Tri-Towns Bureau

NORWICH — When he took the stand in his own defense Tuesday, Peter Wlasiuk admitted he lied in early statements he made to police.

Wlasiuk, 33, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Patricia, 35, on April 3. He is accused of staging an accident by driving a truck into Guilford Lake to cover up the homicide. The case is being heard in Chenango County Court.

During an often tearful recounting of the night his wife died, Wlasiuk told his attorney, Frederick Neroni, that the story he told Chenango County Deputy Ted Ellingsen just before his wife's body was pulled from the lake was untrue.

Wlasiuk said he did this "to downplay her drinking." Patricia had five convictions for driving while intoxicated on her record, he said.

The trial has presented several witnesses who talked about Patricia's problems with alcohol.

Because another arrest might cause Patricia to lose her driver's license and her nursing license at The Hospital in Sidney, Wlasiuk said, "I was scared for Patty." He said he thought she was still alive when he told the story.

"I lied to him," Wlasiuk said. "I told him Patty had swerved to avoid a deer" before the truck landed in the lake.

The truth, he said, was "she put it in forward and drove into the lake" following an argument the Oxford couple had about Patricia being drunk.

"It felt like a big log flume," Wlasiuk said, describing the drive into the lake. "One minute you are at the top of the hill and the next minute you are in the lake."

After the truck sank into the water, he said, "I climbed over the top of her" while swimming out the driver's window.

On the way out, "I bumped her — I kneed her in the head."

When he found out she was dead, he said "I thought God had taken Patty away from me because of what Joyce (Worden), me and Patty had been involved in — for being a bad husband."

Earlier testimony said the couple was involved in a three-way relationship with Worden, a longtime friend.

But Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride wasted no time attacking Wlasiuk's credibility.

"You went through the whole story (at a pretrial hearing) and you never shed a tear?" he asked.

After a pause Wlasiuk said, "I do remember crying."

McBride asked about alleged contradictions between Wlasiuk's story Tuesday and previous testimony by him and others. He started with the April 5 meeting at the Chenango County Sheriff's Office, when Detective Sgt. James Lloyd informed Wlasiuk he was a suspect in Patricia's murder. Wlasiuk had told Lloyd the deer story.

"You weren't protecting her from being arrested at that point?" McBride asked.

"Apparently not," Wlasiuk replied. But, "I don't feel I was intentionally lying to him at that point. We got into a swearing match before anything materialized from that interview."

"Do you remember telling him Patty veered left to avoid the deer?" McBride asked.

"I remember agreeing with him," he said. "I didn't put a veer either way."

After several more rounds of questioning, Wlasiuk said, "I told Ted (deputy Ellingsen) Patty swerved to miss the deer. That was the lie," he said. "Everything else was true."

Wlasiuk explained other inconsistencies by saying he didn't read the statement Ellingsen gave him before signing it at The Hospital, where the couple was taken after the alleged accident.

Other discrepancies with testimony, Wlasiuk claimed, were mistakes made by others.

For instance, when asked whether he had ever hit his wife, Wlasiuk said, "I didn't hit her that night or in the past."

Several witnesses testified they either saw Wlasiuk strike his wife or saw the bruises his actions caused. He said they were wrong.

But he did qualify this with the incident last November in the parking lot of the Angel Inn bar in Guilford that the couple owned, about which several witnesses testified.

He said he stepped on her that night after losing his balance when she kicked him in the groin and grabbed his leg.

McBride also questioned him on a point in Worden's testimony. She said she never heard the couple yell or scream.

"That's not right is it?" McBride said.

"We fight different than other people," Wlasiuk said.

But McBride persisted. "How often do you have verbal arguments?" he asked.

"That depended on whether Patricia was drinking or not," Wlasiuk said.

The questions then turned to the night the truck went into the lake.

When she started to drive into the lake, McBride asked, "did you hit the brakes, grab the steering wheel or jump out of the truck?"

"I braced for impact," Wlasiuk said.

During the nearly 75-foot drive into the lake, "wouldn't you have the opportunity to get out?"

"I guess so — yes," he said.

Wlasiuk's testimony was sandwiched around that of state police forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who took the stand about 1:30 p.m.

He was asked by McBride during the summer to review the findings of pathologist James Terzian of Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, who did the autopsy on Patricia. Baden met with McBride and others in July.

Baden said he agreed with Terzian's finding of death by "asphyxiation consistent with smothering." He said, Patricia "probably died at her residence after a struggle. She was probably not alive and breathing when the truck entered the lake."

He cited the burdocks on the body and elsewhere, a fractured breastbone and an imprint on the side of Patricia's neck that matched a necklace she wore as important evidence in making the determination.

There was no evidence she inhaled any water, he said, which would probably be found if she drowned.

And, like Terzian, Baden said the bruises and injuries found on the body were there when she entered the water.

Neroni asked several times whether any bruises could have been caused by rescue efforts or the way her body was found in the lake.

"Clearly that didn't happen," Baden said.

Before dismissing jurors for the day, Chenango County Judge W. Howard Sullivan told them to be ready to deliberate the case as early as today. They will not be sequestered.

McBride is scheduled to complete cross-examining Wlasiuk today and lawyers will begin their closing remarks.

After the jurors left, Sullivan told the lawyers he would allow additional evidence indicating Patricia's state of mind in the months before she died.

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Mark Boshnack can be reached at (607) 563-1493 or at starsidney@wirelessthinktank.com.