Most of the evidence against a Harrisburg man accused of stabbing another man to death has been thrown out because a prosecutor failed to produce a medical expert in court.
Dauphin County Judge Lawrence F. Clark Jr. startled Chief Deputy District Attorney Sean M. McCormack by suppressing the bulk of the case against Martin “Man-Man” Sawyer. Sawyer is charged with fatally stabbing Tarrei “Baby” Osborne, 19, in August 2002.
The judge rebuked McCormack for failing to produce medical evidence as to whether Sawyer was under the influence of drugs when he I agreed to an interview with Harrisburg homicide investigators in August 2002. Sawyer was 17 at the time of the interview.
“You dropped the ball on this one,” the judge told the prosecutor at one point.
McCormack protested Clark’s admonitions, saying that he had an agreement with defense attorney Justin McShane not to produce a physician or nurse to testify to the level of drugs in Sawyer’s body.
McCormack is not expected to appeal the decision.
The medical evidence was available, the judge said, because Sawyer had been treated for a hand wound in the Harrisburg Hospital emergency room that night.
According to police, Osborne died of 12 to 15 stab wounds in his head and upper body. The stabbing occurred during a wordless confrontation between Sawyer and Osborne in an apartment in the 1300 block of Derry street on Aug. 27, 2002, police said.
In the statement which was thrown out, Sawyer angrily admitted to stabbing Osborne and explained to police that the two had a rocky recent history.
Sawyer told police that Osbourne, who he said he feared was out to kill him or his family, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger several times. It was apparently unloaded.
Sawyer told police that he and another man had stolen a large amount of drugs from Osbourne and that Osbourne had shot the other man.
At the time of his arrest in the stabbing of Osborne, Sawyer was awaiting trail on charges that he had robbed and assaulted a city woman and shot her in the back when she tried to escape.
Sawyer, now 18, has pleaded not guilty to charges of homocide, aggrevated assault and possession of an instrument of crime.
Sawyer took the witness stand yesterday and told Clark that he was under the influence of the drugs PCP and ecstasy when he was interviewed by Harrisburg investigators Donald Heffner and David Lau.
Heffner also testified yesterday, saying that Sawyer admitted stabbing Osborne, and said, “Yeah I killed him.”
Sawyer told Clark that a combination of the drugs and the sight of armed police offices walking in and out of the room had made him extremely paranoid and anxious, and that he told police he did not walk to talk to them because of it.
“I wanted to just get out of the room. I wanted to be by myself,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer said he was sure he had told the police he did not want to talk to them and that he wanted an attorney.
But, under cross-examination by McCormack, Sawyer seemed less positive about other aspects of the evening, such as which day he ingested the drugs and which night he had slept at his grandmother’s house.
Clark, a former state trooper, threw out the evidence on the basis of a 2002 state Supreme Court ruling which established several factors a trial judge must examine when ruling on the admissibility of a defandant’s post arrest statement.
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