NORWICH _ In Chenango County Court on Tuesday, a detective admitted making a mistake in tracking a key piece of evidence against Peter Wlasiuk, 39, who is accused of murdering his wife.
The evidence is a small burdock branch allegedly containing strands of Patricia Wlasiuk's hair. Police took it from the Wlasiuks' backyard in Oxford on April 8, 2002, five days after her body was found in Guilford Lake.
When her body was recovered, burdocks were found in her hair, several witnesses have said. The prosecution theorizes Wlasiuk killed his wife in their yard, placed her body into the back of their pickup truck, then drove her to the lake and let the truck roll in.
Central to this theory is the discovery of her hair in the yard, trapped in a sticky bush near the family's swimming pool.
On April 10, 2002, police sent the burdocks and hair to Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton to be examined by Dr. James Tersian, who had conducted an autopsy on Patricia Wlasiuk's body. According to an evidence log maintained by the Chenango County Sheriff's Department, the bush, but not the hair, was returned to an evidence locker that day.
Wlasiuk's attorney, Randel Scharf of Cooperstown, pounced on this entry.
``Dr. Tersian didn't put the hair back in the evidence bag, did he?'' asked Scharf.
Chenango County Detective Gerald Parry, the department's evidence technician in 2002, said the hair was returned and the record ``was a mistake on my part.'' Parry said he had misunderstood what Deputy Kenneth Moisan, who had transported the evidence, told him that day.
In a cross-examination, slated to continue this morning, Scharf pointed to other alleged errors related to this evidence. On April 5, police searched Wlasiuk's property and cut down a different burdock bush, Parry said in response to a question from Scharf.
However, this seizure was apparently not authorized by the search warrant nor noted three days later when police were seeking a second search warrant to look for burdocks.
``You knew you were going to find burdocks on the eighth because you found them on the fifth, didn't you?'' said Scharf.
``I didn't intentionally do anything wrong,'' Parry told the eight-woman, four-man jury.
Parry's testimony ended after he disclosed that police had cut down the entire bush that allegedly contained the victim's hair, but it was not in the courtroom. Scharf said he wanted to see it. Broome County Judge Martin Smith, who is presiding at this retrial, excused Parry for the day and told him to be ready to retake the stand this morning.
Early Tuesday, lawyer Hugh Leonard of Binghamton testified that in 2002, Peter Wlasiuk filed a claim on his damaged truck _ less than seven hours after his wife was declared dead.
``My recollection is the claim came in on April 3, 2002, before 8 a.m., when the office opened,'' he told Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride.
Leonard said Wlasiuk's one-ton GMC dually pickup truck was insured by New York Central Mutual Insurance Co. of Edmeston and he was retained by the insurer. On July 18, 2002, while Wlasiuk was in jail, awaiting trial on a charge of second-degree murder, Leonard met with him at the Chenango County Jail.
This meeting, attended by Wlasiuk's attorney at the time, Frederick Neroni of Delhi, was recorded by a stenographer. Leonard read from the transcript of this meeting, and according to it, Wlasiuk gave a much different version of events that led to his wife's death than he told other witnesses.
According to several witnesses and his signed statement, Wlasiuk said he and wife were on the way to pick up their children when a deer jumped in front to their truck, causing her to lose control and drive into the lake.
Leonard said Wlasiuk told him the couple were bickering and they turned around near the lake.
``I felt she had been drinking and we should go home,'' Leonard read from the transcript, allegedly quoting Wlasiuk.
Asked if they were having an argument, Wlasiuk said ``yes.''
"Did she swear at you before she drove into the lake?'" Leonard read his own question from six years ago.
"Yeah," Wlasiuk allegedly responded.
The claim was denied.
Under cross-examination, Leonard said he had destroyed his case file in 2005 and was relying on memory for part of his testimony.
Chenango County Lieutenant James Lloyd also testified at length Tuesday, describing how the investigation was conducted.
At the end of his testimony, McBride asked if Lloyd could stay in the courtroom to watch the trial.
However, Scharf said, ``We're definitely going to be recalling him,'' and Lloyd had to leave.
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