NORWICH – The prosecution in the case against alleged murderer Peter Wlasiuk called three to the witness stand Wednesday, with the majority of the day’s testimony coming from Chenango County Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Cobb.
Wlasiuk – twice convicted of second degree murder – is accused of killing his wife, Patricia, at the couple’s Oxford home, later staging a Guilford Lake truck accident to cover up the crime. Wlasiuk, now represented by attorney Mark Loughran, has successfully appealed both convictions, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.
Following the accident, which occurred in the early morning hours of April 3, 2002, Wlasiuk told authorities that Patricia had swerved to miss a deer, veering through a 32-foot gap in a guardrail located on the north side of County Road 35 in the Town of Guilford and into the lake. Wlasiuk told police they were travelling east toward the Hamlet of Guilford to pick up their three children from the babysitter. Wlasiuk later changed his story, stating Patricia had purposely driven the truck into the lake as the couple argued.
According to Cobb, a certified accident re-construction investigator, there is no evidence to support either story. In his opinion, he testified, Patricia’s body was never in the cab of the vehicle, instead lying in the bed of the truck.
Patricia’s body was found on the bottom of Guilford Lake and all efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful.
Cobb testified that he and then-Chenango County Sheriff’s Deputy Gerald Parry arrived at the scene of the accident shortly after 2 a.m., approximately an hour and a half after it had occurred. His job, he said, was to gather as much information as possible before making a determination as to what had happened. Wlasiuk’s original story – which involved the deer – did not match the evidence he found at the scene, he said.
According to Cobb, there was no evidence of steering or braking to avoid the lake, and considering the angle of decline into the water – approximately 27 degrees – there should have been some sign of skidding. Cobb said there was “no evidence of that,” before stating it was simply the weight of the vehicle which left tire marks leading to the lake. If one steers or turns hard, he added, one would see yaw marks, where the tire marks would get bigger, then smaller, and the grass would be torn up. The only tire marks that he saw, he testified, were created by a “free rolling tire.”
District Attorney Joseph McBride asked Cobb if the marks he found were consistent with a vehicle travelling at a high rate of speed, out of control, to which Cobb said no.
Measurements and photographs of the entire scene, testified Cobb, tell another story. According to the accident re-constructionist – and based on his training and experience – Wlasiuk’s truck pulled up on the south shoulder of County Road 35 before tracking onto the road itself and maneuvering through the break in the guide rail, rolling freely into the waters of the lake with no braking or steering to avoid the shoreline in evidence.
Instead, Cobb said he believes Patricia’s body was in the bed of the truck and that it was purposely allowed to roll from the top of the lawn into the lake. Once entering the water, he added, the truck would float for a period of time, bobbing like a cork, until its vents and other entryways begin filling with water. Based upon the condition of the vehicle once it was pulled from the lake – with both doors locked and the driver side window down approximately 12 inches – Cobb said he didn’t believe anyone was in the vehicle’s cab when it entered the water.
“There’s no way she could float out that window,” he added.
Wlasiuk’s story is not only implausible, he said, but impossible, stating that a car door, once opened underwater, would remain open, and could not re-lock itself. Wlasiuk has stated he was able to open the truck’s passenger door, but was unable to pull his wife from the vehicle. A second version of the story found Wlasiuk stating he had pulled her from the vehicle, but was unable to hold onto her and was sucked under the vehicle himself, finding his way to the surface once he located the truck’s rear axle, something Cobb said – according to physics – would not occur.
Patricia’s body was found approximately 10 feet behind the submerged truck, said Cobb, who added none of her injuries matched what he would expect from a high speed impact with the water, particularly when Wlasiuk said neither he nor his wife were wearing seatbelts at the time and were travelling between 50 and 60 miles per hour.
At most, he said, the vehicle was travelling at 20 to 30 miles per hour.
Additional witnesses on Wednesday included Jeffrey Bagley of the C.H. Landers Funeral Home in Sidney and Chenango County Sheriff’s Detective Kevin Powell, one of those who executed a search warrant at the Wlasiuks’ New Virginia Road home in Oxford. The trial resumed today at 9 a.m. in the Chenango County Courthouse, acting Chenango County Judge Joseph Cawley presiding.