Oct 26, 2011 2 min read

A Connellsville woman linked to a 2001 murder by a bite mark on the victim told a Fayette County judge Wednesday that the scientific evidence against her was unreliable.

Crystal Dawn Weimer, 34, said she did not bite Curtis Haith, and did not have a hand in his Jan. 27, 2001 beating death in Connellsville. During her post-conviction appeal hearing, Weimer said that scientific testimony that matched a bite mark on Haith’s hand should be discounted. She wants a new trial in the matter.

“Scientific isn’t solid. It’s not fact. There’s no standards or guidelines to science,” Weimer said. “Science can go on and on and on.”

In 2006, Weimer was sentenced to a total of 15 to 30 years in prison for orchestrating Haith’s death when she solicited two men to beat him with a baseball bat and crowbar outside a Sycamore Street home.

Haith died from brain swelling associated with the beating, and neither of the men who administered the beating were ever charged.

A third man, Joseph Cyril Stenger, 29, of Connellsville, testified against Weimer at her trial, and said he watched the beating from the car. He pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy to commit third-degree murder, and in exchange for testimony against Weimer, was sentenced to nine to 18 years in prison.

Haith killing went unsolved until 2004, when a forensic odontologist matched a bite mark on Haith’s hand to Weimer’s dental impression.

For more information, read Thursday’s HeraldStandard.com.