Manor railroad track killer's quest for new trial rejected by court
A Penn Township man's claim that his attorney should have introduced evidence at his 2008 murder trial that he was too intoxicated to form a specific intent to shoot his girlfriend's lover in the back was rejected this week by a state Superior Court panel.
Jason P. Maple, 32, is serving a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole for the May 30, 2006, murder of 25-year-old William Teck of Hempfield. The appellate court panel this week rejected his request for a new trial in an 11-page opinion.
Maple was sentenced to serve a consecutive sentence of 12 to 30 years more for attempting to kill and rob Teck's friend, Patrick Altman, during the incident along the railroad tracks in Manor. Maple fired one shot at Altman but missed, according to trial testimony.
Maple, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, argued that he deserved a new trial, claiming his attorney at the initial trial, Mark Lancaster, erred by failing to call an expert witness to testify regarding Maple's alcoholism “and the impact of intoxication on cognition and the ability to form the specific intent to kill...”.
But the judges noted that Maples' claim that he suffered a memory loss during the shooting contradicts testimony at trial that he “appeared to be sober.”
“Here, the evidence showed that (Maple's) conduct on the night in question involved planning and deliberation. ... To perpetrate the attack on the victims, (Maple) recruited the assistance of several other individuals, allocated the potential spoils to induce the assistance of others, and lured the victims away from a public space and into a more secluded area where they would be vulnerable to an assault,” Judge Judith F. Olson wrote in the opinion that was joined by Judge Anne E. Lazarus and Senior Judge William H. Platt.
“Upon review, we discern no basis for relief on this issue,” Olson wrote.
At trial, District Attorney John Peck presented evidence Maple; his girlfriend, Jennifer Vinsek, and three men tracked Teck to Manor, then lured him from a diner to the railroad tracks.
Maple followed Teck and Altman, came up from behind and shot Teck once in the back as he tried to run.
Maple claimed he became enraged after Vinsek told him that Teck had threatened to rape her and ransacked her Greensburg apartment. Witnesses testified that Vinsek and Teck had become intimate in the weeks before the shooting.
“I just snapped,” Maple told jurors.
Vinsek, 35, is serving life in prison on a second-degree murder conviction.
Paul Peirce is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-2860 or ppeirce@tribweb.com
