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homicide trial

October 17, 2007

DA: Cop knew how to kill wife

Opening statements made in Jeff Dennis’ trial. Defense says much of case is hearsay.

WILKES-BARRE – Jeff Dennis knew how to do it, a Luzerne County prosecutor said.

The trained police officer had a strong theory of how he could kill his wife with a bullet to the head and make it look like she pulled the trigger, according to First Assistant District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll.

“The cop knew how the body falls, how the gun lands, and how the blood flows,” Musto Carroll told a jury Tuesday.

And Dennis couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it.

Before his wife, Carli, was found dead from a single bullet last year, Dennis bragged about that skill. After her death, Dennis wove nine different tales about the shooting. His words, coupled with some forensic evidence, show Dennis is guilty of first-degree murder in Carli’s death, Musto Carroll said.

But the theory is full of hearsay, defense attorney Ferris Webby told the jury.

The defense, through solid, forensic evidence analyzed by highly placed experts, said it will guide the jury through the unreliable hearsay to show that the evidence fits Jeff Dennis’ theory: Carli shot herself.

Jeff Dennis, Webby said, is not guilty.

“The prosecution rushed to judgment in the first minutes and didn’t look back,” Webby said.

The conflicting accounts from the two attorneys came during opening statements to the jury chosen to hear Jeff Dennis’ trial on a count of homicide in the death of his 30-year-old wife.

The 36-year-old Jeff Dennis was a Dallas Township police officer when, police say, he shot Carli in the head Feb, 27, 2006, inside their Ninth Street home in Wyoming. Jeff Dennis, they say, was angry Carli was having an affair with a co-worker at the county’s 911 center.

Musto Carroll said she and Assistant District Attorney David Pedri will rely on more than forensics to show their case. They’ll call an array of witnesses to tell the jury how Jeff Dennis kept a suffocating grip on Carli’s life.

She had to constantly check in with him, ask for his permission to eat something, or plead with him to be allowed to walk her dog with a friend.

One time, Jeff Dennis lashed out at Carli, calling her a slut, because she didn’t call him when she took a bathroom break at work one day.

“She was deathly afraid of him,” Musto Carroll said.

And she wanted to end her marriage with him.

Carli began having an affair with co-worker Robert Bomboy, and Jeff Dennis found out.

Dennis called Bomboy and indicated he would try to work things out. But he also told Bomboy: “I’ll get her … they’ll never know it was me.”

Dennis finally issued an ultimatum to Carli, telling her she would have to pick him or her job.

She had a deadline to meet. Carli had to “quit or die” by Feb. 27, Musto Carroll said.

That morning, Carli died.

And Jeff Dennis kept talking.

He gave nine variations of where he was when he claimed Carli pulled the trigger, Musto Carroll said.

Once, he was sitting on the foot of the bed.

Another time, he was standing near the bed.

Then he was outside the bedroom in the hallway.

He even told one person he was at work and came home to find her dead.

He still wasn’t done talking, though.

He uttered more telling words at Carli’s funeral, Musto Carroll said.

“I can’t believe I took her away,” one witness heard Jeff Dennis say, according to the prosecutor.

Another witness heard Jeff Dennis, peering at his wife’s casket, say, “Carli, I hate you.”

“I told you she would never get away with this,” Jeff Dennis told a friend, Musto Carroll said.

“That man could not keep his mouth shut,” Musto Carroll said.

All of the evidence, she said, will show Jeff Dennis killed his wife in a “willful” and “intentional” manner.

But Webby said the case is full of “speculation and conjecture.”

He vowed to give the jurors a road map around that hearsay, putting them on a highway full of solid forensically tested evidence.

“The destination in our road map will be an acquittal,” he said.

Jeff Dennis and Carli, he said, made a loving couple. They did everything together, including hunting and shopping, because they loved each other, not because he was controlling her.

But Carli lived two lives.

One was the loving wife at home. The other was an unpredictable cheater at work. Her desire to have an affair led to her constantly keeping tabs on where her husband was, Webby said.

But Jeff Dennis still tried working things out, the attorneys said.

On the day Carli died, the couple had a discussion before Jeff Dennis arrived home from work. An argument ensued. Jeff Dennis just wanted to leave.

But as he turned to look at Carli, he saw her holding a gun.

“He tried to get the gun off her,” Webby said.

The gun fired before he made contact with her, Webby said.

“There was no warning,” he said. “She didn’t say a word. It just happened.”

The evidence at the scene will tell the true story, Webby said.

Webby and his defense team of attorneys William Ruzzo and Al Flora Jr. will call the former chief medical examiner for Rhode Island to say the blood evidence shows Carli died of a self-inflicted wound or an accidental shooting.

A gun expert will also testify and support Jeff Dennis’ version.

And a prosecution witness will even say Carli could have been the shooter, he said.

Testimony before Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Conahan could last up to two weeks. Ruzzo said he’s not yet sure whether Jeff Dennis will testify.

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

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