Sep 21, 2005 By Josh Krysak 6 min read

WAYNESBURG – When state troopers described Vicky Kennedy’s body stuffed into a brown, 30-gallon garbage can in the basement of an abandoned home, all her father Chuck Kennedy could do was cover his eyes. Tuesday, state troopers and a host of other testifiers recounted the events of last Sept. 28 during the opening testimony in the sentencing phase of the strangulation death of 18-year-old Vicky Kennedy of Jefferson.

The hearing will continue today before Greene County Judge Terry Grimes.

In August, Avery Lavon Pritchett pled guilty to a single count of general homicide in Greene County Court after he was accused of strangling his girlfriend last September.

In 2004, Pritchett was charged with criminal homicide and aggravated assault after the Sept. 28 assault before District Justice Neil Canan.

According to police testimony, Kennedy was found dead in the basement of an abandoned house along Washington Street in Jefferson Township on Sept. 29.

On Tuesday, Pritchett, now 20, sat with his head down as Greene County District Attorney Marjorie Fox played a 50-minute confession tape recorded by police officers after Pritchett was taken into custody last year.

Pritchett described an abusive relationship between the two, noting that Kennedy often struck him during arguments but that he never hit her back, even in the last fight the two would ever have.

According to testimony by Kennedy’s neighbors, Jane Franks and Paul Rush, Pritchett and Kennedy were just leaving their neighborhood on a trip to Giant Eagle in Dry Tavern when the two began to argue.

The argument escalated until Kennedy slapped Pritchett in the face and Pritchett pushed her out of the car, Franks testified.

The two continued to fight in the street as Franks and Rush left the scene.

Rush and Franks, who both testified that the couple had argued frequently during their three-year relationship, described both as good people after they testified.

“He was a good guy,” Rush said of Pritchett.

“She was a great girl,” Franks said of Kennedy. “She didn’t deserve this.”

Pritchett was a running back for the Jefferson-Morgan football team and Kennedy was involved in track and softball before both withdrew from school before graduation.

The argument continued as Pritchett and Kennedy stopped on a friend’s porch and discussed breaking off their longtime relationship and continued as they walked toward an abandoned house where the fight again escalated and Pritchett claims Kennedy began punching him in the mouth.

At about 7:15 p.m., according to Pritchett’s confession, he fell down the steps to the basement as she continued to hit him and then the scuffle continued in the basement.

“I remember pushing her,” Pritchett said, his voice shaking with tears on the tape. “I would never hit her. Even if she hits me, I would never hit her…There’s been a lot of times I hold her down and stuff so she’ll stop hitting me…That is what I remember doing, just pushing her. I don’t know. All I can remember after that was her looking up at me.”

“I don’t know what I was doing,” Pritchett said. “I just wanted her to stop. I asked her, I said, ‘Stop Vicky.'”

Pritchett admitted he “choked” Kennedy with one hand while holding her arms down with the other.

Pritchett told police that he then tried to wake her up but she wouldn’t and then he saw blood coming from her nose.

“I called her name, but she didn’t respond, so I tried to wake her up but she wasn’t moving. I held her for a long time because I knew she was dead and I knew I did it,” Pritchett confessed. “And I felt real scared…I tried to pick her up because I didn’t want to leave her on the floor because it was real dirty.”

Pritchett confessed later that night to Rush that he thought he had “killed” Vicky and Rush contacted police the following morning.

Pritchett stayed at friends that night, with whom he was residing with at the time of the incident.

He told police in his confession that the next morning, around 7, he returned to the abandoned home and “held her hand,” and “rubbed her leg” and then covered Kennedy because “she was cold.”

During her emotional testimony, Kennedy’s mother, Toni Kennedy said she had recently had reason to fear trouble in the teen’s relationship when she found Pritchett “choking” Kennedy in her bedroom during an argument only a week before her daughter’s death.

“I told him to get up and get out of my house before I called my husband,” Kennedy said in tears.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at the scene in the abandoned house by Greene County Coroner Gregory Rohanna. An autopsy conducted by Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht Sept. 29 determined Kennedy died from “asphyxiation by manual strangulation.”

On Tuesday, Wecht told the Greene County courtroom that the injuries to Kennedy were not too severe and added that she was probably conscious for about one minute during the strangulation and could have possibly been saved for an additional six minutes after she lost consciousness.

‘Resuscitation could have been accomplished without much difficulty,” Wecht said.

Defense attorney Michael Bigley cross-examined Wecht for about an hour, discussing a length bruising found on Kennedy’s right hand that Bigley suggested hinted at the victim throwing punches prior to her death.

As investigating officer trooper Andrew Zimmer unpacked evidence bags with Kennedy’s clothing and belongs, her family often huddled in the courtroom, trying to cope with the severity of the loss.

And the clothing was used by Fox to link Pritchett to the scene because the items were covered in red paint, which was apparently spilled during the altercation and was found on Pritchett and Kennedy’s clothing.

Kennedy’s blood was found on the shirt Pritchett was wearing when he was taken into custody.

In the rear of the courtroom, two of Pritchett’s 13 biological brothers and sisters attended the sentencing with their adoptive mother, Emily Keene of Uniontown.

Her daughter, Sakeina, 17, and son Alistair, 14, both began writing Pritchett after the incident and Keene noted Pritchett requested the family come to the sentencing.

“In our church, you minister to those in need,” Keene said Tuesday. “He will be responsible for what he did and face the consequences. And I understand the Kennedy’s grief and pain. But you don’t abandon someone when they make a mistake.”

“She was the only person I ever had,” Pritchett said in a barely audible and distressed voice on the tape as the courtroom sat in silence. “It wasn’t meant to happen. All my life, everywhere, tons of people never cared about me. They didn’t care who I was. They didn’t care what I was interested in. Didn’t care about me period. But she did. And I just ruined everything that I ever had. Everything that meant so much to me.” The hearing continues today at 9 a.m.