Jury selection for murder trial set to begin
Ulster Park man accused of bludgeoning homeless man to death over stolen cell phone in Midtown last November
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Jury selection in the murder trial of Seth Lyons, the Ulster Park man charged in the bludgeoning death of a homeless man is scheduled to begin Monday in Ulster County Court.
Lyons, 20, is accused of killing Anthony Garro because Lyons believed Garro had stolen his cell phone.
Garro’s body was found beneath a bridge on Elmendorf Street, near Broadway, about 9 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2017 by someone walking on a path that runs along the county-owned rail corridor in the city. Police believe Garro was killed the night of Nov. 28 or the early morning hours of Nov. 29.
Authorities have said that Garro died as the result of injuries he received during a “really violent assault” in which Lyons struck Garro with his fists, rocks, a bottle, a tree stump and his foot.
Lyons was arrested a short time later, wearing clothes that police said were covered in blood.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael Kavanagh, who is prosecuting the case, said authorities don’t believe the two men knew each other prior to the attack and that both men were homeless at the time.
According to court documents, Lyons told police that after smoking crack cocaine for much of the day on Nov. 28, he and another man met up with Garro, who was sitting on a couch beneath the Elmendorf Street overpass. He said that shortly after leaving Garro, Lyons realized his phone was missing and went back to look for it.
He said Garro denied taking the phone and that when Garro refused to let Lyons search his coat pockets, Lyons became incensed and began beating Garro, who had laid down on the couch to sleep.
He said Garro punched him once and tried to touch Lyons’ genitals, which further angered Lyons, who smashed a bottle over Garro’s head, court documents said.
The documents also stated Lyons told police that, as Garro lay on the couch, Lyons hit him in the head with different objects, including a brick, rocks, sticks and a stump, then dragged him off the couch, kicked him and stomped on his head on the railroad tracks.
After bludgeoning Garro, he ripped off Garro’s clothes
and discovered some sort of “plungers” or a medical device, which he thought were a police bug, on Garro’s chest; so he ripped them off
and shoved them in Garro’s mouth and covered Garro’s body with brush, the court papers stated.
He then told authorities he walked to the Sunoco gas station on Broadway and rinsed Garro’s blood off of him, then walked to HealthAlliance’s Broadway
hospital to have his hand looked at because he suffered a cut when he hit Garro with the bottle.
A psychiatric evaluation that was conducted found Lyons competent to stand trial.
He was indicted on one count of second degree
murder in December and, if convicted, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in state prison.
Lyons had been charged on April 8, 2017, and on May 6, 2017, in the town of Ulster for drug possession.
An obituary for Garro said he attended the Walden
School in New York City, graduated from the Elan School in Maine and attended Dade County Community College in Florida. It is unknown how long he has been in Kingston.
Garro’s death was the first murder in Kingston since April 2014, when Audrey
Carpino, 86, was fatally bludgeoned in the West Chester Street home she shared with her son, Mark. Mark Carpino, who was 53 at the time, was charged with second-degree murder, but was deemed unfit for trial and is being held in a state-run mental health facility.