By SANDRA K. REABUCK
SOMERSET — A former Somerset County man facing homicide charges in the 1981 death of his wife was in county court Friday seeking to have the case dismissed.
John David Dawson, 60, of Jacksonville, Fla., was arrested in April and brought back to Pennsylvania to face charges in the brutal murder of his wife, Kathleen.
Judge John Cascio did not immediately rule on throwing out the charges or on a defense request that bail be set for Dawson’s release while awaiting trial.
The body of Kathleen Dawson, then 30, was found on Nov. 10, 1981, in her burned-out car along Cable Hill Road in Conemaugh Township, Somerset County. Investigators alleged that she was bludgeoned to death with a blackjack outside her car and then placed in the vehicle before it was torched.
State police think she was killed while traveling to her Boswell-area home after working a 3-to-11 p.m shift at Windber Hospital, where she was a nurse’s aide.
In addition to a general charge of criminal homicide, which includes first-degree murder, Dawson is charged with conspiracy to commit homicide and two arson offenses.
On Friday, attorney Joseph Policicchio, who represents Dawson, said that the case should be dismissed because the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence for his client to be held for court at a preliminary hearing in June.
In addition, Policicchio contended that state police and prosecutors had waited too long to file the murder charge because two witnesses who came forward to provide new evidence against Dawson were known to authorities at the time of the crime and original investigation.
But District Attorney Jerry Spangler maintained that the defense has no legal basis for the charges to be dismissed. He asked the judge to review the preliminary hearing transcript, which he said will show that District Judge Susan Mankamyer had enough evidence to hold all charges for court action.
Policicchio, in asking for bail, said that Dawson was being held improperly on the charges. But Spangler said that if the judge, in reviewing the testimony from the preliminary hearing, finds there is sufficient grounds for a first-degree murder charge, then bail must be denied under state law.
Spangler is not seeking a death sentence against Dawson, who would face an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder.
When Policicchio raised the issue of a change of venue for a jury from outside the county to try the case, Cascio said that the practice in Somerset County is to first attempt to select an impartial jury here.
The case had been set for trial in January, but with a number of pretrial motions still pending, Cascio continued the trial date until March.
Both attorneys agreed there are thousands of pages of records and documents to be reviewed from the police investigation before Policicchio will be able to raise specific issues in a suppression motion.
He also plans to file a motion to exclude other evidence, possibly including any from a coroner’s inquest in June 1982.
Spangler said that it was only in recent days that the transcript from the coroner’s inquest had been found.
Although Spangler suggested that an attorney had represented Dawson at the inquest and was allowed to question witnesses, Policicchio questioned how meaningful that could have been because Dawson did not attend the inquest.
The judge gave Spangler until Jan. 11 to have a list to the defense of all statements – verbal or written by Dawson – and any physical evidence seized from him and his property that may be used at trial.
