WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. Commentary By S. Richard Blassberg, WPCNR Legal Affairs Correspondent. May 7, 2003: Week four of testimony in Westchester’s first Capital Punishment murder trial at the County Courthourse in White Plains, in more than twenty-five years began one week ago Monday, with the testimony of the final Prosecution witness. Dr. Louis Roh, Westchester’s Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, spoke with the confidence and authority of many years experience both in the morgue and on the witness stand. Prosecutor Bolen took this opportunity to possibly inflame and motivate the jurors.
WPCNR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT
S. RICHARD BLASSBERG
Photo by WPCNR News
Prosecutor Bolen presented large body charts of each victim graphically illustrating the location of each stab wound. Bolen proceeded to distribute three photographs of each victim, nine in all, to the jury for each member to study close up. The process of viewing the photographs took some twenty jurors and alternates slightly more than eight minutes, appearing to produce little emotion among them as they viewed them briefly and passed them on.
On cross-examination of Dr. Roh, the Defense manged to elicit from him the opinion that the children, William 7, and Ashley 4, probably died very quickly. Defense attorney Spiegel described their wounds as “gruesome injuries.” With the conclusion of Dr. Roh’s testimony, Prosecution rested its case.
Defense Witnesses Indicate Heavy Drinking, Tempestuous Love Affair.
The first Defense witness was Eileen Laracuenti, an emergency-room nurse from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Yonkers. She had treated the Defendant shortly after he was brought in by ambulance. She testified that he was semi-conscious, with alcohol on his breath, and repeatedly declaring in Spanish, “I killed them.”
Tuesday saw a total of less than thirty minutes of testimony from three Defense witnesses. The first, Tim Viacco, a Regional Controller for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, testified that Patricia Torres had rented a Saturn between July 5th and 13th, 2000, putting 1,103 miles on the car. This testimony bolstered the Defense contentions that following their client’s attempt to move to Maryland and get away from Patricia and the violence between them, she contacted him and brought him back to Yonkers.
The second witness, Frank Buglione, an adjuster with Allstate Insurance, confirmed Defense claims that Patricia had damaged her 1997 Altima, intentionally driving it into a guardrail while arguing with the Defendant after they had been out drinking and arguing at the Flamingo, a local bar.
Other Son Tells of Alvarez-Hernandez Drinking Blackouts
Tuesday’s third witness was Yonkers Detective Kevin Tighe, who had been on duty the morning of September 3, 2000. Detective Tighe, who responded to the scene at 55 Maple Street, testified that Rudy, Patricia Torres’ son who had been at his grandparents’ apartment next door at the time of the killings, told him,
“When Dennis drinks, he gets bad, and the next morning he can’t remember a thing.”
On Final Day of Testimony, Prosecution Attempts to Block Hearsay.
Wednesday of last week brought the final parade of Defense witnesses prior to this week’s summations which completed yesterday Tuesday.
The first was Carlos Flores, the Defendant’s first cousin. However, prior to his testimony, Prosecutor Bolen launched a strenuous objection to it as impermissible hearsay evidence. Defense countered that although the testimony would involve hearsay, it should be allowed under the “State of Mind Exception” to the Hearsay Rule. Judge Kenneth Lange overruled the Prosecution allowing the testimony, not for the truth of the Defendant’s statements, but for the state of mind they would demonstrate.
Leaving Patricia.
Carlos Flores testifed that he and Dennis had purchased one-way bus tickets the day after the Flamingo Bar incident described by the testimony earlier of Allstate Insurance adjuster, Mr. Buglione. Flores said he and Dennis were intending to remain in Maryland at the apartment of their uncle Luis, and to find work. He testified that Dennis said that he wanted to get away from Patricia. This testimony was followed by testimony from Luis, the uncle, and one of his neighbors who further corroborated the Defendant’s expressed intentions.
The importance of this testimony was that it clearly contradicted the Prosecution theory that the killings were the result of a “grand scheme,” (the predetermined intent critical to proving Murder One).
A Move to Eliminate Evidence Setting an Earlier Time of Deaths
Perhaps a signal that the District Attorney’s Office was concerned that their case was not going as well as they had hoped, came after the last of the Defense witnesses had testified, and the jury had been excused until Monday, when it heard closing arguments.
Mr. Bolen had made application to the Court to omit Defense evidence from the United States Commerce Department’s weather reports for the vicinity of Yonkers on the morning of September 3, 2000. this information was deemed significant by Defense because it indicated a very high humidity which would tend to confirm their contention, based on blood-drying evidence, that the killings had occurred much earlier that morning than the Prosecution was asserting. And, based upon the prior testimony of a Prosecution toxicologist, Dr. Spratt, the earlier the killings had occurred, the more intoxicated the Defendant would have been.
As the testimony concluded last Wednesday, the jury was dismissed until Monday when summations began. They ended Tuesday when Judge Lange gave his instructions to the jury which began deliberations. Sources predict a possible verdict on the Murder One, Second Degree Murder question by Thursday.
