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Post a comment'Fat defense' carries no weight in slay trial
HACKENSACK, N.J. - A jury convicted a Florida man yesterday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting his defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway.
Edward Ates looked down and shook his head in court as he was found guilty of murder and weapons counts for killing Paul Duncsak, who was shot six times at his home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of New York.
Ates' "too fat to kill" defense provided an angle to the trial that attracted attention from the news media but didn't sway the jury. It reached a verdict on the second day of deliberations after a six-week trial.
Ates had argued that he didn't have the energy to accurately shoot Duncsak from a perch on the staircase at Duncsak's home in August 2006. At the time he was 62, 5 feet 8 and 285 pounds at the time of the murder.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Wayne Mello termed Ates' defense "nonsense" and credited dogged work by investigators, particularly Detective Sgt. Russ Christiana, that built a circumstantial case around cell-phone records and computer forensics.
Prosecutors presented evidence at trial to show that Ates bought books detailing how to build a gun silencer and did Internet searches on how to pick locks and to commit the perfect murder.
