors rejected Travis Collins’ account that he acted in self-defense and returned a guilty verdict in the case charging him with the killing of Ashley Sarazen, according to contemporaneous coverage of the courtroom reaction and reporting that the jury did not accept his version of events [5][6]. News accounts describe relatives shouting at Collins after the verdict and summarize the prosecution’s theory that Collins beat and strangled Sarazen in her hotel room, a narrative the jury evidently credited [1][7].
2. Sentence: life behind bars, described as a lifetime to reflect the crime
Local reporting states that Collins was sentenced to life in prison for the homicide, with one article characterizing the sentence as ensuring Collins “will have every day for the rest of his life to sit in prison” reflecting the court’s view of the severity of the killing [2]. That phrasing appears repeatedly in coverage of the post-verdict courtroom, conveying both the punishment imposed and the emotional tenor of the victim’s family confronting Collins in court [2].
3. Surrounding charges and evidence: prosecution presented sexual-assault allegations and crime-scene detail
Prosecutors introduced evidence and testimony beyond the beating and strangulation, including forensic findings and a sex-themed coin tied to the scene, and they had added charges of forcible rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse after a pathologist’s exam yielded injuries prosecutors said were compatible with sexual assault [4][3]. Reporting also cataloged grisly crime-scene details — blood on Collins’ hands and throughout the room and photographic documentation by forensics investigators — which prosecutors used to underpin the murder charge [4][8].
4. Defense posture: no witnesses, limited contest of killing but dispute over circumstances
Court filings and pretrial reporting show Collins did not contest that Sarazen died in the hotel room but contested the circumstances, initially telling police he had been attacked and acted in self-defense; during the trial his attorney did not call defense witnesses as the defense rested, a strategic posture that coincided with the jury’s decision to convict [9][5]. Multiple outlets captured Collins’ post-arrest statements to police about an altercation and his account that she struck him with a phone, but jurors weighed that against the forensic and witness evidence presented by prosecutors [8][10].
5. What reporting does not show — limits and outstanding questions
Available local reporting documents the conviction, the emotional sentencing scene, and the ancillary rape allegations, but public sources provided here do not publish the formal written sentencing order with specific language about parole eligibility or the precise statutory counts on the verdict form, so readers should note that this summary relies on press accounts characterizing the sentence as life in prison rather than on a scanned court judgment in the provided materials [2][1][3]. Additionally, while prosecutors added sexual-assault charges and presented related evidence, the material supplied does not clearly state the final jury findings on every ancillary count; therefore this report does not assert convictions beyond the murder verdict and life sentence as described in the cited coverage [4][3].