Horvath’s fate rests with judge

Closing arguments wrap up in kidnap, homicide case of Lower Macungie woman in 2013

Michael Horvath’s attorney said there are “holes big enough to fit your hand” in the case against her client, whose trial in the kidnapping and killing Holly Grim of Lower Macungie Township nine years ago wrapped up Friday.

“We are making a reasonable doubt case,” defense attorney Janet Jackson said in her closing argument Friday, urging Monroe County Judge Margherita Patti-Worthington to “examine every single thing — what is here and what isn’t here.”With closing arguments concluding early Friday afternoon — the prosecution and defense each spoke for more than an hour — Patti-Worthington said she will consider the evidence and schedule a verdict announcement. She has up to seven days to do so.

Jackson, punctuating her argument with a wave of her right hand, suggested Horvath’s wife, Cathy — who suspected he had been cheating on her — could have been the one to kidnap and kill Grim in 2013.

“In this case, the spouse of Mr. Horvath was never considered,” she said. “Cathy Horvath had a motive. Her motive was revenge.”

Michael Horvath, wearing khaki pants, a light blue shirt, a navy sweater vest and shackles, entered the courtroom just before 9 a.m. He didn’t make eye contact with Grim’s halfdozen supporters, two of whom wore purple T-shirts with yellow letters reading “Justice for Holly.”

Horvath, 54, of Ross Township, was a co-worker of Grim’s and quickly became a suspect , state police said, after DNA evidence was found in a smear of blood on the back door of Grim’s trailer. State troopers testified they didn’t believe his alibi explaining his late arrival to work the morning Grim’s mother found her trailer in disarray.

It was nearly three years before Horvath was charged after Grim’s partial remains were found beneath boulders on his property.

Jackson has argued that the case against Horvath is circumstantial. Citing witness testimony, she conceded he could be described as a “weirdo” or “oddball” but never

behaved inappropriately and wasn’t prone to anger, let alone violence.

Cathy Horvath, she said, “had the power in the relationship” and had “every bit as much access.”

The prosecution

In his closing, prosecutor Michael Mancuso recounted the evidence presented in the trial as a “journey into the darkest recesses of the human soul.” He held up metal shackles, handcuffs, stun guns and pornographic bondage DVDs, as well as photos of a revolver and semi-automatic weapons.

All were taken from Horvath’s home. Mancuso called them the “tools of the trade” of a man who concocted the plan to abduct and kill Grim over the course of many years, researching Grim and searching for information on how to use chloroform and pick locks.

Mancuso contended that Horvath wanted to be a serial killer, idolizing Michael C. Hall’s performance as the murderous “Dexter” on HBO. He also had a book on Dennis Rader, known as the BTK Killer, who murdered 10 people in Kansas over two decades.

“The defendant had the means to do it,” he said. “The amount of effort he put into this whole operation is staggering.”

Police said they believe Horvath kidnapped Grim from her trailer in the Red Maples Mobile Home Park on Nov. 22, 2013, shortly after she dropped her son off at his school bus stop. Horvath took her to his home where he killed her and disposed of her body, according to police. Grim’s skeletal remains were discovered in a 4-by-4foot area at the bottom of an embankment at the rear of the property, covered by about a foot of dirt.

Horvath agreed to a nonjury trial in exchange for prosecutors’ withdrawing their intent to seek the death penalty. The agreement was struck to reach a resolution in the case, which languished as Horvath demanded new lawyers and the district attorney’s office sought to disqualify the Monroe County public defender’s office.

The pandemic delayed the case an additional two years, and Horvath has been jailed since his arrest in October 2016.

Police first interviewed Horvath on Dec. 12, 2013. He worked with Grim at Allen Organ and was one of several employees “absent from or late for work” the morning of Grim’s disappearance. Police interviewed him at least two other times and his wife once over 2 ½ years.

Investigators doubted Horvath’s claim that he was late because he returned home to fix a tire after getting almost all the way to work, and then went to work nearly two hours late because he wanted to save his days off for hunting, Assistant District Attorney Michael T. Rakaczewski said in his opening statement.

Cellphone records showed that Horvath made a call from Lower Macungie more than an hour before he was due at work. And dried blood on the back door of Grim’s trailer, where Horvath had delivered a washer and dryer a year earlier, matched a DNA sample Horvath gave during a subsequent interview.

But more than two years after Grim’s disappearance, there was no proof that she was dead.

In March 2016, troopers placed a note on the windshield of Horvath’s truck that read, “We know what you did to Holly Grim. Do the right thing.” They hoped it would spook Horvath into visiting the location of Grim’s remains , Rakaczewski told Patti-Worthington.

The ruse didn’t pay off but after a fourth interview with police in September 2016, Horvath admitted he misled them about his excuse for missing work, was unable to explain the early morning cellphone call near Grim’s trailer and agreed that his blood on Grim’s door looked fresh.

During a search of Horvath’s property, a human bone was found in a firepit.

A few days later, investigators found teeth, vertebrae and skull fragments that matched Grim’s DNA under boulders and a child’s bedframe, Rakaczewski said.

A forensic pathologist determined Grim had been shot with a small-caliber weapon, Rakaczewski said.

Horvath was charged in October 2016 with kidnapping, criminal homicide, evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse.