Slaying suspect held for court
BULLSKIN TWP. – A Connellsville woman charged in the 2001 beating death of a city man was returned to jail Tuesday after an Everson man, who has admitted to taking part in the crime, placed her at the scene. Joseph Cyril Stenger told Fayette County District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon that he accompanied Crystal Dawn Weimer and two unidentified black men to the Sycamore Street apartment of Curtis B. Haith during the early morning hours of Jan. 27 and watched as the three beat the man with clubs and kicked him.
Weimer, 27, of 132 N. Eighth St., is charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy in connection with the incident.
Last month Stenger, 22, admitted to being at the scene and firing a single shot from a .380-cal. gun that struck Haith in the lip.
Medical documents revealed during an earlier hearing indicate that Haith died as the result of the beating, not the gunshot wound.
Stenger made the admission as part of a guilty plea to criminal conspiracy to commit homicide. He will serve 9 to 18 years, according to a plea agreement. Additionally, he is to provide a “complete and accurate account of all the circumstances surrounding” Haith’s death.
During testimony before District Justice Robert Breakiron, Stenger said that he was walking across the street from a North Pittsburgh Street bar when Weimer stopped and picked him up.
“She was kind of beat up and asked me to go with her,” Stenger told Vernon. “Her eye was swollen and maybe her lip was busted.
“She said that the boy (Haith) hit her and she was going to have someone kick his (expletive).”
Stenger testified that the two drove from Connellsville to Uniontown where two black males got into the back seat of the vehicle.
During cross-examination by defense attorney Thomas Shaffer, Stenger said that he was not introduced to the two men nor did they exchange information.
Afterwards, said Stenger, the four went to a mobile home in Dunbar.
“The dudes got out (and) she got out,” he testified. “They came out (of the mobile home) with clubs or baseball bats.”
The four then traveled to Haith’s home with Weimer going to the apartment door and the two males to each side of the residence, said Stenger.
Weimer and Haith talked at the door and when he moved to the outside, said Stenger, the two men began beating Haith with the clubs, while Weimer repeatedly kicked him.
“They were beating him bad,” said Stenger, adding that he exited the car with the gun. “I wanted them to stop.”
Stenger said after he fired the shot, the four raced to the vehicle and left the scene.
He later exited the car when Weimer pulled into a local gas station.
Stenger testified that the following day he went to a Uniontown residence where Weimer told him that everything would be all right if he “kept his mouth shut.”
Later in the day, Stenger said he threw the gun and a bag containing Weimer’s clothing she had worn the previous night into the Youghiogheny River.
Shaffer, meanwhile, questioned Stenger for a description of the two men and of Weimer’s car along with a timetable for his meeting with her the day following the incident.
“She was in police custody at that time,” Shaffer said after obtaining an approximate time of the meeting.
Evelyn Bowser, Weimer’s grandmother, alleged that Stenger was not telling the truth during the hearing.
“He wouldn’t look me in the eye,” she said.
An aunt, Ada Bageant, said that Stenger once lived in the Dunbar mobile home, yet failed to give an accurate description of the home during the hearing.
“That boy doesn’t know nothing,” she said. “He’s lying about everything.
“He was coached into saying those things.”
Weimer, meanwhile, exited the magisterial office proclaiming her innocence.
“You know I’m being falsely accused,” she said. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Police initially charged Weimer in March, but the charges were later dismissed when the key witness who put Weimer at the scene recanted his statement.
During an earlier hearing in connection with the initial set of charges, police testified that dental impression taken from Weimer matched a bite mark found on Haith’s right hand.
Weimer was returned to Fayette County Prison. In matters involving criminal homicide, a district magistrate is restricted in setting bond amounts.