Dabate denies role in death

At trial, prosecution questions him about variations in story

Richard Dabate, on trial on charges of killing his wife Connie Dabate just before Christmas in 2015 and lying to police about a home invasion, took the stand in Rockville Superior Court on Thursday as his defense team’s first witness.

Prompting repeated objections from Richard Dabate’s lawyer, many motions for a mistrial and a few “last warnings” from the judge, a prosecutor on Thursday peppered the accused killer with questions about the crime scene investigators say he staged in his home after murdering his wife.

Dabate, who is free on a $1 million bond, maintained his innocence on the stand as State’s Attorney Matthew C. Gedansky tried to poke holes in his story, pointed out multiple discrepancies between his statements to police and his testimony that very morning and interrogated him about lies he’d told to his lover, his wife and his friends about his extramarital affair before the murder.

During his cross examination of Dabate, Gedansky asked him point blank whether he shot his wife and staged a crime scene, accusing him of smearing blood on the wall of their staircase, planting his “stolen” wallet in the yard and waiting for police to arrive and find him tied to a lightweight metal folding chair.

Rousing gasps from the gallery and an objection from Dabate’s lawyer, Gedansky asked him whether he was trying to “create a little mini Cheshire scene” in his home by setting fire to a stack of papers in the basement where his wife was shot, referring to the infamous Cheshire home invasion in 2007 in which three members of the Petit family were killed and their home set ablaze.

Investigators allege that Dabate lied about a masked, large, camouflage-wearing intruder breaking in, shooting his wife, tying him to the chair with zip ties taken from his tool bag, robbing him and stabbing him.

Last week, prosecutors called a witness to the stand who testified about the accuracy of a Fitbit Connie Dabate was wearing on her hip when she was killed that showed her moving after the attacker allegedly killed her, a key piece of evidence in the case investigators built against Dabate that has been dubbed the “Fitbit murder.”

In earlier weeks of the trial, the jury heard recordings from Dabate’s interviews with police after Connie Dabate’s death and heard from family members of Connie Dabate who recounted the story Richard Dabate told them about the home invasion on Christmas Eve.

Dabate said that he came home to find an intruder wearing a face mask and a hunting-style camouflage suit with a “voice like Vin Diesel” rummaging through the couple’s closet.

Gedansky referred to the alleged intruder as Vin Diesel throughout his entire line of questioning Thursday, asking questions like “Your testimony isn’t that Vin Diesel left by helicopter, is it?”

Police found Richard Dabate lying in the kitchen of his home on Dec. 23, 2015 with a metal folding chair tied to his back at his right wrist. Dabate testified during questioning from his own attorney, Trent Lalima, Thursday morning that the intruder tied the chair to his left wrist after killing his wife. In later questioning, after the prosecutor pointed out that crime scene photos show the chair tied to his right wrist, Dabate said he had been mistaken. He said he was tied at his right wrist and tried to wrestle off the intruder with his left hand.

He also said that he, in a disoriented state, made his way upstairs from the basement into the kitchen and laid on the ground under the chair, suffering from injuries while his ears

were ringing from the single gunshot wound he heard in close range. Three bullets were fired in the basement that morning, investigators said. Connie Dabate was shot twice, including a fatal blow to the back of her head.

Gedansky asked Dabate why he didn’t lift himself up off the ground before police arrived. The chair on him, Gedanksy said, weighed nine pounds. He asked why he didn’t use multiple sharp objects in that kitchen like a butcher block, knives and scissors to set himself free.

“You never set yourself free in the kitchen did you? Because that was the way you wanted to be found?” he asked.

Dabate was also asked about his affair with Sara Ganzer, who gave birth to his daughter in 2016.

Dabate said repeatedly Thursday that he was traumatized, stressed and injured the day

his wife died. His father later took the stand as the defense’s second witness and said that the day of the murders, his son seemed “run down” and exhausted.

Gedansky’s cross examination prompted the judge to dismiss the jury a few times as attorneys argued about his lines of questioning. The prosecution tried to call Dabate’s honesty and trustworthiness into question

by bringing up his near-draining of the estate account, his changing of the estate holder and alleged discrepancies in reimbursement requests he filed with his employer. Lalima objected and the two attorneys went back and

forth repeatedly on the issue until the judge ruled that the questions would not be allowed.

Lalima also, multiple times, objected to Gedansky talking about the couple’s finances, Richard Dabate’s parenting or bringing up topics that hadn’t been introduced into

evidence, calling his questions “prejudicial.”

Judge Corinne Klatt gave Gedansky multiple “last warnings” — a move that Lalima criticized the third time. Ultimately, the judge denied multiple motions for mistrial.

Dabate said Thursday that the morning of Dec. 23, he brought his sons to the bus stop at the end of their long driveway, went back inside to change his shirt, then left for work. About two minutes into his drive, he said, he realized he forgot his personal laptop. He pulled over near an apple orchard and sent an email to his boss saying that he needed to go home because their alarm was going off. Since he was the company’s IT guy, he said, he was embarrassed to tell her he’d forgotten a device.

Gedansky later asked him about what he told police about that morning: that he’d driven 10 to 15 minutes before he pulled over to send that email. Dabate said it was a stressful day and that he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“My times were obviously off back then, it was a long day,” he said Thursday.

Gedansky also said that cellphone data showed that both Dabates were home for about 30 minutes that morning, and that Dabate didn’t leave the house besides bringing their son’s to the school bus. He said both of those things contradicted what he told police, and what he’d told the jury that morning.

Dabate said that wasn’t true.

“I absolutely left that house that day,” he told the prosecutor.

Though he initially told police that he heard a noise upstairs as soon as he got home, he told the court Thursday that he came home, placed his phone by their Keurig machine because he wanted to make a coffee and, since he was already going to be late for work, pulled out his laptop and decided to “veg out” while listening to an ESPN radio show.

Then he said he heard the sound.

During his attorney’s questioning in Thursday morning, Dabate again told the story of walking into the bedroom upstairs and seeing a masked intruder in the closet. He

heard Connie come in — her entry alerted by a squeaky door with a Christmas bell hung on it. He yelled to her that someone was in the house and she should run.

He heard her run to the basement and followed her there, where he said he heard a deafening bang.

“I remember seeing Connie fall motionless to the ground,” he said.

He said he knew by the way she fell that she was dead.

“It was pretty clear by the way she fell, the way she lied motionless, she was dead.”

Gedanksy asked Dabate point blank whether he shot his wife.

“Absolutely not sir,” he replied. Questioned about the time — 9:18 a.m. — at which he looked up the YMCA cycling class schedule. Dabate said Connie had asked him to look it up that morning as they were getting ready.

Gedansky pointed out that that timing didn’t match up because 9:18 a.m. was around the time that Dabate said the intruder was going after his wife.

“When she was running down the basement did she yell up ‘Can you look up if there’s a spin class?’ “he asked.

Dabate again attributed his confusion of the timeline — “minor details” of the day, as he called them — to the trauma he endured during the attack. Gedansky concluded the cross examination of Dabate by once again asking if he shot his wife and staged a crime scene. He answered no to both.

The defense is scheduled to call more witnesses on Friday. The state rested its case Wednesday, nearly a month into the trial.