Killer in 1977 case seeks his freedom or new trial
Robert Urwin is escorted into Washington County Courthouse for a hearing Wednesday. He is seeking a new trial after being convicted in the cold-case murder of a Charleroi teenager.
Mary Gency
Could the tainted legacy of former Washington County Judge Paul Pozonsky, who served jail time for stealing cocaine evidence in drug cases, negate the third-degree murder conviction of a man he found guilty in a nonjury trial?
Robert Urwin, 59, of Dunlevy, is hoping for a court order that would either free him from a 10- to 20-year prison sentence imposed by Pozonsky or get him a new trial.
Urwin was back in Washington County Court on Wednesday, this time before Judge John DiSalle, who will decide if Urwin’s claims have merit.
Spectators filled three-fourths of a courtroom, but Pozonsky was not among them. Neither the defense nor the prosecution subpoenaed him.
Urwin and a co-defendant, David Bernard Davoli, 58, of Charleroi, were arrested May 24, 2010, based on DNA evidence, the technology for which was not available at the time of the 1977 slaying of Mary Irene Gency of Charleroi.
Davoli agreed to cooperate in Urwin’s case, and Pozonsky sentenced him to 2 to 4 years in prison, followed by two years of state probation. He had been arrested July 1, 1977, for the girl’s murder but released three weeks later when a judge ruled the evidence against him was insufficient.
Gency was 16 when she was slain Feb. 13, 1977. She and Urwin dated for nearly two years, but the couple broke up shortly before her death. Six days after her disappearance, Gency’s nude, frozen body was found in a field along Gun Club Road in Fallowfield Township. An autopsy determined Gency’s skull was fractured in numerous places when she was struck several times. It also determined Gency was pregnant.
Fast-forward 40 years.
On Wednesday, Urwin’s sister, Ruth, said she brought to the attention of his then-defense attorney, Joseph Francis, that she thought Pozonsky was “acting funny” during the nonjury trial in 2011. She elaborated, testifying that Pozonsky was fidgeting, and that he was raising his arms, then bending his elbows and cradling the back of his head in his hands. Deputy District Attorney Jerome Moschetta asked Ruth Urwin if she had observed Pozonsky on occasions other than the trial of her brother, but she said she had not.
“I have no knowledge (Pozonsky) was using narcotics during Mr. Urwin’s trial,” testified Leslie Ridge, Pozonsky’s former law clerk, who is now an assistant district attorney.
Francis also was a former law clerk for Pozonsky, and said if he suspected the judge had a substance addiction, he would have requested that another jurist be assigned to Urwin’s case.
“I did not see any signs,” Francis testified on Wednesday of the 700 or so criminal cases he handled, about half before Pozonsky.
Urwin’s attorney, Brian Zeiger of Philadelphia, also called into question whether the prosecution dragged its feet for decades, failing to test DNA evidence. John J. Tobin, chief detective in the Washington County district attorney’s office, formed and supervised a cold-case unit in 2000 when he was a state police corporal. Mary Gency’s then-unsolved murder was one of the many cases the unit handled.
Under questioning by Moschetta, Tobin submitted to the court a 250-page report on the Gency case to show police efforts through the decades. Tobin testified that technological advances were developed in 2008 that permitted testing of a specific type of Y chromosome that is present only in males. Both Urwin and Davoli had sex with Gency before her death, according to testimony in their 2011 court proceedings.
Zeiger argued that the type of DNA analysis used in the Gency case was available as early as 1998, and by failing to charge Urwin sooner than 2010, witnesses who could have been helpful to Urwin’s defense became unavailable or their memories faded. The delay is serious enough to have the homicide charge against Urwin thrown out, Zeiger told DiSalle.
“I think state police would have loved to have arrested Mr. Urwin long before they did,” Moschetta countered, referring to the state police file presented to the court.
DiSalle took the case under advisement, permitting motions and responses to be filed within 30 days.
The victim’s family prepared this statement: “The Gency family will not respond to, condone, support or participate in any claims brought forth by the Urwin family regarding the proclaimed innocence of Robert Urwin Jr.
“We do not wish to challenge the initial decision of the courts and therefore maintain that justice has been served. This family will also continue to not entertain any accusations or suggestions referring to members of our own family supporting the Urwins; their decision to continuously exploit Mary Irene Gency’s death is an embarrassment to both the courts and the families involved.”