Sparks fly in busy, long day of Hoerig murder trial

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Sparks flew Thursday, a reconstructionist explained the science he used to locate Claudia Hoerig’s position while shooting at her husband, and jurors listened to a 21/2-hour interview that kept them at the courthouse after hours.

Hoerig’s aggravated-murder trial resumes this morning.

In the interview, Hoerig said the day she killed her husband, Karl, March 12, 2007, she waited outside a locked, upstairs bathroom for him to come out. When he did, she put a gun to her head and told him she was going to kill herself.

She said he told her: “That’s a good idea, but do me a favor. Go to the basement because you’re going to get blood all over my paintings,” she said.

“I got very angry,” she told detectives, and shot him as he descended the stairs. She said she didn’t remember what part of his body was hit by the first shot, but he was on the third step from the top.

Karl was found dead three days later at the bottom of the steps. He had been shot three times, twice in the back and once in the head at close range. By then, Claudia had flown back to her native Brazil.

Former Trumbull County sheriff’s detective Peter Pizzulo, who headed the investigation, testified earlier Thursday there was no blood at the top of the steps, only at the bottom, around Karl’s body.

Prosecutor Dennis Watkins told jurors Wednesday that Claudia “ambushed” Karl as he sat at the bottom of the stairs trying to put on his shoes. Watkins said prosecutors would show that the story Claudia told investigators during the long Jan. 17, 2018, interview is false.

Jan. 17, 2018, is the day she was returned to Ohio after Brazil extradited her.

Thursday, the second day of testimony, included contentious questioning of Pizzulo.

Defense attorney David Rouzzo asked Pizzulo several questions about his central role in the case and working with prosecutors and other detectives.

Then he asked whether Pizzulo told his fellow detectives that he was “stealing money from a charity” at the time of the investigation.

That prompted a swift objection from assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker. Judge Andrew Logan immediately sustained the objection.

But Rouzzo asked for sidebar discussion among the judge and attorneys that lasted about three minutes and became heated at times.

Judge Logan allowed Rouzzo to ask the question again, and Pizzulo answered that he did not realize in 2007 that his actions in running a nonprofit organization were illegal.

Pizzulo was convicted of felony grand theft in 2009 and was ordered to pay back $8,500 he stole from the Ohio Narcotics Officers Association, which he and another sheriff’s employee founded, according to Vindicator files.

The conviction ended Pizzulo’s law-enforcement career.

Pizzulo and the other officer resigned from the sheriff’s office. Pizzulo was sentenced to 90 days in the Geauga County jail.

Later Thursday, Trooper Christopher Jester of the Ohio State Highway Patrol testified about the computerized mapping he performed at the Hoerig home last May. He said he concluded Claudia was standing either on the landing at the top of the stairs or on the second stair from the bottom when she fired two shots that missed her husband and penetrated the floor near where his body was found.

The defense has conceded that Claudia fatally shot her husband, but says she is not guilty of aggravated murder.

Rouzzo raised a number of questions about the reliability of Jester’s conclusions.

Jester said he used several computer programs, 2007 photos from the crime scene and devices that allow him to create three-dimensional images of the home showing the location of Karl’s body in relation to two bullet holes made in the floor near his body.

As a highway patrol reconstructionist, he takes measurements and uses science and math at automobile crashes to advise how the accident happened. He used lasers and a steel rod, in addition to computer software and photographs to make his determinations, he said.

In her interview a year ago with sheriff’s detective Mike Yannucci and Bill Boldin of the U.S. Marshal’s Service, Claudia was asked why she tried to buy a second gun on March 10, 2007, after having already bought one that day.

“I don’t remember,” she said. “Maybe I thought it would be more efficient.”

A Warren gun-store worker testified Wednesday she almost bought a second gun from him after asking, “What would be a good choice for stopping someone?” He said she didn’t get it because she didn’t have enough money. Claudia said she bought the gun to kill herself but killed Karl instead because of what he said to her at the top of the stairs.

Prosecutors sought and received an indictment from a grand jury in 2007 charging Claudia with a type of murder that alleges premeditation and a possible prison sentence of life in prison without parole. Under Ohio law, there are lesser punishments for killing someone without premeditation.