Defense: Accused killer confessed to 'something he didn't do'

To prosecutors, he is an exterminator who extinguished the life of an independent woman who dedicated her life to caring for ill children, and then set her body on fire to cover up the crime.

To his attorney, he is a victim of circumstance, a laborer targeted by detectives because he was the last person to see 35-year-old Melissa Ketunuti alive, worn down during more than five hours of interrogation into confessing to a crime he did not commit.

On Wednesday, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury of six men and six women began hearing what will be several days of evidence before deciding which portrait of Jason Smith to believe.

"The place that should have been her castle, the place she felt most secure, ended up being so much worse, because the only life she could not save was her own," Assistant District Attorney Peter Lim said in his opening statement.

Lim said the evidence would include video surveillance showing Smith following Ketunuti, a pediatrician, north on 18th Street to her home on the 1700 block of Naudain Street shortly before 11 a.m. Jan. 21, 2013. About 45 minutes later, Lim said, the same cameras show Smith walking back to his truck in a hurried manner, a half-hour before Ketunuti's body was found by the man who regularly walked her dog.

The video and a log of calls from Ketunuti's cellphone quickly led detectives to Smith, whom they arrested two days later.

In his opening, defense attorney J. Michael Farrell said that the surveillance video was flawed and that detectives mistakenly focused only on Smith. The video does not show Ketunuti's rowhouse in the middle of the block, Farrell said, so it's possible that other people entered the pediatrician's home after Smith left.

As for the confession, Farrell said, "Sometimes, people confess to crimes they don't commit."

Farrell told the jury that Smith, 37, was a man of low intelligence, and had been awake for 21 hours by the time detectives began questioning him about 9:45 p.m. Jan. 23. More than five hours later, Farrell said, detectives took down his confession.

Smith, according to a statement he gave police, had been assigned to deal with a mice infestation in Ketunuti's house. He allegedly became enraged when she questioned his competence.

The phenomenon of false confessions has been researched by criminologists for years. The Innocence Project of New York has reported that of 300 people freed from prison by DNA evidence, a quarter were convicted in part by their false confessions.

Courts, however, have resisted the use of expert testimony about the phenomenon. Last May, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court decided 4-2 against allowing expert testimony about the reasons a person might give a false confession.

Farrell said that there was no physical trace evidence linking Smith to the crime and that witnesses would testify about Smith's "good character and reputation as a peaceful law-abiding individual."

The first witness to testify Wednesday was Andrew Bredensteiner, who for eight months had walked Ketunuti's dog, Pooch.

Bredensteiner, who had gone to the victim's home to take Pooch outside, told the jury of the shock of finding Ketunuti's body about 12:15 p.m.

In the basement of Ketunuti's smoke-filled three-story rowhouse, Bredensteiner said, "there was a small fire, like a campfire, in the back of the basement. Then I realized it was a person there, a person who was on fire.

"I guessed who it was," said Bredensteiner, clearing his throat. "I figured it was the woman who lived there."

Bredensteiner said that her body was charred and that she had been hog-tied face down on the floor.