“All roads lead to Allen Wade,” he told jurors during his two-hour closing argument in Wade’s murder trial where he is accused of the double-murders of Sarah and Susan Wolfe on February 6, 2014 in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Petulla told the jury of six men and six women, which includes four black members, that Wade knocked on the door to his next door neighbors’ home and was greeted by Susan Wolfe at 8:53 p.m. Moments later Mr. Petulla said, Wade repeatedly struck her on the head causing blood to spatter on the wall and Wade eventually got Susan into the basement while he continued beating her.
“She was beaten savagely,” Mr. Petulla told the jury in his opening argument.
Shortly after 9:50 p.m. Sarah Wolfe arrived home from working as a psychiatrist at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic where she was met by Wade, taken to the basement and shot in the back of the head, the same way he killed Susan, Mr. Petulla argued.
Wade, Mr. Petulla said, knew the layout of the house because he burglarized it on December 30, 2013 and left behind a knit cap, an allegation disputed by Wade’s public defender Lisa Middleman. Saying Wade and his then-girlfriend LaShawn Rue were behind on their rent, “knew he had a personal ATM machine living next door.” Court documents filed two weeks after the murders confirm that Rue and Wade were $1,655 behind in their rent. A final judgement for that amount was entered by a court on Feb. 27, 2014.
The video from an ATM machine was played showing a man wearing a blue shirt with a white mark on the left sleeve walk past the machine around 12:45 a.m. on Feb.7, and return a few minutes later and withdraw $600 from Sarah’s account. The man was also shielding his face.
The video and still photos taken from a surveillance camera at a nearby Sunoco gas station show Wade wearing a blue shirt with what appears to be the same white mark buying a pack of Newport cigarettes.
It was while he was walking to the gas station after he parked Sarah’s Ford Fiesta he drove from her house, that Wade shed a pair of gray sweatpants, a knit cap and a pair of socks, Mr. Petulla argued. The red jacket was never recovered.
According to court testimony DNA found on the sweatpants was quintillions times more likely to be Wade’s than another African-American male. While the county crime lab was unable to reach this conclusion, saying only that Wade could not be excluded as a contributor; Cybergenetics, a private computer lab was able to by using the lab’s data.
Dr. Mark Perlin, developer of TrueAllele, the computer program used by Cybergenetics to determine the probabilities in multiple DNA mixture cases, testified that Sarah’s DNA was found on one of the socks prosecutors say Wade threw in a trashcan near where the sweatpants were found.
Dr. Perlin also concluded that Wade’s DNA was found under Susan’s fingernails, and the odds that it belonged to another African-American male is 1 in 6 trillion.
During her closing Ms. Middleman told jurors that only five labs in the country out of 250 use TrueAllele, which doesn’t include the FBI or the Allegheny County crime lab which purchased a copy, but has no plans to use it, lab manager Sarah Bitner testified Monday.
Dr. Peralin has come under fire in this and other cases in which he used the software because of his refusal to provide access to the source code. He told jurors the code is not required to inspect or evaluate the program.
A crime lab scientist testified that hairs found on the sweatpants belonged to wade, but other unidentified hairs were also found.
“We’re the police believe us, we’re the police,” was how Ms. Middleman started her 90-minute closing argument. Ms. Middleman said investigators mishandled evidence and were sloppy in the way they processed the crime scene at the sisters’ house. “If the evidence at the scene was contaminated or mishandled it’s bad from the start,” she added.
Ms. Middleman also accused the police of focusing on Wade and ignoring other possible suspects, and were in a rush to make an arrest because the sisters were “nice victims.” “These are white women who were found in their home from a very nice family, she said, referring to Mary Wolfe, the victims’ sister, who is an Iowa state representative.
Specifically, Ms. Middleman blamed the police for not fully investigating Sarah’s boyfriend, who she described as “sketchy.” “They overlooked the most obvious suspect,” Ms. Middleman argued. She reminded the jury of testimony from Ellla Friedman one of Susan Wolfe’s coworkers at a private school, who told jurors Tuesday, that a week before the murders Susan told her “He’s not my cup of tea. He gives me the creeps and I don’t like him,” referring to the boyfriend.
Tuesday afternoon Mr. Petulla told Common Pleas Judge Edward Borkowski, who is presiding over the case, that in light of Ms. Friedman’s testimony he wanted to introduce DNA evidence that exonerated Sarah’s boyfriend, the request was denied.
Ms. Middleman reminded the jury that Ms. Rue testified that Wade had made her dinner the evening of Feb. 6, and Wade was at home sitting on the couch with her. However, Ms. Rue admitted under cross-examination she was sleeping on the couch from about 8:30 p.m. to around 11:00 p.m.
Ms. Middleman noted that Wade’s DNA was not found in the sisters’ house or in Sarah’s car, yet Wade was so careless afterwards that he supposedly left a trail of evidence behind on a public sidewalk and on top of a trashcan, referring to the clothing. “They were meant to be found, and they weren’t left by Allen Wade,” she said.
Mr. Petulla pointed out that Wade wasn’t questioned until 12 days after the murders and wasn’t charged for another two weeks after that. He also reminded jurors what a police detective said Wade told him while he was being questioned at police headquarters, “You’re not gonna find any of my DNA in there.”
In concluding her argument, Ms. Middleman asked that jurors not let emotion or sympathy get in the way of their deliberations and You don’t have to put somebody away just because it’s a homicide.”
Jurors will start deliberations Thursday morning. If convicted, Wade faces a possible death sentence.
