Woman recounts fatal shooting
As James Cononico started to take the trash out at Lori Prinkey’s Connellsville apartment on Oct. 19, 2005, she said she stopped him. Prinkey testified Tuesday in Fayette County Court that she told Cononico, 50, to make sure no one was lingering outside. Prinkey said Cononico, who had stayed at her East Washington Avenue the night before, said he didn’t want to live his life that way.
When he opened the door around 6 a.m., Prinkey testified she saw her husband, Raymond “Mike” Prinkey, outside.
She said the men scuffled in the doorway, but the stove obstructed her view of what happened. Prinkey testified she dialed 911 on her cell phone and put it into the sink, hoping that dispatchers would be able to trace the call.
She testified that Cononico put his hands in the air and turned his back to Raymond Prinkey. Lori Prinkey testified her husband asked Cononico “something about being with another man’s wife,” and then shot him.
Raymond Prinkey, 50, of Normalville is on trial this week, charged with criminal homicide in Cononico’s death.
After he shot Cononico, Lori Prinkey testified, her husband pointed the gun toward her.
“I got on the floor and tried to crawl under the table,” she said, her voice shaking. “I begged him not to kill me.”
She said she asked him if she could call for help for Cononico, but her husband refused, telling her Cononico was “going to die.”
After a short conversation, Lori Prinkey testified her husband took the live rounds out of his gun, removed the magazine and left. She said she immediately called for help.
Cononico died at Frick Hospital in Mount Pleasant.
A short time later, Raymond Prinkey called state police from his parents’ home. Jurors heard a recording of that call in which he told to the trooper who answered the phone, “I just shot a guy.”
When the trooper asked who he shot, Raymond Prinkey told him it was his wife’s boyfriend.
Lori Prinkey testified her husband’s tone was “angry” during the confrontation with Cononico.
Shrager repeatedly asked Lori Prinkey if Cononico made any sudden moves while he stood with his back toward Raymond Prinkey. She said she could not recall if Cononico moved.
Shrager has argued that Raymond Prinkey cannot be convicted of murder because there was no malice associated with Cononico’s death. He told jurors that at best, prosecutors could prove voluntary manslaughter, which is a killing in the heat of passion.
Shrager told jurors in his opening that Lori Prinkey had deceived her husband by lying about her affair with Cononico, whom she met while she was a unit manager at the state prison in Somerset.
Cononico was one of the inmates she dealt with. He was released on Aug. 5, 2005, and Lori Prinkey indicated they stayed together in a motel those first two nights.
She testified she was ready to leave her husband in 2005 and felt “indifferent” toward him. Although she decided months before, Lori Prinkey testified she did not sign a lease for an East Washington Avenue apartment until Oct. 5, 2005, and moved in a couple of days later.
She testified that she did not tell her husband when she was moving out, but took some of her things, a television and a VCR from their marital home when she went.
Lori Prinkey testified her husband was distraught after she moved out, and told the jury she did not disclose her affair to him although he specifically asked her about that because she was afraid of his reaction.
She indicated that she repeatedly told him she needed space to clear her head and would maybe some day return to him.
Through most of August and into early October, Lori Prinkey testified that Cononico lived in Ohio, which is where he was from. He moved back into the Fayette County area to take a construction job, she said, and was working with two of her sons.
The night before Cononico was killed, Lori Prinkey testified he made dinner for her and those two sons, and they ate together at the East Washington Avenue apartment. After her sons left, Lori Prinkey testified there was a knock on her door. She said she did not answer it because she was afraid that it was her husband.
A short time later, Raymond Prinkey called and asked if anyone was there and told her he has seen a man through the window.
“I lied to him and told him no. … I didn’t want him to know anyone was there,” she testified.
Two days before Cononico’s death, Lori Prinkey testified she met her husband at Valley Dairy in Connellsville. She said he was “visibly distraught and shaking” as he asked if she was coming home. She said she met Raymond Prinkey at Valley Dairy because it was a public place.
“I didn’t really trust him at that time because he was a mess,” she said.
After repeated questions about the affair, and Lori Prinkey’s acknowledgment that she was dishonest with her husband, Shrager asked if she “played (her) husband like a violin, and he just snapped that morning.”
Before she could answer, District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon lodged an objection to the question, which was sustained by Judge Ralph C. Warman.
Lori Prinkey, who recounted fear of her husband, told jurors that she was again living with him at the Normalville home they had shared in 2005. She indicated that in addition to her and her husband, their daughter, son and son’s girlfriend also are living with them. Raymond Prinkey has been free on bond while awaiting trial.
Later, Vernon asked Lori Prinkey why she moved in.
“There’s more than one reason … but mainly to salvage what’s left of our family with everything’s that happened,” she testified.
Vernon also asked how Lori Prinkey felt about her husband.
“I care about what happens to him, but I’m not in love with him,” she said.
Jurors also heard from Allegheny County forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, who indicated that the bullet entered Cononico’s head behind the upper part of his left ear and exited just above his right eyebrow. Wecht testified that the brain damage was extensive and there was no way Cononico would have survived.
Testimony will resume at 9:30 this morning. Jurors will hear additional witnesses and the tape from Fayette County 911 calls that Lori Prinkey made the morning of Cononico’s death.