NORWICH – The prosecution in the case against alleged murderer Peter Wlasiuk called three to the witness stand Wednesday, with the majority of the day’s testimony coming from Chenango County Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Cobb.

Wlasiuk – twice convicted of second degree murder – is accused of killing his wife, Patricia, at the couple’s Oxford home, later staging a Guilford Lake truck accident to cover up the crime. Wlasiuk, now represented by attorney Mark Loughran, has successfully appealed both convictions, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.

Following the accident, which occurred in the early morning hours of April 3, 2002, Wlasiuk told authorities that Patricia had swerved to miss a deer, veering through a 32-foot gap in a guardrail located on the north side of County Road 35 in the Town of Guilford and into the lake. Wlasiuk told police they were travelling east toward the Hamlet of Guilford to pick up their three children from the babysitter. Wlasiuk later changed his story, stating Patricia had purposely driven the truck into the lake as the couple argued.

According to Cobb, a certified accident re-construction investigator, there is no evidence to support either story. In his opinion, he testified, Patricia’s body was never in the cab of the vehicle, instead lying in the bed of the truck.

Patricia’s body was found on the bottom of Guilford Lake and all efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful.

Cobb testified that he and then-Chenango County Sheriff’s Deputy Gerald Parry arrived at the scene of the accident shortly after 2 a.m., approximately an hour and a half after it had occurred. His job, he said, was to gather as much information as possible before making a determination as to what had happened. Wlasiuk’s original story – which involved the deer – did not match the evidence he found at the scene, he said.

According to Cobb, there was no evidence of steering or braking to avoid the lake, and considering the angle of decline into the water – approximately 27 degrees – there should have been some sign of skidding. Cobb said there was “no evidence of that,” before stating it was simply the weight of the vehicle which left tire marks leading to the lake. If one steers or turns hard, he added, one would see yaw marks, where the tire marks would get bigger, then smaller, and the grass would be torn up. The only tire marks that he saw, he testified, were created by a “free rolling tire.”