Store manager links Modery to murder victim’s credit card
WASHINGTON – A store manager whose identification of Gregory Modery was brought into question in earlier testimony in his homicide trial could not be shaken from her identification of the defendant Monday. Mary Kaczmarek, who was the assistant manager at Wilson’s Leather at Monroeville Mall on Dec. 14, 1999, said Modery was definitely one of the two men who came into her store and purchased two leather coats around noon using I. Swearingen’s credit card. A medical consultant from Stout, Ohio, Ira Swearingen had been reported missing after he failed to show up at Uniontown Hospital on Dec. 13, 1999. He was last seen picking up a rental car in Pittsburgh the evening of Dec. 12.
Modery of McMurray, who turned 32 Monday, is being tried as an accomplice in Swearingen’s death.
Alexander Martos, 35, previously of Bentleyville and Monongahela, has confessed to shooting and killing Swearingen. He is expected to testify against Modery later this week.
Kaczmarek had picked Modery out of a photo line up in December 1999. Modery’s attorney, Fred Rabner, questioned that identification, since it was based on a mug shot of Modery and not an actual line-up, showing his height and build. Rabner in the past pointed out that Kaczmarek had described the two men who entered her store as being 5-foot-eight inches or shorter, and Modery is over six feet tall.
Rabner asked Modery to stand for Kaczmarek to see him better.
“He looks the same,” Kaczmarek said.
Rabner had her look at a photo taken at a bank machine shortly after the two coats were purchased in her store, showing a man wearing what appears to be a long leather trench coat. The photo was previously identified as being Alexander Martos’.
“That’s not the guy that came into the store,” Kaczmarek said.
Rabner continued to ask if she was positive, reminding her that Modery is on trial for murder.
“Maybe your client has changed in the last two years and nine months. He was heavier and had blond hair,” Kaczmarek said.
She said she didn’t have the slightest doubt that the defendant was one of the two men who bought coats from her on Dec. 14, 1999.
A state police crime lab specialist, Jack Wall, testified that he tested the weapon believed to be the murder weapon, as well as a shell casing and a bullet believed fired from the gun. Wall said there were some similarities in the markings on both the bullet and the casing that matched items he fired from the gun, but there weren’t enough similarities for him to say it was definitely the same weapon.
Wall testified that the gun had been under water for some time before it was recovered and that corrosion changes the characteristics of the weapon.
“My experience with firearms recovered in water is 90 percent of the time I cannot match bullets or cartridge casings to the weapon,” Wall said.
Wall said there were enough similarities to say it was possible and even likely that the cartridge casing and the bullet had come from the gun. The cartridge casing was found at the murder scene. The bullet was given to police by the gun’s owner, Mark Welsh, who had accidentally fired the gun into a wall before it was stolen on Dec. 3, 1999.
Julie Sprites, a former employee of The Travel Zone in Finleyville, testified that Gregory Modery asked her on Dec. 9, 1999, if she could house Alexander Martos and John Shaker for a few days. Sprites said she was reluctant to do so, but told him she would if he couldn’t find any other place for them. Sprites said the two men ended up staying with her for about a week, though they did not come home the night of Dec. 12.
She said that Monday, Dec. 13, Modery, Martos and Shaker all came to The Travel Zone. She saw the three men together again late that night when Modery dropped the other two off at her house. She said she wasn’t sure what time it was when they got back, though Martos showed her items he had purchased for his son for Christmas and the items were then taken out to Debbie Levandosky, who was waiting in her car. Levandosky was one of the owners of The Travel Zone.
Sprites said that when Shaker was packing his belongings to leave on Thursday, Dec. 16, she noticed a Mellon Bank credit card among his possessions which she thought was odd, since he had told her he was from out of state. Sprites said the card had the name Thomas Eckinrode on it.
Testimony in the case is now in its third week. Codefendants Shaker and Martos are expected to testify as the trial continues.