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Homicide victim, 71, stabbed 43 times
 [TIMESLEADER] WILKES-BARRE PA — Joseph Monka was stabbed 43 times and then the people charged in the Edwardsville man’s death went on a spending spree, a court was told Friday.Monka, 71, was viciously beaten ‐ rendering him nearly unrecognizable in the autopsy photograph shown during the preliminary hearings for his granddaughter, Gabriella Elizabeth Long, 17, Mercedes Lin Hall, 16, Christopher Brian Cortez, 19, and Devin Malik Cunningham, 20, held before District Judge James Haggerty at the Luzerne County Courthouse. Assistant district attorneys Jarrett Ferentino and Brittany Quinn allege Cortez and Cunningham killed Monka on April 15 and the four made off with $30,000 from a safe in his basement. A state police criminal investigator testified that the four spent lavishly with that cash, buying clothes, sneakers, manicures and more. The most graphic testimony, however, concerned the brutality of Monka’s death. Forensic pathologist Dr. Gary Ross testified Monka sustained 43 stab wounds, 15 cuts and two lacerations in addition to numerous blunt injuries on his head, face, torso and legs. Ross said Monka’s jugular vein was severed that would have caused instant death, but he noted Monka also could have afrom two direct stab wounds to the heart or three stab wounds to his lungs and liver. Ross also said Monka had defensive wounds on his hands and arms.
I'm guessing, on no particular evidence, that she lived with her father because Mom was bad news or dead or otherwise absent. Then she became too much for Pop to handle, so he sent her to live with Grampaw, while he joined the foreign legion or more likely went up the river again. Trooper Shawn Cooney testified that Hall, during a second interview after her arrest, claimed she was with Long in a bedroom at the house listening to music when Cortez and Cunningham left. Sure she was. Two guys in the house, but they weren't with them, nope. That's the way teenagers visit. Hall told Cooney that Cortez and Cunningham were gone for 30 minutes to one hour before she went looking for them. "Duh... Where'd the guys go?" "Thought they went to take a leak?" "It's been a half hour." "Maybe they hadda do number two." "That'd account for the screams. Yup Yup."  Cooney testified Hall told him she knocked on Monka’s bedroom door and Cortez opened it covered in blood."Why you covered in blood, Cortez?" "Cut myself shaving.” "You shave?" Monka’s body was found in a bedroom of his 30 Arch St. residence on April 17 by Edwardsville police Det. Michael Lehman, who responded to the house for a report of an unresponsive man. Who reported it? Lehman said there was blood "everywhere" in the bedroom and a television cabinet was on Monka’s lower half of the body. "Quick, man! Hide da body!" "Here. Help me put dis Motorola Quasar thing over him!" Prosecutors suspect Monka was killed two days earlier. Trooper Edward Urban testified Long, Hall and Cortez were locked away Stick 'em up! Yer under arrest! when they emerged from a motel room at the Red Roof Inn in Plains Township on April 17, minutes after Monka’s 2016 Kia Soul was found unattended in a parking lot. Cunningham was captured April 25 at his mother’s home in Fairfax, Va. "Hi, Ma! Mind if I come visit for a few days?" "Da house is full, Devin Malik!" "Dat's okay. I can stay in da closet!" Urban testified that after Monka was killed, the four slept in the Kia at a park because no one had identification to rent a motel room. They were 16, 17, 19, and 20. Why would any of them have an ID? More likely, they didn't have a credit card among them that wasn't the old man's. Urban said Cortez on April 16 gave a friend $3,000 to get a room at the Red Roof Inn. "Why sure, Christopher Brian. I'll be happy to put a room at the Red Roof in on my credit card for you for $3,000... heh heh... Hello? Is dis da cops?... Lissen, dis is Mahmoud da Weasel!..." Shortly after Long, Hall and Cortez were arrested, Urban said store receipts and shopping bags were found in their motel room, which prompted Sherlocks to retrieve surveillance video from the Wyoming Valley Mall.  During interviews with Long and Hall, Sherlocks allegedly learned they purchased clothes and sneakers at the mall and Hall got a manicure. They discarded their old clothes in garbage cans at the mall."Huh huh! No one will ever know!" "Nope nope!". Urban said they tracked the mall’s garbage container and searched at a landfill, finding old sneakers that were placed in a box for new sneakers and clothing. "Here! Put yer blood soaked old sneakers in dis box!" "Dat box is fer new sneakers!" "Yeah! Dat's just it! Dey'll never guess!" "A significant amount of money was spent, they spent thousands," Urban said, noting Sherlocks were continuing to account for all the spending. "Cash purchases, officer? Nobody uses cash anymore... But wait! There were these four teenagers. They were covered with blood. That's how I remember them!" Friday’s hearing was nearly continued when prosecutors announced they added charges of robbery and criminal conspiracy to commit robbery against the four. "Well, yeah. They took the money out of the poor old guy's safe. Add the robbery charge to the murder charges, just in case." The added charge before the hearing caused Cortez’s attorney, David V. Lampman II, to claim prosecutors "ambushed us," with Attorney John Pike, co-defending Long with Attorney Mary Deady, saying it altered their defense strategy. "I mean, murder, yeah. We wuz expecting dat! But robbery! Wowzers! Never saw it comin'!" Lampman and Pike requested a continuance while Hall’s attorneys, Lawrence Kansky and Joann Smith, and Cunningham’s attorney, Allyson Kacmarsky, said they were ready to proceed with the hearing. "Wait a minute! Robbery's not as bad as murder!" "Yeah, it is!" "Is not! Where'd you go to law school?" Haggerty delayed the start of the hearing for one hour allowing defense lawyers to privately meet with their clients and review the added robbery charge. "Is too!" Posted by: Fred 2019-06-08 |
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