Death row inmate Kevin Murphy will not receive a new trial for the 2009 murders of three family members, despite a judge’s ruling Wednesday that it was improper for him to be absent from a crime scene visit during his original 2013 trial.
Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio ruled that while Murphy should have been required to attend the site visit, the error by his defense counsel was not significant enough to have impacted the jury’s guilty verdict.
Murphy, 64, a former Loyalhanna businessman, remains on death row for the 2009 murders of his mother, sister and aunt.
In an appeal filed last year, Murphy contended his convictions on three counts of first-degree murder for the April 29, 2009, killings resulted from an inadequate defense. He claimed his former lawyers failed to properly investigate other potential suspects. As part of that appeal, Murphy also claimed his trial lawyer’s advice to forgo the crime scene visit violated state law and required a new trial.
Bilik-DeFazio ruled that Murphy’s lawyer’s error did not ultimately impact the jury’s verdict. He was previously sentenced to death by lethal injection.
“The claims … are based on speculation and conjecture (and) do not adequately establish the degree of prejudice necessary, namely that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different,” Bilik-DeFazio wrote.
The judge said Murphy’s former lawyer, former Indiana County District Attorney Robert Bell — who currently serves as a district judge — failed to adequately interpret state law and failed to ask the trial judge to instruct jurors to disregard Murphy’s absence from the site.
A juror in the case testified late last year that the panel took notice of Murphy’s absence during a bus ride back to the courthouse following the visit to the glass business and farm where prosecutors said the murders occurred.
Brian Aston, Murphy’s current lawyer, said the defense will appeal the ruling.
“We’re unsure if we have to wait until the other aspects of the appeal are handled,” Aston said.
Murphy last year filed a 1,300-page document appealing his conviction on multiple grounds, including arguments that his former defense attorneys failed to investigate and question trial witnesses about other suspects.
The appeal specifically identified two suspects Murphy claims could have been responsible. Murphy pointed to a disgraced former police officer from Lancaster County who was later convicted of a 2014 murder in Indiana County and another man alleged to have ties to organized crime. The second man was the boyfriend of a woman Murphy’s defense described as their client’s former lover.
Bilik-DeFazio set a 90-day deadline for prosecutors to respond to Murphy’s remaining claims.
Prosecutors said Murphy killed his mother, Doris Murphy, 69; sister, Kris Murphy, 43; and aunt, Edith Tietge, 81. All three women were found dead with gunshot wounds to the backs of their heads in the family’s auto glass repair shop in Loyalhanna. Authorities said Murphy and his family were at odds over his desire to have his married girlfriend move into the family’s home.
Murphy has denied involvement in the murders. During his two-week trial, he testified he was across the road feeding cows at his uncle’s farm when the women were killed.