TOXICOLOGIST SAYS EVIDENCE WAS DESTROYED

Author: MATT GRYTA - News Staff Reporter

The strange fibrous material found in the stomach of Jessica Vitale-Elgie's son during his autopsy and all other physical evidence was destroyed after prosecutors ignored a written request from the Erie County medical examiner's office, the judge at her trial learned Wednesday.

Robert J. Osiewicz, chief toxicologist for the medical examiner's office, told State Supreme Court Justice Joseph S. Forma that he had what appeared to be an internal cover of a detergent bottle cap and other evidence destroyed weeks after prosecutors ignored his letter of Nov. 14, 2000.

Vitale-Elgie, 39, a special-education teacher for the Buffalo Public Schools, is standing trial on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in the death of her 5-year-old adopted son about 10 hours after he ingested liquid laundry detergent Aug. 31, 2000.

Osiewicz told the judge that tests at his office and the FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C., failed to find any trace of laundry detergent in the boy.

Amid objections to his scientific qualifications from defense attorneys, Osiewicz, who has a doctorate in chemistry, suggested that the 10-hour time lag between when the boy allegedly ingested the detergent and his death accounted for that lack of evidence.

The Sept. 1, 2000, autopsy on Casey "C.J." Elgie showed him to have in his stomach a flat, fibrous material that appeared to be a portion of the internal cover of a plastic bottle cap, Osiewicz testified.

The cap top was "not something we normally find in gastric (stomach) contents" during an autopsy, Osiewicz said. "Obviously we were surprised to see it," he added.

When the judge asked him where it is now, the county scientist told him that "it has been disposed of" because the district attorney's office never responded to his letter about what physical evidence they wanted him to save.

Vitale-Elgie was indicted about 18 months after the death.

Also Wednesday, Forma heard conflicting testimony from two acquaintances of Vitale-Elgie about the circumstances under which Casey ingested the detergent.

Dr. Wayne Zimmer, a Pennsylvania ear, nose and throat specialist who is a longtime friend of Vitale-Elgie and her now-estranged husband, William, told the judge that after Casey's funeral, Vitale-Elgie told him that the boy drank "cupfuls" of the laundry detergent she had put in a bucket on her rear patio to pre-soak laundry, Zimmer testified.

At the Elgies' Williamsville home after the funeral, the mother said Casey would frequently hoard food and seemed to "eat anything," Zimmer testified.

Monday, the judge was told by Amherst Police Detective Edward Monan that Vitale-Elgie told police days after the boy's death that he had apparently ingested laundry detergent through a sponge she found in his mouth on the patio.

Wednesday, Lori McGuire of Williamsville, who carpooled her children with Vitale-Elgies', initially told the judge that at Casey's wake, Vitale-Elgie told her that on the day he died, Casey threw up for about an hour and would not eat lunch "because his stomach hurt."

When McGuire was confronted by defense attorneys Michael S. Taheri and Peter J. Todoro Jr. with the transcript of what she told the grand jury two years ago, she agreed she had said Vitale-Elgie told her that Casey seemed fine hours after drinking the detergent.

e-mail: mgryta@buffnews.com