Trooper testifies at homicide trial
After state police got DNA results that linked Brian Keith Hays to the badly burned body of Danielle Nicole McManus, they brought him to the Uniontown barracks and questioned him about inconsistencies in his statements. Hays, trooper John Marshall testified Wednesday, initially denied having any type of contact with his 13-year-old cousin. Confronted with test results that showed a 1 in 170 trillion match between Hays and seminal fluid found in McManus’ burned body, Hays eventually confessed that the two had sex, but he denied killing the teen.
The two smoked crack cocaine together, and McManus had convulsions and died, Hays wrote in a statement to police, Marshall testified.
Hays, 21, of Normalville is charged with criminal homicide, statutory sexual assault and abuse of a corpse in McManus’ May 3, 2003, death. Marshall testified he believes that Hays killed McManus at the Clinton Road home where they both lived, and then carried her body to a van in a nearby junkyard, where he burned it. He acknowledged in his testimony that there was no physical evidence to indicate the slight teen was dragged to the van, and no one in the home heard anything unusual.
Police were led to the teen’s remains after her mother, Kimberly McDonald Nichelson, called to report her missing. Nichelson’s husband, Robert, testified earlier this week that he had an uneasy feeling about the van fire in the nearby junkyard, and he discovered McManus’ remains.
Hays reportedly told Marshall that he went into the living room of the family’s home in the early morning of May 3, and he and McManus smoked marijuana, then went to smoke crack in the van. According to Marshall, Hays told police that the two had sex and smoked more crack, and McManus went into convulsions.
“I panicked and lit the van on fire,” Marshall testified that Hays wrote.
He set the fire because he was concerned that the family would blame him for McManus’ death, according to the written statement Marshall read to jurors.
Hays reportedly wrote that he then went back to the family’s home and “tried to go to sleep.”
He wrote that as McManus’ family searched for her, he “should have told them then, but I was scared and decided not to,” Marshall read.
Although DNA genetically linked Hays to McManus, his attorney, Mary Campbell Spegar, asked if that evidence pointed to the conclusion that he killed the teen.
“Isn’t it possible that the person who had sex with her might not be the person responsible for her death?” Spegar asked Marshall.
“No, m’am,” he replied.
“And that’s your opinion?” Spegar asked.
“No, that’s the confession,” Marshall testified.
Under questioning from Spegar, the veteran trooper also testified that once the DNA results came back genetically linking Hays to McManus on May 29, 2003, he considered the investigation done.
Before police arrested Hays, they looked at several other area men as potential suspects in McManus’ death, and had 13 men submit to voluntary DNA swabs. Another man was court-ordered to give blood.
The way McManus’ body was pinned in the van allowed investigators to get a DNA sample from her, Marshall testified.
Jurors also heard from forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, who testified that he could not determine how McManus died.
Wecht said he received only 28 inches of the torso area of McManus’ remains because the rest of her body had been burned away. McManus, her mother testified earlier, weighed about 95 pounds and stood 5 feet 5 inches tall.
Wecht told Spegar that the fire needed to be very hot to destroy that much of McManus’ body.
Without the whole body, Wecht said, he could not determine how she died.
He also said tests on blood, bile and urine taken from McManus showed no traces of cocaine and derivatives of the drug. Within minutes of smoking crack cocaine, Wecht testified, it would be possible to detect the presence of cocaine in her blood. It would take longer to detect the cocaine in urine or bile, he said.
While people do die from cocaine overdoses, Wecht testified it was not common for convulsions to accompany that manner of death. And, if McManus died from a cocaine overdose, Wecht testified that, “yes, definitely,” he would expect to find some trace of the drug in her system.
Spegar asked him if McManus could have died from an ailment like an aneurysm that might have instantly killed her, rendering the presence of cocaine in her system unlikely. The pathologist testified that even if McManus had an aneurysm, she would have lived the several minutes it takes to show the presence of cocaine.
He also testified that it was impossible to determine if she suffered an aneurysm because her head was burned in the fire.
The pathologist testified he examined lung tissue and did not find soot, and also had McManus’ blood tested for carbon monoxide, but found none. As a result, Wecht said he concluded that the girl died before the van was set on fire. Had McManus been alive and breathing, there would have been traces of soot or carbon monoxide, he said.
“These findings indicate unequivocally, in my opinion … that this person was dead when the body was placed or set on fire,” Wecht testified.
With Marshall’s testimony, District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon closed the prosecution’s case. Defense witnesses are expected this morning.
The trial is being held before Judge Steve P. Leskinen.