BATAVIA, NY -- The testimony of Scott Doll's former corrections' department coworker was called into question this afternoon in his murder trial in Genesee County Court.
Teresa Zelaszkiewicz is a retired corrections officer who worked in the special-needs unit for at-risk offenders at the Wendy Correctional Facility.
She said she met Doll there when he applied to a job posting for that unit and was friendly with him for three years before she retired, and remains friends with him.
She testified that in the early morning hours of Feb. 17, 2009, she was asleep at home. A text message from Doll's girlfriend awakened her. After getting up and driving to the couple's house in Corfu, the two women decided they would go to the Genesee County Sheriff's Office.
Around 3:30 a.m. Feb. 17, following the murder on Feb. 16, the former coworker went to the facility and was greeted by Det. Kris Kautz. She asked to speak with Doll and was denied, she asked to meet with him a second time "out of professional courtesy" and was allowed to do so.
Zelaszkiewicz, with short-cropped, highlightened brown hair, wearing glasses, tan pants and a plaid jacket, testified that Kautz told her she could meet with Doll, but Kautz would be present.
Kautz earlier testified that that he took notes about the conversation between Doll and Zelaszkiewicz. But the witness today denied Kautz took any notes whatsoever. She told District Attorney Lawrence Friedman that Kautz did not in fact have a large yellow legal pad and used neither pen nor pencil to takes notes. Also, he had no tape-recording device.
It is hard to determine whom, if anyone, she helped by taking the stand. She was the second witness called by the defense team, but she seemed incapable of recalling facts that she testified to only minutes previously.
The pre-trial testimony she provided to attorneys was gone over. While in the holding cell with Doll, she found him shackled to the floor, sitting on a bench, equi-distant from herself and Kautz. She asked him "If his head's OK, and if she needed to call someone for him," she told Friedman.
She said Doll replied that his head was OK and he didn't want her to call anyone. Yet they discussed getting legal help and she said he told her that preferred to get a public defender. She said he told her, basically, why pay for an expensive attorney when a public defender can do the same job?
She asked if this was the way he wanted to go and he said he was not sure, adding "Look what happened to Sing (or Singh)."
She asked him if a deer were involved, he said no.
But she did not recall asking him "Please tell me there's no dead body!" which was a statement offered by Kautz.
"I asked him if there was someone else involved and he said 'I can't say...I was there but I didn't do it.'"
The relevance of notes she claimed she wrote came into play. She testified that she wrote down her recollection of the Sheriff's Office conversation with Doll in the days following the meeting on 5-by-7 inch "sticky" note cards.
But she was unclear as to whether the notes she took included her questions, his answers, or both, or whether all the converation was included, or what parts, if any, were left in and why.
The judge, outside the presence of the jury, berated the witness for clearly telling jurors she took notes about her converstation with Doll at the Sheriff's station, but later saying she has no idea where the notes are and whether they could be produced.
Noonan asked her if the case were recessed so she, accompanied by a deputy, could sort through her household goods, if there was a likelihood of finding the note cards.
She said, no, she had done so much remodeling it is doubtful she would find the index cards.
The witness said she talked with Doll's defense team on the phone at times, but she hadn't met them in person until Friday. She never informed the attorneys of the alledged notes, which only came to light on the witness stand.
