 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Biegenwald3/5/1987
Defendant, Richard Biegenwald, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by a Monmouth County jury and judge in December 1983. He appeals directly to this Court as of right. See R. 2:2-1(a)(3). We affirm defendant's murder conviction. Because the trial court failed to instruct the jury properly in the sentencing phase, however, we must reverse the sentence of death and remand for a new sentencing proceeding.
I.
Facts
On the night of August 27, 1982, eighteen-year-old Anna Olesiewicz and a friend, Denise Hunter, drove from Camden to Neptune City planning to stay at Denise's uncle's house. They went over to the Asbury Park boardwalk. Olesiewicz and Hunter sat on a boardwalk bench to listen to the music coming out of a nearby club. Hunter left for a short while to use a bathroom, and when she returned, she found that Olesiewicz was no longer on the boardwalk bench where she had left her. After she failed to find Olesiewicz, Hunter returned to her uncle's home and filed a missing persons report the next morning.
On January 14, 1983, the skeleton of a female body was discovered in a vacant lot behind a fast food restaurant on Route 35 in Ocean Township. By matching dental charts, authorities identified the body as that of Anna Olesiewicz. When the body was discovered, it was clothed in the items Olesiewicz was last seen wearing -- blue jeans and a dark shirt -- except that a black and gold ring was missing from her
finger. In the skull were four bullet holes, and three of the bullets were lodged within the skull. Testimony at trial indicated that the victim died as a result of the bullet wounds. It was estimated that death had occurred several months prior to the autopsy. Inadequate tissue remained to enable blood alcohol or chemical tests to be performed on the body.
One week after the body was discovered, twenty-two-year-old Theresa Smith, who had shared an apartment with the defendant, forty-two-year-old Richard Biegenwald, and his wife, Diane, came to the police and recounted a story implicating Biegenwald in the shooting. This story was essentially the same as that to which she testified later at Biegenwald's trial.
Smith had previously worked as a waitress with Diane Biegenwald and lived with the Biegenwalds from June through October 1982 in a multi-apartment house in Asbury Park. Shortly after she moved in with the Biegenwalds, Smith and the defendant became friends.
Smith told how during the course of their relationship she became the defendant's protege and he encouraged her to find and kill a "victim" to prove to him that she was "tough." They discussed that Smith should murder "Betsy," Smith's co-worker. On Friday, August 27, the date of Anna Olesiewicz's disappearance, Smith drove around shore towns with Betsy, having contemplated and discussed with Biegenwald a plan to murder Betsy. Smith, however, called the defendant and told him that she could not go through with the murder plan, and she returned alone to the Asbury Park apartment to sleep. Smith testified that Biegenwald awakened her later that same night, although she did not recall why. Unable to return to sleep, she went to the kitchen, and, looking out the window toward the driveway, saw a "shadow of a body" sitting in the car that Biegenwald had given to her. She returned to sleep.
At the end of the next day Biegenwald took Smith into the garage where he lifted a mattress to show Smith a female body
in unzipped jeans, a dark shirt and no shoes. Smith did not see the face
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 New Jersey DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|