State rests at McKeever murder trial

Defense plans to call psychiatrist to stand when proceedings continue next week

Prosecutor Lawrence J. Tytla rested the state’s case against accused murderer David McKeever in Superior Court Tuesday after eliciting testimony from the medical examiner who performed an autopsy on the victim and a retired state police detective who had processed the New London crime scene.

McKeever, 50, is charged with fatally stabbing his longtime partner, Delma Murphy, at their home at 53 Cole St., New London, on Nov. 18, 2015. He is pursuing an insanity defense and has elected to be tried by a panel of three judges rather than a jury.

The trial began Monday with tes-

timony from first responders, investigators and Pamela Cekala, the friend who discovered Murphy’s body after going to the home to check on her. On Tuesday, Tytla called to the witness stand Associate Medical Examiner Frank Evangelista and Jeffrey Payette, who retired in February from the state police Eastern District Major Crime Squad.

The trial will resume on Monday, Oct. 29, at which time defense attorney Christopher Duby will call a psychiatrist to the witness stand in his effort to prove that, at the time McKeever committed the act, he lacked substantial capacity as a result of a mental disease or defect to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or control his conduct.

The three-judge panel, Arthur C. Hadden, Barbara Bailey Jongbloed and Hunchu Kwak, will then deliberate. The judges must determine whether the state has met its burden of proving McKeever committed the crime and decide whether the defense proved the insanity claim by a preponderance of the evidence.

According to testimony and court documents, Murphy’s friend, Cekala, went to the couple’s home after failing to contact Murphy for five days. She found the house in disarray, and McKeever told her he and Murphy had been fighting the previous night and she was upstairs sleeping. Cekala said she was helping clean up the mess, including shards of broken glass from a china cabinet, when McKeever told her that he thought he had killed Murphy. She went upstairs and discovered her friend’s body in the bedroom.

Police found blood on the walls, door frames, rugs and other sufaces. A large Howling Wolf hunting knife, also covered in blood, was on the floor outside the door of Murphy’s bedroom. They found bloody clothing, including the yellow Ocean Beach polo shirt the victim was likely wearing when she was killed.

Evangelista, the associate medical examiner, testified that Murphy had mutliple sharp force injuries, including cuts and deep stab wounds, on her chest, abdomen, arms and legs. The chest wounds permeated both rib cages into her heart, both lungs, liver and spleen, he testified.

Some of the wounds on her arms and hands could have been defense wounds, Evangelista said. Though the attorneys on both sides asked him if it appeared Murphy had died days before her body was found, Evangelista insisted there was no way of knowing.

“It was some time between the last time she was seen and when she was found,” he testified.

Detectives obtained surveillance from the Hodges Square Wine & Spirits package store showing Murphy buying something at the store at 1:46 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13.

Retired detective Payette narrated a video he had taken when the major crime squad processed the crime scene. Filming began outside the two-story yellow home, where drops of blood were visible on the front steps leading onto the porch and continued into the house, ending in the bedroom where for just a few seconds the videographer focused on the head of the victim, which was the only part of her body not covered by towels or blankets.