The commonwealth's case against a former Penn State football player rested in the palm of a bloody black glove yesterday, as prosecution witnesses all but concluded that LaVon Chisley couldn't have purchased the key piece of evidence.
In June 2006, police found a heavy duty rubber glove lying near the body of Penn State senior Langston Carraway, covered in what appeared to be his blood. Carraway's body, sprawled across a couch in his Patton Township apartment, had been stabbed and slashed 93 times.
Prosecutors have said that Chisley, charged with the 26-year-old's murder, used the glove in the commission of the crime.
Once taken into evidence in 2006, the hunt for the glove's source was on. Investigators tracked its brand to O.W. Houtz & Son, a State College hardware store; the glove's distributor confirmed that the store was one of two retailers in Pennsylvania carrying the brand and the only one in Centre County.
Called to the stand by Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira, an O.W. Houtz manager said the store sold one pair of the gloves at about 3 p.m. on the last day Carraway was seen alive -- the only pair sold in the six months leading up to the murder. But when Madeira asked the cashier on duty to describe whom he sold the glove to, the man replied that it had not been Chisley, but a white man with heavy stubble and dirty blond hair.
A light-colored hair, as defense attorney Karen Muir pointed out earlier, had been found on Carraway's corpse, caught in the dried blood of his neck wounds.
Despite the prior testimony, a former friend of Chisley's testified that she had seen the gloves in his possession. Her assertion has long been the linchpin of the prosecution's case, providing the main link between Carraway's murder and Chisley.
Kerry Onaka, a former State College resident, testified that she had found a pair of black, heavy duty gloves folded in Chisley's windbreaker just before he left her apartment on June 3, 2006, mere hours before Carraway is believed to have been murdered. When shown a pair of industrial gloves bought from O.W. Houtz, she confirmed that they were similar to the ones she saw.
Onaka also testified that she had agreed before the incident to drive the then 22-year-old Chisley to Baltimore on June 4, 2006. However, an anxious Chisley called her at 6 a.m., two hours before their scheduled departure, and told her they needed to start driving immediately, she said.
"He sounded urgent," Onaka testified. "He sounded like he wanted to leave right then and there."
Finally, the prosecution presented taped phone calls between Onaka and Chisley from later that June, during which the defendant supposedly asked his friend to tell police he had spent the night with her. Although his words were distorted and mostly unintelligible, it was clear throughout the call that Chisley was agitated.
In a case even Madeira has called "circumstantial," Onaka's testimony connected Chisley to a murder where physical evidence has fallen short.
Under precise cross-examination from Muir, Onaka said Chisley did not specifically mention the night of Carraway's death when he asked Onaka to tell authorities he had stayed with her. Nor did he even technically tell her to mislead the police, Onaka said.
The defense attorney next questioned Onaka's motives. Wasn't it true, she asked, that Onaka had sexual relations with Chisley? Didn't she tell police, soon after the murder, that she wished she and Chisley could have had more of a relationship together? Hadn't she and Chisley been fighting the night she saw the gloves? Onaka said it was all true.
Under prodding, the witness admitted she was bipolar. Onaka, struggling to maintain her composure, replied that, although she had been diagnosed with the disorder in December 2005, she was currently taking medication and had not had an episode since. Muir said she had no further questions.
Prior to bringing the glove into play, Madeira had continued the prosecution's case with a rapid staccato of witnesses, alternating casual acquaintances with close friends and family members, including Carraway's sister, girlfriend and mother.
Leah Carraway said the first thing she asked upon learning of her brother's death was, "Where's LaVon?"
"I couldn't trust him. I'm looking at his arms, his hands, his face [for scratches]," she said of her meeting with Chisley following the murder. "I'm looking into his eyes, but he wouldn't look me in the face."
