Prosecutors lay out physical evidence in trial of man charged with killing officer Sean Sluganski
On the second day of Jonathan Morris' trial, the prosecution began laying out physical evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Morris shot and killed McKeesport officer Sean Sluganski.
Throughout the day, prosecutors showed the jury more than a hundred photographs — some difficult for family members to see. Prosecutors showed medical examiner photos of Sluganski's workshirt, pierced by two bullet holes, and a slug retrieved from his Kevlar vest.
Patrick Kinavey, the chief county detective on the case, testified about photos taken at the crime scene, including the knoll in front of the house where Sluganski had been fatally shot and a picture of his Glock handgun, which had not been fired.
Sluganski arrived at the scene on foot while officer Charles Thomas pursued Morris in his police cruiser. Nearby photos show evidence of a shootout between Morris and Thomas. One shows three bullet holes through the windshield of Thomas' police cruiser, another where he bailed out the driver's side door after being hit, then a full-fledged shootout.
One shot from the rear shows casings from Thomas and Morris shooting at each other. Police identified close to a dozen shell casings from Thomas' .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun fired from the rear of the vehicle. They marked five casings attributed to Morris, fired from the front of the car.
All the photos are meant to lay a foundation for the prosecution's case — that Morris fired first, killing Sluganski and wounding Thomas, but throughout the day, defense attorney Carmen Robinson peppered witnesses with questions about the chain of custody of the evidence and whether the crime scene had been compromised, at one point showing Kinavey cellphone video showing an officer moving Sluganski's gun.
Robinson also called the number of shots attributed to Morris a "mathematical impossibility" while only five casings were found. The prosecution hasn't definitively put a number on those shots but held out the possibility there were more casings than those recovered.
Kinavey said, "In a perfect world, we try to find and locate every piece of ballistic evidence we can," adding it's not abnormal when casings go unfound.
The defense will be mounting an insanity defense for Morris, but it is also questioning the police investigation.
