The victim had been beaten to death with a bar stool in his basement.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Michael Roberts, 29, was acquitted Wednesday of criminal homicide, aggravated assault and simple assault in the death of Danny Palumbo, 48, who was beaten to death with a bar stool in the basement of his East Long Avenue home in the city March 25, 2005.
Palumbo was found on the floor by his 14-year-old daughter. He died the next day at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown with head injuries so bad the New Castle police officer who first saw him assumed he’d been shot in the face at point-blank range.
Police arrested Roberts in the killing about 14 months later after he was implicated in the crime. Two men testified during the seven-day-long trial in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court that Roberts had admitted to them he killed Palumbo — one of those men said Roberts indicated he’d used the bar stool to do it, which was information the police had held back from the media.
But Roberts’ defense attorney, Lee Rothman of Pittsburgh, pointed out that the witnesses had received deals for reduced jail sentences in exchange for testimony that implicated Roberts.
He told the jury there was no way it could be certain beyond a reasonable doubt that those witnesses were credible.
He also said that even though the media didn’t know about the bar stool, it was not a secret. “It was all over the streets,” said Rothman, who also pointed out that it was likely every police officer in the New Castle department knew about it.
Palumbo, who had prescriptions for OxyContin, sold it to a few trusted middlemen who in turn supplied other customers. One of those middlemen, a former New Castle resident, Johnny Carson, testified he got the drug from Palumbo for Roberts.
Investigators had alleged the motive for the murder was robbery — the killer wanted Palumbo’s OxyContin.
Rothman said, however, that there was another man who had talked to Carson about robbing Palumbo a few days before his death.
There was never any physical evidence linking Roberts to the crime, he pointed out.
In fact, DNA found on the bar stool matched Palumbo and one other person who was never identified.
Rothman also pointed out that Roberts had an alibi — he was asleep on the couch at the home where he was staying on Chestnut Street.
He gave the names of three people who could corroborate his story, but the detective investigating the case did not make much of an effort to track down one of those people, Rothman argued.
http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/jun/04/man-acquitted-in-slaying/
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