By Paula Reed Ward
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
INDIANA, Pa. — After a Pennsylvania state trooper testified for nearly four hours yesterday telling a jury he did not kill a well-known Blairsville dentist, it took those jurors just a little bit longer than that to decide he was lying.
Kevin Foley was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder just after 10 p.m. last night.
The jury began deliberating yesterday afternoon, on the eighth day of the trial before Indiana County Common Pleas Court President Judge William J. Martin. He set sentencing for June 1.
Trooper Foley was convicted of killing John Yelenic in the early morning hours of April 13, 2006. He had been living with the dentist’s estranged wife.
Throughout his testimony yesterday, Trooper Foley was soft-spoken, polite and calm. He went through much of his life history, including telling the jury that he was adopted.
Trooper Foley, who was suspended without pay from his job since his arrest, also said that in the month before Dr. Yelenic died he had adopted a baby boy from Guatemala.
“It was probably the best time of my life,” he said.
The trooper went on to say that he believed hard feelings between Michele Yelenic and Dr. Yelenic had ended because their divorce had finally been settled.
Dr. Yelenic was expected to sign the divorce papers the day his body was discovered.
Throughout both his direct and cross-examination, Trooper Foley tried to explain the many times he made comments to several people that he wanted Dr. Yelenic dead.
“Did you ever intend any harm to John Yelenic by your remarks?” asked defense attorney Richard Galloway
“No, I did not,” Trooper Foley said.
“Did you ever seriously contemplate any harm to John Yelenic?”
“No, I did not.”
“Are you innocent?” his lawyer continued.
“Yes, sir, I am innocent.”
But Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek questioned how Trooper Foley could consider comments like, “I told my mother that I pray for him to die in a car crash,” to be funny.
“Tell me the joke. I don’t get it. What’s funny about it?” he asked.
“It’s my personality. My behavior,” Trooper Foley said. Later he added, “I would never pray for anything like that. I didn’t say all those things they said I did.”
He admitted that he didn’t like Dr. Yelenic, but said he couldn’t give any exact reason.
“I don’t think there’s any day I woke up and said, ‘I don’t like John Yelenic,’” he said. “It was an accumulation of things.”
On direct examination, Trooper Foley said that when he and Michele Yelenic learned about the homicide, he didn’t ask any questions about it. Later, Mr. Krastek wondered why.
“Weren’t you at least curious to find out what happened?” Mr. Krastek asked.
“I figured I’d find out soon enough,” Trooper Foley responded.
During the trial, there was testimony that bloody shoe prints found at the crime scene came from a pair of ASICS running shoes, between the sizes of 10 and 12. Trooper Foley ordered a pair of shoes matching that description in 2003. He testified that he often ordered the running shoes for friends, and that specific pair was bought for someone else.
When pushed, he couldn’t remember who they were for, and said that over the years he probably bought shoes for between five and seven other people.
“I know I didn’t order them for myself,” he said.
During closing arguments, defense attorney Jeffrey Monzo said that the state weaved together the case against Trooper Foley out of desperation because the man’s supervisor in the state police didn’t like him.
Further, he told the jury, investigators didn’t find any blood on his client or his belongings and that even though he owned several knives, none was ever linked to the crime.
“If Kevin Foley intended to kill John Yelenic, is he going to walk around telling people he’s going to do it?” Mr. Monzo asked. “Does that make sense to you?”
He dismissed DNA evidence offered in the trial, saying that several experts offered several different estimates on the likelihood that DNA found under Dr. Yelenic’s fingernails belonged to Trooper Foley.
Estimates for the likelihood it came from someone other than Trooper Foley ranged from 1 in 13,000 to 1 in 677 billion. Mr. Monzo called one estimate “junk science.”
But Mr. Krastek told the jury that the DNA was just one of many critical pieces of evidence tying the trooper to the crime.
He noted the shoes, the previous comments, that Trooper Foley played with knives, and that the defendant had a mark above his left eye the morning after Dr. Yelenic was killed. The trooper said he got it removing his hockey stick from his car, but Mr. Krastek disagreed.
“John Yelenic provided the most eloquent and poignant evidence in this case. He managed to reach out and scratch his assailant,” Mr. Krastek said. “Who else has all that pointing to them as a killer?”
Copyright 2009 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette