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Striking photo is focus at nonjury trial in 'Kensington Strangler' case

Courtroom spectators did not see the police photos of Nicole Piacentini's body. With no jury - just a Philadelphia judge hearing the trial of the accused "Kensington Strangler" - prosecutors spared the families of Piacentini and two other victims.

Courtroom spectators did not see the police photos of Nicole Piacentini's body.

With no jury - just a Philadelphia judge hearing the trial of the accused "Kensington Strangler" - prosecutors spared the families of Piacentini and two other victims.

The photos weren't needed. The photo of the scene after Piacentini's body had been removed said everything about her sad last hours.

There, projected on a screen, was a stone stoop leading to the rear entrance of an abandoned rowhouse at 1907 E. Cumberland St.

On the stoop were Piacentini's jeans and low-top black sneakers. Inside the open back door, atop an empty plastic bucket in a shed overflowing with debris, was her ladybug purse. Almost lost among the trash on the floor were ID cards and other parts of Piacentini's life: a drug-rehab brochure and a phone message slip with the handwritten note, "Test is negative."

A month after Piacentini was killed on Nov. 13, 2010, the lot behind the vacant house would be partially cleaned and Piacentini's high school photo would be the centerpiece of a makeshift memorial.

But on Tuesday, the photo depicting the squalor in which she died silenced the courtroom.

Throughout the morning, one after another, nine police witnesses described for Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart the discoveries of the bodies of Piacentini, 35; Elaine Goldberg, 21: and Casey Mahoney, 27 - all allegedly strangled during sex by Antonio Rodriguez.

Assistant District Attorneys Carlos Vega and Bridget Kirn finished most of their case against Rodriguez after Minehart denied a defense motion to throw out three brutally graphic statements Rodriguez gave detectives after his arrest last year.

Minehart ruled Tuesday that Rodriguez, 23, had been legitimately arrested and detained by police Jan. 17, 2011, based on two outstanding bench warrants for violating his probation in earlier drug cases. There was also a match between Rodriguez's DNA sample in a national criminal database and DNA left by the killer on the bodies of the three women.

Minehart also ruled that Rodriguez had been properly informed about his constitutional rights against self-incrimination and about having a lawyer present before he made statements implicating himself in the deaths of Goldberg, Piacentini, and Mahoney.

All three women had histories of drug problems, said police, and all three had apparently turned to prostitution to pay for their addictions.

On Monday, detectives read aloud all three statements in which Rodriguez said he met the three women on the Kensington streets, propositioned them, and strangled them during sex.

At times, Rodriguez tried to shade his culpability. He said that Goldberg asked him to choke her to heighten the sexual excitement and that it went too far. But he also said that when he began choking Piacentini, she resisted until falling unconscious.

Rodriguez also told detectives he had sex with the victims several times after they were dead. All three, detectives testified, were naked from the waist down and were found on their knees, face down, buttocks raised.

In one statement, Rodriguez said he wasn't always sure the women were dead when he left them.

"I thought it might be possible that she might be dead," Rodriguez said, referring to Goldberg, "but I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to hang around to find out."

At another point, detectives asked Rodriguez why he did not surrender after friends told him police visited his parents' house looking for him.

"Because I knew I strangled those women," Rodriguez replied.

Vega told Minehart he expected to complete his evidence when the trial resumed Thursday, after a day off because of scheduling problems involving witnesses from the city Medical Examiner's Office. With only the judge hearing the case, prosecutors and defense attorney William L. Bowe moved quickly through the prosecution witnesses.

Rodriguez agreed to be tried without a jury in a deal with the District Attorney's Office to avoid the possibility of a death penalty if he were found guilty.

It was unclear what defense Bowe might present or whether Rodriguez would testify.

On Tuesday, Rodriguez seemed to ignore the testimony and was focused on poring over legal documents involving his case.

Only when he returned to the courtroom after a recess near the end of Tuesday's session was he scowling and appeared angry.

"Having a bad day?" murmured one victim's relatives.