Bones Reveal a Vague ID: An Expert Says Fragments Are From a Black Man, but He Can’t Say How He Died.

By David Weiss, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

Mar. 9–WILKES-BARRE — Dr. Anthony Falsetti stood in front of the jury and gently propped a tray of charred bone fragments on the edge of the jury box.

He hunched over a bit and pointed to some of the fragments, explaining which bone each fragment came from.

Neck bones. Back bones. Ribs. Arm bones. Leg bones. Ankle bones.

“That’s part of the jaw,” Falsetti, a forensic anthropologist, said of one bone Wednesday. “You call it the chin.”

Falsetti’s description of the charred and mutilated bones found at Hugo Selenski’s Kingston Township home in June 2003 brought the two rows of jurors to the edge of their seats as they peered at the bagged bones on display.

It also sent a ripple of emotion through the families of homicide victims Frank James and Adeiye Keiler, whose bones are believed to be in the mix.

Their mothers cried as Falsetti removed the bones from 11 plastic containers to show the jury. James’ brother left the courtroom.

Falsetti, the final prosecution witness in Selenski’s double-homicide trial in the James and Keiler deaths, told the jury that investigators found enough bones to consist of two people.

All of the bones were badly burned and chopped up, making it impossible to use the bones to piece together a complete skeleton. And investigators could not determine who the bones came from.

But Falsetti was able to piece together a key piece of evidence.

He found two bone fragments that linked together to make up a small portion of the face, between the upper lip and nose.

Those nasal bones, he said, were wide and consistent with African-American nasal bones.

The evidence of a black man being in the remains found at Selenski’s home was supposed to help prosecutors back up the story of Patrick Russin. He told police Selenski killed two black drug dealers, James and Keiler, at Selenski’s Mount Olivet Road home in May 2003 with a shotgun, burned the bodies, and chopped up the bones.

But although Falsetti’s testimony might have helped prosecutors, it could have hindered them, too.

Under cross-examination from Selenski’s lead defense attorney, Demetrius Fannick, Falsetti said the nasal bones were the only bones found that he could determine came from a black person.

Neither of those nasal bones, Falsetti said, showed evidence of a gunshot wound.

And, Falsetti said, the nasal bones did not link to the jaw bone that contained metal fragments believed to be shotgun pellets.

That left Falsetti explaining to the jury that the bones showed no evidence of a black man being shot.

Falsetti and other scientific experts capped off the prosecution’s case against Selenski.

Earlier Wednesday, Margaret Terrill, a former Orchid Cellmark employee, testified that DNA taken from a piece of scalp found on a garage door at Selenski’s home appeared to come from Keiler. She compared DNA in the scalp sample with DNA taken from an oral swab from Keiler’s parents.

The result showed the DNA in the scalp sample is 880 million times more likely to have come from the offspring of Keiler’s parents than not.

Another DNA test showed that only four-tenths of 1 percent of all the people living in North America could have DNA similar to Keiler and his mother and not be related to them.

But the bones evidence highlighted Wednesday’s testimony.

Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney James McMonagle asked Falsetti to describe what he did when he was summoned to Luzerne County after the bones were discovered in June 2003.

Falsetti said he examined the bones and noticed evidence of gunshot wounds to some and burning of all the bones.

Bones retract when they are heavily heated, he said. Then they cool.

That process leaves spiral-like marks in the bones, he said.

“They were all darkly stained, charred,” Falsetti said. “They all had the spiraling and twisting.”

The bones also were very fragmented, he said.

“That’s usually due to a manual breaking of the bones,” Falsetti said.

But Fannick also tried to use Falsetti to benefit Selenski.

Fannick has argued there is no evidence of anyone being shot and burned at Selenski’s home.

Falsetti said the damage of the bones show they were likely burned in a fire of at least 1,600 degrees for “hours or days.”

That would have required a noticeably large fire at the home, Fannick has implied. No witnesses, except Russin, have said they’ve noticed a very large fire at the home. But smaller fires were commonplace on the property.

And, the attorney has established, informant Paul Weakley often took his garbage to Selenski’s home to burn. Several of the bones found at the home were in garbage bags.

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— , a U.S. Department of State employee, testified he contacted Adeiye Keiler’s father in Guyana to get a DNA swab from him.

— Margaret Terrill, a former Orchid Cellmark employee, testified DNA testing showed the piece of scalp found on a garage door at Hugo Selenski’s home came from Keiler.

— Dr. Terrie Melton, an employee with Mitotyping Technologies, testified bones found at Selenski’s home could not be tested for DNA because they were too severely burned.

— Dr. Anthony Falsetti, a forensic anthropologist, testified about his examination of the bones found at Selenski’s home.

— James Richards Sr., the director of security for Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, testified about the security system at the hospital.

— Lt. Dan Yursha, a Luzerne County detective, testified about documents he received from Rite-Aid showing signatures of customers who picked up prescriptions from a Wilkes-Barre store.

— Joseph Williams, the district manager for Waste Management, testified about the garbage pickup scheduled for Mount Olivet Road in Kingston Township in May and June 2003.

— Kristina Quare of Dallas testified that Patrick Russin and Paul Weakley have terrible reputations for being truthful and honest.

On the Web

— Have questions about the trial? Go to www.timesleader.com [http://www.timesleader.com] and ask lawyer Al Flora Jr., a veteran defense attorney who has been the lead attorney in six death penalty cases in Luzerne County. Flora will answer questions posted on the forum. Also, check out www.timesleader.com [http://www.timesleader.com] throughout the day for continuous case updates and additional photos.

David Weiss, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 831-7397.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

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