DA claims confession give freely by Edwards
Fayette County prosecutors dismissed claims that a man accused of killing four family members, and injuring a fifth, was pressured by police to confess. In a court filing Friday, District Attorney Nancy Vernon said it makes no sense to think that Mark D. Edwards was the unwitting victim of pushy police. Edwards is attempting to have his confession suppressed.
Edwards, charged in the April 13 deaths of Larry Bobish Sr., his wife, Joanna, their daughter, Krystal, and her unborn son, testified in July that he was denied a lawyer, his rights were not explained to him and police told him what to write in a statement about the homicides.
“If, in fact, the police had forced (Edwards) in some fashion to waive several Miranda warnings and provide a statement, it makes no sense that he would give one statement, ask for it to be destroyed and then make another,” wrote Vernon.
Police testified that Edwards gave one statement, and after police told him they did not feel he was being truthful, he asked that the statement be torn up and gave a second statement.
“Additionally, if (Edwards) was truly told what to say by the police as he purports, then it cannot be explained how the officers would have known in such detail how the incident occurred, the whereabouts of the defendant and his activities before, during and after the incident,” Vernon continued.
“It was clearly obvious that the defendant’s testimony was merely self-serving on the witness stand,” she said
But Edwards’ attorney, Assistant Public Defender Susan Ritz Harper, has alleged that police talked to her client in violation of his rights when police made reference to God after Edwards asked for an attorney.
According to Edwards’ testimony at that July hearing, he asked for a lawyer, and a police corporal who stayed with him asked him if he believed in God and wanted to make peace with him.
That statement, argued Ritz Harper, is in violation of Edwards’ rights because police cannot question him after he asks for representation. Edwards eventually agreed to waive his right to a lawyer, but he later said he did not understand what he was doing.
Edwards, who faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder, allegedly shot the members of the Bobish family, including Larry Bobish Jr., who survived the attack. Police alleged Edwards then set the house on fire to cover up the killings.
While in the hospital recovering from injuries, the younger Bobish identified Edwards as the assailant.
Police theorized that Edwards killed the Bobishes after stealing vials of the drug “wet” from them. Wet is a mixture of PCP and formaldehyde.