Posted on 06/24/2009 4:56:07 AM PDT by buzzyboop
Screaming and covered in blood, Demi Cuccia ran from her Monroeville home to the arms of neighbor Gayle Slomer.
"I held my hand on her chest, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of her body. I cradled her and talked to her. I said, 'Stay with me, Demi. Stay with me,' " Slomer told an Allegheny County jury Tuesday. "She lifted her head, she must have seen John coming out. She screamed at him, 'Get away from me. I hate you. Get away from me. I hate you."
She was running from John Mullarkey, her on-again, off-again boyfriend whose lawyer explained to jurors that acne medication was partly to blame for the 2007 slaying.
"I'm not standing here saying that this medicine, that and that alone, excuses him of responsibility," defense attorney Robert Stewart said. "You have to look at the surrounding history of these two.
"What you have is an unfortunate combination of factors, a perfect storm, of what led to the tragic incident."
Stewart said Mullarkey, 20, experienced mood swings and depression from the drug Accutane before killing Cuccia, 16, a cheerleader at Gateway High School.
Deputy District Attorney Mark V. Tranquilli disputed the idea that a "pimple pill" was partly to blame. He told the jury of seven men and five women that Mullarkey stabbed Cuccia 16 times on Aug. 15, 2007, and then slashed his throat.
"From John Mullarkey's perspective, this case is about the redirection of blame -- from him, the man who wielded the knife, to a faceless prescription drug that cures pimples," Tranquilli said. "This is about a disgruntled boyfriend who was getting ready to get ditched."
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
My Brother was the exact same way.
He blew his head off in August of 2006.
Post of the day.
WIN!
The boy has become two years older since the murder. The girl was 16 when the crime occurred. She quit aging once she died.
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