Worcester Judge Denies Killer’s Bid For New Trial

SNOW HILL -- A Pennsylvania man sentenced to 25 years in prison for repeatedly running over his elderly mother on a rural road in northern Worcester County in August 2010 will remain behind bars after a Circuit Court judge this week denied his motion for a new trial and a motion to modify or reduce his sentence.

Last March, a Worcester County jury found Steven Frederick Molin, 59, of Darby, Pa., guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his elderly mother, Emily Belle Molin, 85. In June, Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Thomas C. Groton sentenced Molin to 25 years in prison, calling the case at the time one of the most unusual he had ever seen.

In the months since, Molin has filed several motions, including a motion for a new trial, a motion for a modification or reduction of sentence, and a motion to reduce the sentence within 90 days of sentencing. On Monday, Groton categorically denied each of Molin’s pending motions.

Shortly before midnight last Aug. 31, the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office responded to a serious motor vehicle accident on Carey Rd. in Berlin. The victim, Emily Molin, was transported to PRMC in Salisbury where she died of injuries sustained from being run over by a motor vehicle.


From the beginning, Steven Molin did not deny running over his mother as many as three times, but claimed the incident was an accident, caused in part by a faulty passenger side door on the 2008 Chevy work truck damaged in a different accident earlier in the day. However, a Worcester County Sheriff’s Office accident reconstructionist, after reviewing the physical evidence and interviewing Molin, determined the victim had been run over three times despite ample opportunity for the suspect to avoid hitting her after the first collision.


At his sentencing hearing in June, Molin continued to assert the tragedy was just an accident, but the jury in his March trial didn’t buy the accident theory and convicted Molin on a second-degree murder charge.

At sentencing, Molin said things started unraveling when his mother was taken from him and placed in a nursing home, and the subsequent loss of the money he received to help pay for her care. On the day of the incident, Molin had taken his mother out of the nursing home and brought her to Berlin to reportedly visit her late husband’s gravesite.