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“I have little trust in everyone” — Victim of secret recording speaks to FOX17

Posted at 6:40 PM, Jun 13, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-13 19:02:37-04

WYOMING, Mich. --  Back in January, 31-year-old Ben Crawford faced every husband’s worst nightmare when his wife, Chelsea, was killed by a hit and run driver while walking near their Wyoming home.

But sympathy for Crawford was short lived – just days later, he was charged with secretly recording two tenants that lived in the home with him and his wife, a crime he plead ‘no contest’ to just this week.

“What would make someone do something like that?” said Elizabeth Blas, one of the victims who spoke to FOX17 News one day after Crawford’s plea. “I’ve lost so much trust in so many people just for that reason. For one person doing that.”

A friend of Chelsea through work, Blas moved in with the Crawford’s in August of 2016 along with the other victim named in the case. But an innocent request for a towel rack led to months of secret recordings and perhaps a lifetime of wondering for Blas, after her roommate made the life-changing discovery that following November.

“[She] went to wash her hands, and dry her hands, and she noticed a little glare and thought ‘what is that?’ And she pulled it off the wall and sure enough it was a camera.”

Crawford denied when the two confronted him, placing the blame on others who have been in the home.

“You never think that anyone you know would do something like that especially people that you move in with and think that you can trust,” Blas said. “I have a hard time even just changing in my own bedroom…going to the store, trying on clothes. I don’t think it will ever go away.”

FOX17 learned through court documents that the other victim has since lifted a no-contact order on Crawford, and Blas says that victim is still living in the Wyoming home where this all happened. As for Blas though, even despite the circumstances of last January, sympathy simply isn’t in the cards.

“He did this before Chelsea passed away,” she said. “This wasn’t after and it’s not like he was messed up in his head and did it because he had stuff going on. He did it because he wanted to do it.”