Syracuse, NY -- An Onondaga County Court jury today began deliberating the case against a Syracuse man accused of murdering his pregnant, estranged wife 19 years ago. The nine women and three men on the jury began weighing evidence and testimony about 1:30 p.m., nine days after Johnny Rogers' trial on second-degree murder charges began. Rogers, 45, is accused of...
Syracuse, NY -- An Onondaga County Court jury today began deliberating the case against a Syracuse man accused of murdering his pregnant, estranged wife 19 years ago.
The nine women and three men on the jury began weighing evidence and testimony about 1:30 p.m., nine days after Johnny Rogers' trial on second-degree murder charges began.
Rogers, 45, is accused of killing Princess Thomas, who was 23 and seven months pregnant when her body was found Sept. 22, 1991, under underbrush and trash off South Clinton Street.
Rogers was always a suspect but the case against him did not gel until December 2007, First Chief Assistant District Attorney Rick Trunfio said. That's when a former girlfriend told friends that Rogers said while he was assaulting her in 2001 that he would "do you like I did my wife," Trunfio said. The friends called authorities, jumpstarting the investigation, he said.
Trunfio said witnesses told the jury that Rogers had admitted to them that he strangled Thomas. The jurors reassembled in Judge Joseph Fahey's courtroom about 2:45 p.m. to have the testimony of one of them read back.
Prosecutors also established through DNA tests that the baby Thomas was carrying was not Rogers', providing jealousy as a possible motive, Trunfio said.
Michael Vavonese, who defended Rogers with co-counsel Marsha Hunt, said prosecutors failed to provide physical evidence or eyewitness testimony that showed beyond a reasonable doubt that Rogers was connected with Thomas' murder. One prosecution witness testified that Rogers was at someone's house about the time Thomas was killed, Vavonese said.
The prosecution also was not able to eliminate other suspects, Vavonese said.
"We await the jury's verdict," he said.
Jurors were sent home after deliberating though the afternoon. They are to return Thursday morning and will hear some testimony read back before resuming deliberations in the case.