Defense hopes to air theory in Bednarek caseProposed witnesses name different killer of Cristy Ryno
June 17, 2003 08:22 AM CDT
By ROBERT THARP / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys are hoping to present two witnesses to bolster their theory that someone other than Brett Bednarek kidnapped and killed an Irving toddler whose body was found in the Trinity River in 1999.
Mr. Bednarek, 27, was charged with sexually assaulting Cristy Ryno after his DNA matched semen found on her.
In hearings outside the jury's presence Monday afternoon, two women testified that another man who lived in an Irving apartment with the child at the time of her disappearance confessed to killing her.
District Judge Mary E. Miller will rule Tuesday on whether the jury will be able to hear their testimony.
Mr. Bednarek has been indicted for capital murder in the child's death, but he is standing trial only for sexual assault. Prosecutors can try him for murder later, although that decision has not been made.
In six days of trial, prosecutors have linked DNA evidence recovered from the child's body to Mr. Bednarek. A crime analyst testified that such a link was based on 1-in-2-quadrillion odds.
Cristy was reported missing from her apartment on the morning of April 17, 1999. Four days later, her unclothed body was found floating in the Elm Fork of the Trinity.
Sherry Saunders testified that Steve Silversmith confessed to abducting the child because he was mad at the child's mother, Leticia "Tisha" Ryno, who owed him money.
He also said he was mad because no one in the apartment had given him a ride earlier that evening when he was released from the Irving jail and because the 3-year-old and her twin sister had been sleeping in his bed and had soiled it, according to Ms. Saunders.
"He started talking about how he was really upset and he wanted to scare Tisha," Ms. Saunders said.
She said Mr. Silversmith described taking the sleeping child from the apartment and driving her to a park near the Trinity. At some point the child awoke and screamed, so he put his hand over her mouth until she went limp, she said.
"He had no remorse for what he had done to that child," she said.
Ms. Saunders said that she met Ms. Ryno at a women's shelter after the child's body was found and that Ms. Ryno suspected Mr. Silversmith at the time. Ms. Ryno asked her to befriend him to see if he would divulge any information about the crime, she said.
Teena Klingler, Mr. Silversmith's stepsister, testified that Mr. Silversmith repeatedly washed and bleached a pair of stained pants in the days after the child's disappearance. Later, Mr. Silversmith drove Ms. Klingler to a wooded area near the Elm Fork and pointed out where the child was killed, she said.
Ms. Ryno's boyfriend and possibly Mr. Silversmith are expected to testify as attorneys Leigh DeMasi and James Vasilas continue presenting their defense.
Mr. Bednarek was one of hundreds questioned by police after the child's death, but police did not obtain a DNA sample from him until they received a tip from one of his relatives more than three years later.
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Allison V. Smith / DMN In testimony Monday, Leticia Ryno, mother of slain toddler Cristy Ryno, said adults were frequently in and out of her apartment. |
In testimony Monday, Leticia Ryno described a lifestyle of "partying" in which adults were frequently in and out of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, her twin daughters, Mr. Silversmith and his girlfriend. The doors in the apartment were rarely locked, she said.
Ms. Ryno said that she knew Mr. Bednarek from a mutual friend and that he had been in her apartment several times taking drugs.
"He'd come over and we'd get high – that's pretty much it," she said.
In the days after her daughter's disappearance, Ms. Ryno testified outside the jury's presence that she suspected three other adults – including her boyfriend and Mr. Silversmith – of being responsible.
An Irving investigator testified earlier in the trial that those three men were cleared because of their alibis and through DNA testing.
E-mail rtharp@dallasnews.com
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