Connellsville woman wants new trial in beating death
A Connellsville woman serving time for third-degree murder filed a federal appeal, challenging the bite mark that was integral to her 2006 conviction.
Crystal Dawn Weimer, 36, was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison in the death of Curtis Haith.
Haith, 21, of Connellsville was found beaten to death in Connellsville on Jan. 27, 2001. While prosecutors did not allege Weimer participated in the beating, they did allege she incited two men to fatally assault him with a baseball bat and crowbar.
Prosecutors contended that Weimer bit Haith the night he was beaten to death and used testimony from a forensic odontologist to match up the bite mark on Haith to the Weimer’s teeth.
Another man, who didn’t participate in the beating but was in the car, testified against Weimer at her trial.
In a federal petition filed Friday, Weimer argued that her conviction was a “miscarriage of justice” that was based on “novel and debatable bite mark analysis performed by an unremarkable and unknown forensic odontologist from Connecticut.”
Weimer argued that she gave police a dental impression of her teeth to a dentist after Haith’s 2001 death.
At that time, the dentist concluded that the bite mark was consistent with both Weimer and another person.
Police subsequently contacted a forensic odontologist to examine the bite mark evidence.
In 2003, that odontologist found that the bite mark came from Weimer.
She contended that police should have used an expert from Pennsylvania, but instead went to Connecticut because they believed that expert “may give them a better answer, one they needed.”
Weimer was arrested and charged in Haith’s death in 2004. Those charges were dismissed when one of the witnesses recanted an earlier statement that she was involved in Haith’s death.
She was again charged and arrested when police secured a statement from Joseph Cyril Stenger, who testified Weimer was involved in Haith’s death.
Stenger told police he was in the car when the men, who still have never been identified, beat Haith.
Weimer claimed in her petition that Stenger’s statements changed five to six times and should not have been admissible.
“There was no additional evidence except his statement,” Weimer wrote.
“He fabricated his testimony when the police dangled carrots in front of him to provide whatever they wanted to get less time at (my) cost.”
She also claimed the refiled charges amount to double jeopardy.
In her petition, Weimer claimed she was being harassed by Connellsville police and tried between 2001 and 2004 to contact state officials to help her.
A judge will hear the petition at a later date.