NORWICH – Peter Wlasiuk will make one last appearance at the Chenango County Courthouse Friday, where he will be sentenced once again for the killing of his wife, Patricia, nearly four months after a guilty verdict was handed down by a jury of his peers after his third trial for the crime.
On July 3, following two and a half days and more than ten hours of deliberations, jurors returned with their verdict. Wlasiuk, charged with second degree murder – a class A-1 felony – in his wife’s death, has twice been convicted to – and twice successfully appealed – a 25 years to life sentence in state prison.
Wlasiuk has maintained his innocence over the past decade, claiming he and his wife were traveling east on County Road 35 in the Town of Guilford on or about April 3, 2002, when Patricia – driving the couple’s 1998 GMC pick-up truck – swerved to miss a deer in the roadway, careening into Guilford Lake. Patricia’s body was later recovered by emergency personnel and all efforts to resuscitate her met with failure.
According to the Chenango County District Attorney’s Office, the accident was staged, and it’s believed Wlasiuk smothered his wife at their Oxford home on New Virginia Road, loaded her body into the bed of the truck and then pushed or drove the vehicle into the lake himself. Several days after his original arrest, Wlasiuk changed his story, claiming he and his wife had been arguing when she purposefully drove the truck through a 32-foot gap in a guardrail located on the south shore of the lake.
According to forensic expert Dr. James Terzian, whose testimony was reviewed by jurors shortly before Wlasiuk’s most recent guilty verdict was announced, there was no evidence of such an accident.
Terzian – who detailed the many injuries sustained by Patricia to the jury – listed the cause of death as asphyxiation by smothering.
Wlasiuk’s was first convicted in 2003, although that conviction would be overturned on appeal in 2006 due to errors regarding the admittance of prejudicial evidence. His second conviction, in 2008, would also be overturned, dismissed – according to a New York State Supreme Court memorandum – on the grounds that Wlasiuk “received
ineffective counsel” from his attorney at that time, Randel Scharf.
It is unknown at this time if Wlasiuk plans to appeal his latest conviction. McBride, who has prosecuted all three trials, said he will reserve his comments for tomorrow’s sentencing, scheduled for 11 a.m.
During his closing statements at the conclusion of the month-long trial, McBride stated that, “Patty still talks about what happened,” and he reminded the members of the jury of the burdocks that were discovered in her hair, in the cab of the truck and on Wlasiuk’s clothing. There are no burdocks in the area of Guilford Lake, according to the prosecution, although hairs – identified as Patricia’s through DNA analyzation – were found on a burdock branch at the Wlasiuk home.
“Thank God Patty got to those burdock bushes,” stated McBride as he addressed the jury. According to the district attorney, who called Wlasiuk a “cold, calculated murderer,” the soon-to-be-sentenced killer had his motives: an unhappy marriage and extramarital affair that began as a three-way, sexual relationship with the couple’s babysitter; and $350,000 in life insurance and death benefits he hoped to collect on upon Patricia’s death.