Wecht testifies toddler’s death was homicide
Forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht testified Friday in Fayette County Court that the death of a toddler who drowned 30 years ago was a homicide. Reviewing pictures of the scene, Wecht indicated that evidence did not support that 2-year-old Alfred Masciarelli fell and hit his head before drowning in 11/2 feet of water in Georges Township.
His testimony came as part of a hearing to have criminal homicide charges filed against Masciarelli’s mother, Glenda, thrown out. There had formerly been no determination of Alfred Masciarelli’s manner of death.
State police Trooper Jeffrey Ramsey charged that Glenda Masciarelli, 52, of German Township drowned her son in a creek on Sept. 26, 1976. Thirty years ago, Masciarelli told police that she and her son were walking down the railroad tracks near her home when a man came out of the woods, grabbed her son and ran away with him.
Neighbors found Alfred Masciarelli facedown in nearby creek.
The case went unsolved until police gave it a second look in 2006 and interviewed Masciarelli again.
During an interview, Masciarelli reportedly told police she made up the story about a man taking her child. “You might as well take me to jail now,” she reportedly told police.
Masciarelli never gave any details about what happened, and has never specifically said she harmed her child.
But her attorney, Nicholas Timperio, has argued that there is nothing aside from the 2006 interview with police to link Masciarelli to her son’s death. He previously argued that under the law, prosecutors need evidence aside from Masciarelli’s statements to tie her to her son’s death. He said at Glenda Masciarelli’s preliminary hearing that the statements she made don’t even definitively tie her to her son’s death.
“The commonwealth failed to establish any link between the defendant, Glenda Rae Masciarelli, and any criminal activity,” Timperio wrote a motion supporting his view.
District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon has maintained that there is sufficient evidence to prove that Masciarelli killed her son, noting that the creek was shallow enough for the child to get out of, and that Masciarelli lied to investigators about a man kidnapping him.
Alfred Masciarelli was 3 feet tall and 30 pounds, Wecht testified, and the stagnant creek water would have come to about his waist.
“A 2-year, 4-month-old boy could get out of the (creek). It paints a picture in my view of a homicide as opposed to an accidental death,” Wecht testified.
On cross-examination, Wecht said that Alfred Masciarelli’s skull was not opened at autopsy.
Doing that would have allowed the doctor who performed the autopsy to see his brain and determine if there was swelling.
If there were, that would be an indication of blunt-force trauma to the head.
When Timperio pressed him on cross-examination if Alfred Masciarelli could have drowned accidentally, Wecht said he does not believe that happened given the child’s height and the depth of the creek water.
“That whole scenario does not make any sense. There’s no plausibility to it,” he testified, also citing the lack of other bruises or scrapes that would have evidenced that the child fell in the wooded area and slid into the creek.
Judge John F. Wagner Jr. will consider Wecht’s testimony and the transcript from the preliminary hearing, which include arguments supporting and against the homicide charge.