Crime scene evidence presented in trial

Lewondowski
Lewondowski

A Garland County Circuit Court jury listened to hours of grisly details Wednesday as the capital murder trial of a local man accused in a 2017 triple homicide entered its third day and prosecutors presented crime scene evidence.

Nicholas Matthew Lewondowski, 35, who has remained in custody on zero bond since his arrest Dec. 6, 2017, is charged with three counts of capital murder and could face life in prison on each count for the deaths of Paul D. Power, 40, Dory Ann Power, 46, and Brenda Sue Lawson, 60, all of Hot Springs, whose bodies were found inside a residence at 208 Nevada St. the day before his arrest.

"It was a pretty gruesome scene," Lt. Shawn Roach, who was the first officer to respond to the residence, told the six-man, six-woman jury, noting he went there shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 based on a report taken earlier in the day by another officer.

James Coble, a friend of Lewondowski's, had reportedly told police earlier he suspected Lewondowski had killed some people at the residence who he believed had stolen from him. Coble said Lewondowski had told him "a dude pulled a gun on me and it went bad," and "you never leave witnesses behind" and tried to recruit him to help cover it up.

"I felt like someone needed to go take a look around," Roach said, and upon arrival noted lights on inside the house but no one answered his knock at the front door. He said there was a small fire "still smoldering" in the backyard "so it seemed like someone had been there recently."

Roach radioed for backup and after other officers arrived they made their way to the back of the residence where they found a door to the back porch unsecured. After making entry onto the porch, using their flashlights to see, they rounded a corner and found a rear door to the kitchen "standing open" and the lights were on inside.

"There was blood smeared all over the floor in the kitchen," he said, and as they carefully made their way through the kitchen they discovered a rolled up comforter on the dining room floor with "a pair of tennis shoes sticking out" the end.

"You could tell it was a body and at that point it was a crime scene," Roach said, noting they continued into the house to see if there was anyone else inside, possibly needing help.

They entered the living room and he noted a spent bullet on the floor and what appeared to be blood on the carpet. In a front bedroom, they found a rifle on the floor and more blood and discovered a sheet hung across a doorway leading to a hallway.

"There were two more bodies laying on top of each other in the hallway," he said, and in a back bedroom off the hallway they found more blood. "At that point, we backed out and called for CID (the criminal investigation division)," he said.

Roach said there was at least one dog hiding in the residence that was later removed by Hot Springs Animal Services.

Jurors were presented with more than 100 photos of the crime scene and other aspects of the case during the day's testimony, most of them during questioning of Jennifer Berrera, the department's certified crime scene technician, who photographed and processed the scene along with detectives.

Deputy Prosecutor Kara Petro also presented a diagram of the house to the jury which Berrera used to explain where various items of evidence were located during their search.

Berrera said the bodies found in the hallway were determined to be a male victim on top of a female victim, both face down. She said she could see a bullet hole to the man's chest area and another bullet hole on his left side near his ribs.

The body in the dining room was a female victim wearing "a green Subway shirt," who had a bullet hole to her right cheek. She said she collected pieces of the carpet that had blood and what appeared to be footprints on them.

Under cross examination by Mark Fraiser, Lewondowski's attorney, Berrera said the comforter the woman was wrapped in, a blanket near the other bodies, a towel the rifle was found in, and a black trash bag covering one female victim's head were not collected and sent to the state crime lab.

When Fraiser asked if the items could have been tested for fingerprints, fibers, DNA and other evidence, Berrera acknowledged it was possible, but noted it wasn't her decision which items were collected and sent.

Evidence was also collected at Coble's residence at 186 Golf Links Road after he reportedly notified police about some items left there by Lewondowski.

Lt. Duane Tarbet said he and Detective Scott Lampinen went to the residence on Dec. 6 and Coble led them to a location on the back south end of the property where some items were wrapped in a "screen-type material" under a bush.

Tarbet said the items appeared to be a boot and some black clothing, which Lampinen collected. Coble then asked Tarbet to come inside the house where he retrieved some more items, allegedly belonging to Lewondowski.

Tarbet said Coble opened a drawer and gave him a holster and a bandanna or "doo rag," as he said Coble called it, that Lewondowski was supposedly wearing the day before. He also retrieved some counterfeit $100 bills from where they were hidden inside some insulation in an air duct that he said Lewondowski had given him.

Lampinen testified after he retrieved the items at the back of the property he was walking back to their unit and spotted a white trash bag near the side of the house that "seemed out of place" so he collected it, too.

He said he looked inside and it appeared to contain clothing, including a shoe with possible blood on it.

Public Defender Tim Beckham, who is also representing Lewondowski, asked Lampinen if they searched Coble's house further for other evidence or only collected the items he provided. Lampinen said that other than the items found in the white trash bag they just took the items Coble had shown them.

When questioned further by Deputy Prosecutor Casey Richmond, Lampinen said he had looked around the house some while inside "and didn't see anything relevant."

He noted police had obtained a consent to search form from Coble's mother earlier that morning.

The trial is scheduled to continue today with Deputy prosecutors Trent Daniels and Shana Alexander also representing the state and Judge Marcia Hearnsberger presiding.

Local on 04/25/2019

Upcoming Events