Weimer sentenced for homicide
Crystal Weimer sat with her arms crossed, looking stoic on Wednesday as she was sentenced to 15 to 30 years behind bars in the death of Curtis Haith of Connellsville. Her demeanor was in stark contrast to the way she acted during her trial earlier this month. Weimer was regularly animated or crying – oftentimes wailing uncontrollably – during the weeklong trial that ended with her being convicted of third-degree murder and criminal conspiracy.
Weimer, 28, of Connellsville organized Haith’s death by soliciting two men to beat him with a baseball bat and a crowbar outside his Sycamore Street home on Jan. 27, 2001. She lured Haith out of the house and the men attacked him, according to testimony.
Those two men never have been identified. However, a third man with them, Joseph Cyril Stenger, 23, of Connellsville, testified that he watched from Weimer’s car, and eventually shot Haith, 21, in an attempt to stop the beating.
The shot went through Haith’s cheek and was not fatal. Testimony indicated he died from severe brain swelling that resulted from the beating.
Weimer has maintained her innocence since she was arrested, and did so again at her sentencing. When Fayette County Judge John F. Wagner asked if she wanted to say anything, Weimer replied she did not, but then told the jurist she just wanted to “proclaim my innocence.”
“I have from the beginning,” Weimer said.
When she took the stand during her trial, Weimer testified she knew Haith, and had partied with him the evening before his death. But she testified that she never was romantically involved with him, contrary to what other testimony suggested.
While Weimer said her time with Haith ended when she and another man drove him from Uniontown to Connellsville the evening of Jan. 26, 2001, others testified that Weimer confessed her involvement or made statements to them that she wanted to teach Haith a lesson because he beat her up.
Haith’s sister, Michelle Haith, has said that her brother was a gentle man who would not have harmed anyone.
Photos admitted during the trial showed Weimer with a black eye and a broken toe on Jan. 27. She and her former boyfriend, Mike Gibson, testified that Gibson hit her on Jan. 26, 2001 after she bit him.
Both also testified that Gibson broke Weimer’s toe accidentally several days before Haith’s death. The broken toe was significant because Stenger testified he saw Weimer kick Haith while he was on the ground being beaten.
Police found Haith’s body in the early morning, after a neighbor heard someone calling for help for about 20 minutes and called 911.
Connellsville police and the state police cold case squad were able to arrest Weimer in January 2004 after a forensic odontologist matched a bite mark on Haith’s hand to Weimer’s dental impression. That arrest also was based on the word of Thomas Jefferson Beal, Weimer’s ex-boyfriend, who told police that she confessed involvement to him.
Beal recanted his statement in May 2004, and the case against Weimer was dismissed. She again was charged in September 2004 after Stenger cooperated with authorities.
He also was charged in Haith’s death, and received a 9- to 18-year sentence for conspiracy to commit third-degree murder for his testimony. That sentence runs at the same time as multiple other burglary and theft cases for which Stenger has already been sentenced.
Wagner sentenced Weimer on both the murder and conspiracy charges. His sentence for third-degree murder was 12 1/2 to 25 years, and Wagner sentenced her to an additional 2 1/2 to five years for conspiracy to commit third-degree murder.
Wagner said he ran the sentences consecutive because, “The jury verdict was indicative that the defendant solicited other individuals to commit the act.”
Weimer was given credit for nearly two years of time she served in prison awaiting trial. She will be sent to the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in eastern Pennsylvania for classification.
That institution and the SCI-Cambridge Springs in the northwestern part of the state are the two women’s prisons.