Prosecutors in Blair County have asked a judge to keep testimony regarding a January guilty plea by a codefendant out of the courtroom when Marie Louise Seilhamer comes before a jury within the next few months.
\nDistrict Attorney Dave Gorman filed the request last week with Judge Jolene Kopriva in the Blair County Court of Common Pleas.
\nGorman believes attorney Thomas Dickey of Altoona will use co-defendant Kristin Edmundson\u2019s January guilty plea to shift the entire blame of the May 2001 beating death away from his 21-year-old client.
\n\u201cIt has no relevance in terms of this issue,\u201d said Gorman this morning. \u201cThe co-defendant (Edmundson) in this case really has no bearing on, ultimately, the truth-determining process by the jury about the other person (Seilhamer).
\n\u201cThe fact that Ms. Edmundson is really not evidence against Seilhamer, one way or the other, is really not an issue the jury should be appraised of. Therefore, I want to make sure it doesn\u2019t get mentioned in this trial and the jury will then only be able to consider the evidence against Ms. Seilhamer.\u201d
\nGorman is expecting Dickey to fight the commonwealth\u2019s motion, but said he doesn\u2019t understand why he\u2019s wasting his time.
\n\u201cI really don\u2019t understand what his reasons will be for arguing this. In my eyes, the case law is pretty clear that it doesn\u2019t come in,\u201d he said, \u201cbut obviously, we\u2019ll find out what his argument is whenever we get to that point.\u201d
\nProsecutors contend Seilhamer and Edmundson drove 20-year-old Shari Lee Jackson of Hollidaysburg to a pull-off area just across the Blair County Line on May 5 , 2001. There, authorities say Seilhamer repeatedly struck Jackson with a wooden baseball bat. That affidavit of probable cause states Edmundson then slit Jackson\u2019s throat with a box cutter after the beating was over.
\nAccording to the affidavit, the two then loaded the body in a truck and transported the corpse a short distance.
\nThe next day, police said a Boswell couple assisted Edmundson with burning the body and disposing of evidence.
\nDickey was unavailable for comment this morning.
\nAlso, Gorman asked Kopriva to allow Jackson\u2019s mother, Robin, to attend trial proceedings. However, Robin Jackson is present on Gorman\u2019s current witness list.
\n\u201cNormally, if a person is a witness, they are not allowed to be in the courtroom while the other witnesses are testifying,\u201d said Gorman. \u201cOur position is that the mother has an emotional need to be there and secondary, her part, as far as testimony is concerned, will be minor.\u201d
\nGorman said Robin Jackson will be called to the witness stand to testify to event leading to the identification of the body.
\nGorman said the judge will rule on the motions after both attorneys argue the matters before the court. Hearing dates have not yet been set.
\nAlso, Gorman said he is waiting on a judge\u2019s decision concerning where the trial would be held or if a non-county jury will hear the case. Many months ago, Dickey petitioned the court to have a change of venue or change of venire granted in the case.
\nHe claimed extensive media accounts of the events surrounding the case would not allow his client to receive a fair and impartial trial in Blair County.
\nBut according to Gorman, Dickey has since said that he would like his client\u2019s case to be heard from a panel of Blair County jurors.
\n\u201cHe can\u2019t have his cake and eat it too,\u201d said Gorman. \u201cI just want to be assured that if the judge decides to stay in the county with a jury, that he (Dickey) won\u2019t be going back saying that he wants an out-of-county jury to hear the case.\u201d
\nLast month, Edmundson entered into a guilty plea agreement that would save her from capital punishment, but would require a life sentence. Her attorney claimed there was too much circumstantial evidence to risk her life with a jury.
\nGorman has said that he may use Edmundson to testify at Seilhamer\u2019s trial and noted the judge\u2019s acceptance of the plea would be contingent upon her cooperation with the state during her codefendant\u2019s trial proceedings.
\nA trial date has not yet been set in the case and Kopriva must rule on a number of pre-sentence motions before such a date can be established. Gorman said if she decided that an out-of-county jury is necessary, the matter would be sent to the state\u2019s Supreme Court, which would then decide which county a jury pool could be chosen from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prosecutors in Blair County have asked a judge to keep testimony regarding a January guilty plea by a codefendant out of the courtroom when Marie Louise Seilhamer comes before a jury within the next few months. District Attorney Dave Gorman filed the request last week with Judge Jolene Kopriva in the Blair County Court of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}