NORWICH _ Prosecution witness Andrew Frate, an accident reconstructionist, told jurors Thursday that Peter Wlasiuk's account of how his wife died in a motor vehicle accident is ``a total fabrication and lie.''
Wlasiuk, 39, who's being tried in Chenango County Court for second-degree murder, has said that as he and his wife, Patricia, were driving to a baby sitter's house, she lost control of their truck, veered off county Route 35 and drove into Guilford Lake. Her body was pulled from the lake at about 1 a.m. April 3, 2002, and Wlasiuk is being tried a second time for second-degree murder because his first conviction was overturned.
``My opinion is the entire incident was staged to make it look like an accident,'' said Frate, a sergeant with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department who also testified in 2002.
If Patricia Wlasiuk had turned sharply to avoid a deer, as her husband has said, there would have been skid marks on the road, said Frate, supporting conclusions drawn Monday by Detective Sergeant Richard Cobb of the Chenango County Sheriff's Department.
If the truck crash had been sudden and accidental, the grass on the embankment to the lake would have been torn up, which it was not, he told Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride.
``What we have here is the truck pulled off onto the shoulder, then the tires tracks arc perfectly to an opening by the driveway, pointed right at the lake,'' he testified.
Frate theorized that Wlasiuk murdered his wife, drove her body to Guilford Lake, lined up the truck at a break in the guardrails, got out of the truck, shut the door, reached in through the open driver's window to put the column-mounted shift into drive, then let the truck go slowly down the hill with his wife's body lying on the bed-liner.
Because the truck sustained little damage, even after running over a four-by-four wooden post, it had to be traveling slowly, he said.
Other witnesses have noted the vehicle ended up on the lake bottom with its rear bumper more than 60 feet from shore.
``Why was it so far from shore?'' asked McBride.
``The truck would behave like a cork; it wouldn't sink right away,'' said Frate. The inertia of rolling down the hill would propel it out from shore, he said.
When asked by Wlasiuk's attorney, Randel Scharf of Cooperstown, to account for a large tool box that was fished out of the lake not far from the truck, Frate said, ``I think the body was placed in there for transport. I'm sure he didn't want the police to see it in the truck.'' Scharf noted Frate had previously testified that Wlasiuk's GMC dually pickup had air bags which failed to deploy, an error that bolstered the prosecution's theory of a deliberate, low-impact crash.
Frate said he'd been wrong about the air bags because the truck doesn't have them, but his basic theory is supported by the evidence.
Also testifying Thursday were Chenango County Corrections Officer John Mullin Jr. and Melissa Menard of South New Berlin. The two were together at the beach on Guilford Lake just after midnight on April 3, 2002.
Both said they heard a woman scream at about the time the Wlasiuk truck went into the lake, but both said the sound came from the east, not the accident site to the west.
``I heard someone yelling, but it was not a scream for help,'' said Menard, in response to a question from Scharf.
Donald Beckwith, an insurance agent from Oxford, testified Thursday that Peter Wlasiuk took out a $100,000 insurance policy on his wife in 2001 as the couple purchased the Pillars, an inn in Guilford.
The day after Patricia Wlasiuk died, her husband called to collect on the policy ``around 11 or 12 o'clock,'' Beckwith told McBride.
Beckwith said he informed Wlasiuk the policy with Security Mutual Life Insurance Co. of N.Y. would not automatically pay because his wife had died within two years of being insured. At this news, ``he got really upset, and I didn't hear any sorrow for his wife.''
Under cross-examination, Beckwith told Scharf the policy had been required for the couple to secure a Small Business Administration loan to purchase the inn.
Beckwith did not have an assignment document to show how proceeds from the policy would be distributed, so Broome County Judge Martin Smith ordered him to return for further testimony Monday.
Other witnesses are slated to testify today, starting at 8:30.
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