Defendant told cops his killer father had ‘bags full of money’
After hearing two audio recordings of fellow officers questioning David J. McClelland about the slaying of his 92-year-old neighbor, a Washington County jury on Friday watched 20 segments of a video recording in which the defendant said he never asked his father whether he was responsible for the murder of Evelyn Stepko.
“As a police officer, as a human being, why didn’t you tell one of the police officers, ‘My old man’s been ripping her off’?” an off-camera investigator asked DJ McClelland.
“I should have,” DJ McClelland replied. “I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. … I know what I did was wrong. I should’ve said something a long time ago.”
DJ McClelland, 38, of Coal Center, is standing trial on charges that include homicide, burglary, conspiracy and receiving stolen property in connection with the stabbing death of Stepko, who was found July 18, 2011, lying in a pool of blood on a dirt floor at the bottom of her basement stairs.
DJ McClelland was a part-time police officer for both Monongahela and Washington Township, Fayette County.
In the black-and-white video recording, the seated McClelland’s knees constantly jiggle up and down as he tells of needing $300 to pay a phone bill in June 2010.
“Dad said, ‘Let me borrow it from somebody,'” DJ McClelland told state police Cpl. John Tobin, Trooper Louis Serafini and then-Trooper James A. McElhaney, who has since retired from the state and is now Washington County chief detective.
DJ McClelland and his father, David A. McClelland, 58, later went to the elder McClelland’s shed.
“There was shopping bags full of money, plastic Walmart bags,” the son said on camera.
He told of his father saying, “When I seen Evelyn sitting at the top of the hill, waiting on a bus, I know what I need to do to help my family.”
Police grilled DJ McClelland about discrepancies in the amounts of cash he received from his father and stepmother.
In one segment recorded during the 3 1/2-hour interview of DJ McClelland Aug. 9, 2011, at the state police barracks in Washington, McClelland estimated the amount of money his father and stepmother gave him at $70,000, a much larger amount than he previously described to police.
First Assistant District Attorney Michael Lucas introduced both snippets of video and some segments that lasted several minutes, including interview questions about a March 2011 burglary at Stepko’s home.
Thomas James Stover, who with his wife owns Peggy’s Place, a bar in Coal Center, testified Friday he saw someone leaving the back of Stepko’s home about noon one day in March 2011.
Watching from a front door of the bar about 100 yards away from Stepko’s home, Stover said he at first thought a college student was emptying trash for Stepko because of the garbage bag the man was carrying. The person’s face was obscured by a hood, but from a visible hand he could tell the man was white.
The thief was “roughly about DJ’s height and build,” testified Stover, who said he has known David A. McClelland for about 20 years and told the jury the burglar did not match David A. McClelland’s height and build.
“He got behind DJ’s house,” Stover testified. The witness said he called “Davey” McClelland to warn him of a possible burglar in the neighborhood. Although he wasn’t able to reach David A. McClelland immediately, he received a return phone call a short time later.
Stover said David A. McClelland, who had health problems, wasn’t as spry as the burglar.
On the video, DJ McClelland said of that burglary, “I had nothing to do with it, honest to God,” and pointed to his father as the culprit.
“He came to my house after the robbery because he needed his key to get back in his house,” the son told investigators.
David A. McClelland, 58, pleaded guilty in October to repeatedly burglarizing Stepko’s home for large amounts of money and to killing the elderly woman. He is serving life in prison. McClelland’s stepmother, Diane McClelland, 50, has also been found guilty of conspiracy and receiving stolen property in the homicide.
Testimony is scheduled to continue Monday morning before Judge John DiSalle. Lucas said he will continue to play segments of the video recording, and after the prosecution wraps up its case next week, DJ McClelland’s attorney, Joshua Camson, said his client will testify.