AUSTINTOWN Comment about defendant causes murder-case mistrial

The victim had intended to rekindle an old flame on the night she was killed.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Nichole Ripple's first impression of Christopher Anderson was that he's a nice guy who might make a good boyfriend for her best friend, Amber Zurcher.
But Zurcher quickly shot down the idea when Ripple mentioned it, Ripple testified Wednesday.
"She said, 'He's a freak. He tried to strangle his ex-girlfriend,'" Ripple said, recalling that it was Zurcher who had first introduced her to Anderson at Chipper's, an Austintown bar.
That comment led Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to declare a mistrial this morning at the request of defense attorney Ronald Yarwood.
Yarwood said the comment, which he believes was inadvertently blurted out by the witness, could have unfairly prejudiced the jury against Anderson.
Judge Evans agreed with Yarwood and said a new trial will be set at a later date with a new jury.
Accused of crime
Ripple said Zurcher's comment to her came about three years before someone strangled Zurcher in her apartment at Compass West in Austintown. Anderson is accused of being the killer.
Anderson, 35, of South Main Street, Austintown, has been on trial this week for murder.
In testimony Wednesday, Ripple said Zurcher, who was 22, called her June 2, 2002, excited that she had seen a former boyfriend in Austintown. She said Zurcher planned to go out that night and find the man.
But assistant prosecutor Jay Macejko said that when the man expressed no interest in rekindling their romance, Zurcher ended up with some friends at Chipper's.
After the bar closed, the group moved to Zurcher's nearby apartment and departed about 90 minutes later. Macejko said someone apparently returned to the apartment and strangled Zurcher, who was found dead on her living room floor.
"There he sits, ladies and gentlemen," Macejko told jurors, pointing at Anderson. "The man who killed Amber Zurcher. Right there."
Some of the evidence
He said authorities found apparent scratch marks on Anderson's arm, as if he'd been in a struggle. Anderson's DNA was found underneath Zurcher's fingernails and also was taken from a wound on her left breast.
Macejko said Anderson told police that his DNA ended up on Zurcher's breast because the two had a romantic encounter in the bathroom of her apartment during the party.
Ripple said that's not likely because Zurcher had no such interest in Anderson.
Yarwood said Anderson was at the party that night, but went home afterward and did not return to Zurcher's apartment.
He said there are no eyewitnesses who can identify Anderson as the killer, and no evidence to indicate when Anderson's DNA was transferred to the victim.
Yarwood said Zurcher's fingernails also contained DNA from her 2-year-old son and from an unidentified male. Anderson's was the only DNA found on Zurcher's breast, however, Macejko said.
Parents baby-sit
Zurcher's mother, Diane Whiteman, testified that she and her husband kept Zurcher's son that night because Zurcher had planned to go out with her ex-boyfriend. She became concerned when Zurcher did not show up the next morning to pick up the child.
Whiteman said she persuaded the apartment complex management to open Zurcher's door so she could check on her. That's when Zurcher was found lying nude on the floor.
bjackson@vindy.com