By Wayne Laepple
The Daily Item
June 19, 2008 06:14 am
—
SUNBURY -- There is no clear and convincing evidence to show that Richard C. Curran intended to kill his wife, the defendant's defense attorney told 12 jurors Wednesday in arguing for a third-degree murder conviction that would spare his client the death penalty.
Those jurors will begin deliberations today in Northumberland County Court on whether the former police officer is guilty of first- or third-degree murder in the August 2005 slaying of his wife, Tina, at Shamokin Area Community Hospital.
The 34-year-old Shamokin man could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder. Murder in the first degree, Curran's defense attorney, Karl Rominger of Carlisle, told the jury, means there was a conscious desire or intent to kill.
Murder in the third degree, he said, includes no specific intent to kill.
"Twelve shots," District Attorney Anthony Rosini said in his closing argument, "is evidence of intent."
Tina Curran was shot 12 times in the parking lot of the hospital just before 11 a.m. Aug. 24, 2005. Her husband was caught later that day trying to enter Canada near Niagara Falls, N.Y.
A number of questions about Curran's state of mind should be weighed, Rominger said.
He was not prepared to flee, because he had no clean clothes or identification. He and his former wife had been battling over child support issues for some time and, as a trained police officer, Curran would not have attacked her in broad daylight at her place of employment.
Because there was no reconstruction of the crime, Rominger said, no one knows the exact sequence of events.
"We can't be sure what happened without that reconstruction," he said.
"Use only your reason," he asked the jury. "There is plausible circumstantial evidence for third-degree murder, and there is plausible circumstantial evidence for first-degree murder."
Third-degree murder, Rosini said, involves knowledge of the risk of harm to the victim.
"The defendant was mad about money," he said. "He was trying to avoid support payments. Money is the motive."
Using a photograph from the autopsy, Rosini pointed out that Tina Curran was hit by seven of the 12 shots fired by her husband, including three in the back and one shot fired through her neck.
"He intended to kill her," he said.
Curran, Rosini said, wasn't prepared to flee -- he was prepared for battle, noting that 785 rounds of ammunition were found in Curran's car, along with a second gun, by U.S. Border Patrol officers in Niagara Falls.
Throughout Rosini's closing argument, Curran watched him intently, a slight smile on his lips.
"Curran's attitude goes toward his motive," Rosini said. "He drove with the gun, he got out of the car with the gun, he walked down the ramp toward Tina and he shot her 12 times.
"Judge him on the facts and use your common sense. When somebody shoots somebody 12 times, that's first-degree murder."
Earlier in the day, Dean Benedict, a state police forensic crime scene specialist, testified about what he found when he arrived at the hospital about two hours after the shooting.
He described finding shell casings, bullet fragments and bloodstains in the area, showed photos of the scene to the jurors and used a drawing of the area to indicate where he found each item.
Todd M. Neumyer, a ballistics expert from the state police crime laboratory in Harrisburg, matched the shell casings retrieved at the scene by Benedict to the Glock .40-caliber handgun owned by Curran.
Neumyer said he was unable to say conclusively that bullet fragments collected at the scene were from the Glock, although there were some similar characteristics.
Neumyer also performed tests on various items of Tina Curran's clothing, looking for indications of how close the gun may have been to the victim.
Wearing latex gloves, he opened several brown paper bags containing various items of clothing, pointing out bullet holes in each.
In a somewhat bizarre turn, Neumyer showed one bullet hole in the right leg of her pants with no bloodstains. He explained that he was unaware the victim had a prosthetic leg, which explained the lack of bloodstains. He received the leg at a later date and was able to find lead fragments and the copper jacket of the bullet inside it.
Two of the bullets that struck Tina Curran on Aug. 24 would have killed her, according to Dr. Samuel Land, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy the day after she was killed. He used photographs taken during the autopsy to illustrate where each shot struck her.
Land said he found seven bullet wounds, which he documented in writing, by photography, and by sketching their locations.
A "through and through" wound on her neck -- where a bullet fired at closer range than the others, severed both the carotid artery and jugular vein -- would almost certainly have killed her, he said. He also observed "stippling" or damage to the skin, caused by lead and gunpowder particles. He said this indicated that shot was fired from a distance of fewer than 4 feet. None of the other wounds showed similar damage.
Another shot entered her back and struck several vital organs before it exited from her chest, which would probably have caused her death, Land said.
One wound, which severed the thumb and finger on one of her hands, may have been a defensive wound, he said, when she reflexively raised her hands to try to stop the attack.
The other wounds were in her leg and buttock, along with a graze wound to her right shoulder.
All three witnesses said they were unable to establish any sequence of shots fired or determine where the shooter was when he fired the shots.
The trial resumes at 10 a.m. today, when Judge Robert Sacavage will charge the jury and deliberations will begin.
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