Pittsburgh homicide detective Wade Sarver was back on the stand Monday explaining to the jury how he had taken it upon himself to drive around the East Liberty area where police found the clothing they say belongs to Wade, looking for the man seen in the Sunoco video.
As he drove by Wade’s house at 703 Chislett Street he observed a uniformed police officer speaking to Wade on his porch. After Wade had gone back inside Detective Sarver testified that he and the officer knocked on Wade’s door and Wade invited him.
“Mr. Wade immediately started chain smoking cigarettes as I started to question him,” Sarver testified. Comparing Wade to the photograph Detective Sarver told the jury, “His facial features, his beard all matched up exactly.”
Detective Sarver also testified that he saw a white pair of tennis shoes that resembled the ones police say Wade is wearing the video, however, he was unable to definitively say if they were the actual tennis shoes. Prosecutors say the tennis shoes were gone by the time police searched Wade’s house on a later date.
Detective Sarver said he did not know Wade, and he had not been directed to contact him when asked by Public Defender Lisa Middleman if he knew Wade’s name, his date of birth, or if a detective from the homicide squad directed he question Wade.
A Port Authority detective testified he turned over video surveillance taken from two Port Authority of Allegheny County buses that Susan Wolfe rode to go home after working at the Hilel Academy on February 6, 2014.
Jurors watched two videos that show Ms. Wolfe boarding a 61C that took her to Downtown Pittsburgh. At 7:04 p.m., Ms. Wolfe is seen on a video boarding a 71A Negley at 7:04 p.m. and exiting a short distance from the house she shared with her sister Sarah Wolfe at 7:18 p.m.
Public Defender Lisa Middleman had the detective show the jury additional footage from the 71A Negley bus showing a man police identified as Alan Washington leaving his seat at 7:04 p.m. and taking a seat next to Ms. Wolfe. She then moves from her seat to one further back on the bus.
A camera mounted above the door of the bus shows Ms. Wolfe following the Mr. Washington off the bus.
Pittsburgh police detective John Hamilton testified to the jury that Mr. Washington voluntarily submitted a DNA sample to police before Ms. Middleman was able to object to this line of questioning, which Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski who is presiding over the trial sustained.
Homicide detective Hale Bolin testified that after a photograph was distributed to the media on Feb. 7, 2014, Mr. Washington contacted police and voluntarily provided them with a sample of his DNA. “He was very cooperative,” detective Bolin told the jury.
The jury also heard from Pittsburgh Police Officer Leroy Shock and Detective Yolanda Roberts both from the Mobile Crime Unit explain how they responded to a burglary at the Wolfe’s house on December 30, 2013. A man, police say is Allen Wade stole two televisions and two cable boxes and left behind a blue wool cap, which was shown to the jury.
Assistant District Attorney William Petulla told the jury in his opening that Wade’s DNA was found in the hat. The person who broke into the Wolfe’s home had carefully pried a piece of plexiglas from a bathroom window to gain entry. Wade, however, has not been charged in that case.
Lead homicide detective Harry Lutton faced some tough cross-examination from Ms. Middleman Monday afternoon about failing to follow-up on some leads that Ms. Middleman says point away from Wade being the actor.
Detective Lutton testified that he did not investigate the electrician who had been at the Wolfes’ house the day before doing repairs; didn’t research the criminal history of neighbors; and did not ask Sarah Wolfe’s boyfriend, Matthew Buchholz, to turn over receipts of the bar and restaurant he claimed to be at during the time the sisters were killed in their basement.
Last week, a Pittsburgh homicide detective testified that he interviewed Mr. Buchholz and believed he was being truthful when he told police where he was at the evening of the murder.
Prosecutors maintain that the distinctive white tennis shoes Wade is seen wearing, video evidence, bank records and DNA all link Wade to the double-murders.
A firearms examiner with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office testified Monday afternoon that both women were shot with a .38/.357 caliber bullet. He also said that because the bullets were heavily deformed he could not say if they were fired from the same gun. He did tell jurors that he believed the bullets were fired from a revolver that had some similar general characteristics.
On the day Wade was arrested he told reporters that he “is being set-up” and police have focused on him because “I have a criminal background.”
Wade said nothing when reporters asked if he knew the Wolfe sisters or had ever been in their home.
According to media reports and online court records Wade has an extensive criminal past for robbery and theft related crimes. He served six years in prison after pleading guilty in 2003 to a 2002 armed robbery of a Pittsburgh area bank, and was paroled in 2009.
He also pleaded guilty in 2003 to intimidating a witness. and simple assault, court records show.
The trial is expected to last two more weeks.
