Ciccones had rollercoaster relationship

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

The prosecution continued its case in the first-degree murder trial of Albert Ciccone last week, calling witnesses to try and recreate the scene of the incident where Ciccone is alleged to have run over his pregnant wife on Ditto Creek Road on Oct. 16, 2003, and trying to show that the couple had a tempestuous relationship.

As the trial entered its second week, prosecutor Aaron Bazzoli continued to call witnesses who described the scene where Kathleen (Terry) Ciccone was killed. The defense contends her death was a tragic accident.

C.J. Trosky, an Elmore County paramedic at the time of the incident, testified that she and her partner were responding to a call to Ditto Creek Road and "found a woman (Kathleen Ciconne) on her belly with one leg wrapped around a tree."

Trosky removed Kathleen's leg from the tree and positioned her on her back. Mrs. Ciccone was pronounced dead at the scene after attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful and Trosky found no pulse or cardio-electrical activity. Trosky noted the victim was bleeding from severe head injuries when she arrived.

Trosky said that as they were responding to the call, she saw a man walking up the road. When law enforcement later searched for the driver of the car, she spotted him through binoculars about a mile away from the ambulance on a knoll in the desert.

She said it was about 45 minutes before Ciconne came back to the ambulance where he was treated by her partner, Butch Hansen. She observed that Ciconne appeared to be "conscious, alert and able to answer questions."

He repeatedly asked, "Where is my wife?" she said.

Hansen later testified that ciccone appeared "extremely agitated and irrational and wouldn't answer our questions."

Although his heart rate was slightly elevated, Hansen said, all other signs were normal, except that Ciccone claimed "I've lost the last two hours," and couldn't remember anything that had happened. "I looked at my partner," Hansen said, " and said let's get this guy to the hospital because he's trying to play us."

As the first law enforcement officer to arrive after the ambulance, Elmore County Patrol Deputy Christopher Banks said that he secured the scene, moving people away from the tire tracks left by the Dodge Neon that allegedly struck Mrs. Ciccone. He compared and photographed the tracks on the Neon to those leading south from K&R Ranch Road. He also photographed a tennis shoe near the driveway and the damage done to the mailbox and the Neon, which had spun after impact and was facing north. He did not move the victim's body.

During cross examination by Terry Ratliff, Banks stated that while at least two cars had crossed the tire tracks left by the Neon, there was no indication of a break in the Neon's tracks or indications of its direction of travel.

Rita Brown, who lived across the street from the Shaw home, where the accident occurred, testified she was in her back yard when she heard a vehicle "revving up its motor constantly. Then it sounded like it peeled out and a few seconds later, the crash." She looked up and saw a lot of dust. She went to the front and saw the yellow car she recognized as "Kathleen's husband's car." She said she saw Ciconne walking away, noting he was wearing BDUs (military camouflage uniform).

She got in her car and drove out to the road to help him. She noted he was walking rapidly, "pickin'em up and layin'em down. He wasn't running, but he was moving."

Brown stopped her car and asked Ciconne if he needed help and he answered curtly, "No!" He kept walking and was talking on his cell phone. She got out of the car and asked him again if he needed help. She said he answered no again and was rude and swore at her, continuing to walk rapidly away.

Elmore County Sheriff Major Crimes Detective Clint Andrus testified that he arrived on the scene at 8 p.m. and was there until about 2 a.m. walking the area, taking photographs, checking for and packaging evidence.

At the entrance to K&R Ranch Road he found a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, french fries scattered, a soda cup, a Burger King bag, a sweater and purse and two different types of shoe prints around the area. He took castings of the boot and tennis shoe prints.

When he went into the desert area south of the Shaw residence, he found a business card that said "Domestic Violence, and had a phone number," and a boot print next to the card. He also found a bright military type reflective belt.

To facilitate her schedule, Idaho State Police Forensic Scientist Donna Meade was allowed to interrupt Detective Andrus' testimony. At the Forensic Science Laboratory in Meridian, she tested the boot castings, comparing them to Ciconne's military boots, but could not state conclusively that they were or were not the boots worn by Ciconne because the dirt in the area did not allow a clear enough imprint.

In answer to Defense attorney Terry Ratliff's cross examination, Meade said one of the two sets of boots sent to the tab for comparison to the castings was later identified as belonging to Det. Capt. Mike Barkley, of the Elmore County Sheriff's Department.

Aaron Bazzoli then recalled Det. Andrus to the stand. Andrus explained that when he was asked to go to the evidence room for a pair of military boots taken as evidence, he went to one of two of the evidence rooms where he found a pair of black military boots that he packaged and sent to the forensic lab. When he realized those were Barkley's boots, he found Ciconne's boots in a sealed package in the Sheriff's office evidence room and sent them to the lab.

Andrus produced a diagram of the incident scene on Ditto Creek Road, showing the tire tracks indicating a car backing up and turning around at K&R Ranch Road, then beginning to travel south up Ditto Creek road, swerving first to the left side of the road, traveling back to the right side, going off the road, indicating where broken glass was found, and the broken mailbox in front of the Shaw home. The car swerved from the impact with the mailbox, turned and stopped facing north nearly in the middle of the road.

Rita Brown's husband, currently on active duty with the National Guard in Kuwait, gave a deposition on videotape. He stated he came home on the evening of Oct. 16, after the incident. In the morning of Oct. 17, at about 8 a.m., he went to check his fences that border K&R Ranch Road, a side road off Ditto Creek Road that runs to the home of Kathleen Ciccone's mother, where she had been staying.

He said that he saw Kathleen's purse and sweater in the driveway and along his fence line he found pill bottles, which he gave to his wife, Rita Brown, who later gave them to Det. Andrus, who placed them in an evidence bag.

Mr. Brown said he also saw prints on the road where people had approached the car door and walked around and scattered clothing.

The prosecution was attempting to show that Kathleen and her husband had argued at that spot, when she got out of the car and began walking back down Ditto Creek Road.

Capt. Mike Barkley of the Elmore County Sheriff's Department, explained a video shown in court that he had made in July 2004. The video was taken from the passenger side of a 2004 Neon SRT similar to the one Albert Ciconne drove.

With Det. Andrus holding the camera in the passenger's seat, and Det. Kathy Wolfe walking up Ditto Creek Road toward the Shaw residence, Capt. Barkley backed the Neon out of K&R Ranch driveway and turned it south up Ditto Creek Road, past Det. Wolfe, to show what they believe may have happened on Oct. 16, 2003.

The tests helped them determine the visibility from the Neon and how long it took the car to reach various speeds on that road. Times varied from 30 m.p.h. at 11.77 seconds to 60 m.p.h. at 8.71 seconds. Barkley acknowledged they had no way of knowing which side of the road Kathleen actually walked up, only that she was on the right side of the road when she was struck.

Sgt. Greg Harris, and Idaho State Police Crash Scene Investigator, said he found blood spatter on the right windshield of the car and on a gate and post. He also saw pieces of the car scattered around and a tennis shoe.

He and Trooper Olaso used grid coordinates to measure the crash scene, tagging and noting evidence. That information was later transferred to a computer-generated diagram created by ISP Crash Reconstructionist Cpl. Fred Rice.

ISP Trooper Olaso testified that he had responded to the call on Oct. 16 because there was a fatality. He said he located the car's driver, Ciccone, in the desert about 3/4 miles west of the scene. He approached and spoke with Ciccone, telling him to hold still and keep his hands in view.

He said Ciconne was uncooperative but eventually knelt and placed his hands on his head as Olaso asked. Ciconne asked, "are you going to handcuff me?"

Olaso did cuff him and asked who the other person who had been in the incident was and was she wearing a seat belt.

Ciconne answered that it was his wife and that she had not been in the car, he said.

Later he said she was trying to exit the vehicle.

Olaso noted Ciconne had blood across his left hand but Ciconne said that was from a nosebleed caused by the dry air.

Olaso said he found blood across the car's windscreen, indicating someone had been struck outside the car. He said he also found a puddle of blood in the driveway, where Kathleen had lain.

In discussing the measurements taken by the ISP, Ratliff noted that a mistake had been made in the measurements between the two posts at the entrance to the Shaw's drive. Olaso, and Corporal Rice both responded that the difference was of 5" and of no appreciable significance. They also noted that the error had been corrected on the final diagram introduced in court.

Bazzoli presented Trooper Olaso's diagram of the Neon's tire tracks near the Shaw's driveway and Olaso described how he had determined and measured "rolling" tire marks (indicating the car was still moving) and non-rolling marks where vegetation was plowed up (indicating transition in speed or breaking).

An expert witness for the prosecution, Cpl. Fred Rice of the Idaho State Police, and a crash reconstruction specialist, was present at the crash scene assisting ISP officers Olaso and Harris with measurements and testified that his computer-generated diagram was an accurate and fair representation of what he observed.

Based on the measurements taken of tire tracks, other evidence at the crash scene, and using a series of mathematical calculations, Rice described in testimony what he believed happened.

He said that the rolling tire marks leaving the road showed no indication of an attempt to stop or swerve, but continued at a high rate of speed, possibly 45 to 50 miles per hour, until the Neon struck Kathleen Ciconne with a force great enough to send her airborne, 76 feet from the point of impact to where her body came to rest. He deduced that, had she not struck the fence in front of the Shaw residence, she would have been thrown 115 feet.

Rice said there was shattered glass on the ground at the point of impact and at that point the tire tracks show skid marks as it travelled across the driveway and struck the mailbox. He also noted that the zone of debris began after the point of impact.

During cross examination, defense attorney Ratliff noted that defense experts disagreed with Rice's conclusions and would present contradictory evidence when they begin to present their side of the case, which is expected to start next week.

Dr. Nathan Andrew, an emergency room physician who treated Ciccone when he was brought in that evening, said Ciccone showed no signs of any physical trauma from the accident, but seemed confused and reported he was not able to remember any of the incident involving his wife. Ciccone told Andrew he estimated he could not remember anything from about 5:40 p.m. (about the time his wife was struck and killed), until about 7 p.m.

Andrew said he ordered a CAT scan, but the results showed no neural damage or trauma.

He said Ciccone was calm, "but somewhat distracted" in the emergency room, and while he admitted that shock can cause a loss of memory, that Ciccone did not display most of the classic physical symptoms of shock.

He said Ciccone asked for his medication, Klonopin, a valium-type of drug, but since the patient was stable, he didn't prescribe any.

The prosecution then began focusing on the events that lead up to Kathleen Ciccone's death.

SSgt. Eric Parker, who worked with Ciccone at the electronics warfare shop on base, and who was one of Ciccone's roommates at the home at 132 Baker Dr., said that Albert and Kathleen began dating in May 2003, and by the end of May or early June, Kathleen had moved in with Albert.

He said that their relationship "most of the time seemed all right, but there were a couple instances when they argued."

In early August of 2003 they broke up, but got back together again and were married on Aug. 29.

They broke up in September for a brief period of time, and then, after getting back together, broke up again in early October, when Kathleen moved out to at first live with a friend, and then, just before her death, to move in with her mother.

Parker said that shortly after Albert had returned in early October from a brief stay at Intermountain Hospital, a regional psychiatric facility, he told him that Kathleen had given him a sexually transmitted disease, chlamydia.

Kathleen Ciccone's sister, Jessica Herr, said she was very close to her sister and talked to her almost every day. When she first met Albert, she "was unsure of him," but eventually she and her husband developed a social relationship with Albert and Kathleen as a couple.

He said that Albert would "call a lot when they were fighting," and that on the night of her engagement party, when Kathleen and Albert arrived, she noticed bruises on Kathleen arms, and talked to him about it a few days later. "He said he'd pushed her when she'd put her finger in his face."

She said the night of her engagement party, Aug. 16, Kathleen and Albert broke up, but by Aug. 25 had decided to go ahead with their Aug. 29 wedding.

She said that she learned her sister was pregnant on Sept. 6, and that both Albert and Kathleen seemed excited.

Less than two weeks later, she said, she talked to Albert on the telephone and was told that Kathleen had left him again. "He was upset. He said he loved her and wanted to stay with her."

Albert also called her when he was Intermountain Hospital, telling her he had tried to commit suicide because she had left him. "He said he wanted an annulment, so there would be no record of the marriage, so it would hurt her," and that he intended to get custody of the child.

Herr said that Albert also told her, just after his release from the hospital, that he thought her sister had cheated on him.

She also testified that Albert at one time had said that he wanted Kathleen to have an abortion, but changed his mind after he was released from the hospital.

She said that he was talking about going to marriage counseling to make things work, something that she said her sister had suggested.

She said that one of the things the couple argued about was Albert's cologne, which her sister said made her sick, but which he didn't want to give up.

Kathleen Giguredo, the mother of Kathleen Terry-Ciccone, in a tearful hour of testimony, told the court that Kathleen was one of five children and 22 foster children that she had raised.

"She was a wonderful person. When she was little, I called her my pied piper, because kids would just gather around her. She had a wonderful, infectious laugh."

But, she added, her daughter also "had a temper, but more of a stubbornness. She would stand up for herself."

She said it wasn't normal for her daughter to bring boyfriends home, so when Kathleen did so in April of 2003, to have Albert meet her family, "I knew it was serious."

She described the couple's relationship as "very tumultuous. There was a lot of fighting, of breaking up and getting back together, (followed by) a lot of presents and gifts." When she found out in July that they were engaged, she advised them to take their time, "I told them they were going to fast, to at least have along engagement. I felt they needed to build a friendship."

She had advised them to seek counseling after seeing bruises on Kathleen the night of her sister's engagement party.

She said that when they called her "to announce they both were pregnant, they seemed very excited. They wanted to have a child."

He said that after they broke up and Albert had returned from the hospital, he often called her and indicated he wanted to get back together with Kathleen, although "in the end, he said he was angry, and wanted an annulment."

Kathleen had moved in with her mother the weekend before her death. Her mother said Albert came out twice in the next week, once to deliver an alimony check, and the second to pick her up the day of her death, when they were going to go to counseling on base. She said they'd been approved for base housing, and Albert wanted to go back to counseling "and if it didn't work out by Nov. 15 (when the housing would no longer be available) then they'd agree it was over."

Michaela Larios, who described Kathleen as her best friend, testified that the couple's relationship was filled "a lot of ups and downs -- a roller coaster. They were fighting all the time."

She said that on Sept. 22, she had gone to Albert and Kathleen's house of Baker Drive to pick Kathleen up. Mrs. Ciccone was going to move out and move in with her. The couple argued at that time and Albert indicated then that he wanted Kathleen to get an abortion.

She described how Albert, in June 2003, when they were dating, had once left Kathleen at C.J. Strike after an argument.

She said the couple went back and forth as to whether they were going to get back together again or not.

Ratliff asked her, if, in the days before Kathleen had died, if they had said they were going to try and make it work.

"Yes," Larios replied.

Bazzoli then, on redirect, asked, "that was on the Wednesday before she died?"

"Yes."

"And the Friday before he said he wanted her dead?"

"Yes."

"Was that the nature of the relationship?" Bazzoli asked.

"Yes," Larious said.

Butch Boardwine, one of the owners of Charlies Place, where Albert had worked as a DJ and where he had met Kathleen, said Albert originally told him that "he was the happiest man alive," dating Kathleen, and that she was a "beautiful girl."

He said the couple had their ups and downs over time, and Albert told him (in early October) that they'd gone to the base hospital where they learned "that she'd given him an STD (sexually transmitted disease). He said he was hot and had abandoned her at the hospital. He was definitely angry at the time."

He also said that on about Oct. 10, 2003, Albert had told him that he didn't think the baby was his and wanted a paternity test.

When Ratliff asked him if Albert's reaction didn't seem normal, Boardwine responded, "i understood where he was coming from, but... the degree of anger seemed non-proportional."

He said that on Oct. 16 he had talked to Albert who told him that the couple was going to try and work things out. "He seemed in the best of moods."

Tina Patterson, who worked in the family advocacy program on base at the time, testified that Kathleen had made arrangements for counseling, and in answer to a screening questionnaire she filled out on Oct. 10, "she scored a 16. Anything above a 9 is considered high need" requiring counseling or some form of intervention. She said she saw Kathleen again on Oct. 16, at the base hospital, waiting outside the pharmacy with her husband. "She was leaning on her husband, draped across his lap, and she had a smile on her face."

The trial recessed until today. The state is expected to complete its case by the end of the week, and the defense will then begin presenting its side of the case next week. The trial is expected to last until the end of January.

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