We have the latest now on a near mistrial in a Cambria County homicide case today, with the judge nearly dismissing all charges against the alleged killer.
Reporter Brock Owens tells has those details and the highlights from witness testimony
Christopher Rowe is being accused of killing a former girlfriend but the possibility of a verdict was nearly taken out of the hands of the jury on Thursday.
Rowe allegedly strangled Kaylene Roedel to death and left her along the Honan Avenue Hiking Trail in August 2016.
On Thursday a witness that says she knows Rowe through a mutual friend was not able to identify Rowe in the courtroom and was allegedly asked why she couldn’t by Johnstown Police Detective Sergeant Cory Adams when walking out of
the courtroom after her testimony.
But that witness and Adams both had to take the stand with the jury not present answering questions about that interaction and a brief interaction before the witness originally took the stand.
The witness saying Adams told her to answer the questions the way they should be answered truthfully.
Adams says he only told her to be truthful and that was an attempt to calm her nerves.
That sparked two requests for a mistrial from the defense that were considered each time but Judge Norman Krumenacker deciding to let the trial go on.
For evidence from Thursday the audio of an interview done by police with Rowe about seven months after the killing was played.
Investigators questioning how Rowe ended up with Roedel’s car that she drove the last time she was seen alive.
Rowe also saying in that interview he shoved Roedel once and that’s the only time he laid a hand on her but calls between the two while Rowe was in prison for domestic violence just before Roedel’s death shows Roedel accusing
Rowe of abusing her on several occasions.
The defense and Rowe are pushing for prosecutors to prove that Rowe is the one responsible for Roedel’s death and in interviews Rowe tells investigators someone can confirm where he was each day around the time of death and
Roedel’s body being found.
Despite the close call for a mistrial once again the trial will go on and proceedings pick back up Friday at 9 a.m.