Dentist killer's guilty conviction stands
The state Superior Court has upheld the conviction of a former Pennsylvania trooper in the murder of a Blairsville dentist.
An Indiana County jury convicted Kevin J. Foley, 46, formerly of White Township, in the fatal beating and slashing of Dr. John Yelenic in his home in 2006. He is serving a mandatory life sentence at SCI-Retreat in Luzerne County near Wilkes Barre.
In a 19-page opinion, a three-member panel of the appellate court dismissed each of Foley's arguments seeking to throw out a first-degree murder conviction that ended an eight-day trial on April 13, 2009.
"It's very good news. It's terrific," Mary Ann Clark, the victim's cousin, said on Thursday.
Foley had been living with Yelenic's estranged wife, Michele Yelenic, who was going through a bitter divorce with the dentist.
"On three occasions, Foley attempted to have Dr. Yelenic investigated and arrested for child abuse, and Foley was frustrated by his lack of success," the court noted in the opinion, dated Dec. 28 and published this week.
"Foley had an opportunity to commit the crime. At the approximate time of the murder, he was driving home from a hockey game in Delmont to his home in Indiana which took him past Blairsville, where Dr. Yelenic resided," Judge Jack A. Panella wrote in the opinion.
Defense attorneys Matthew Debbis and Bruce Antkowiak argued that President Judge William Martin erred when he permitted jurors to hear evidence about bloody footprints discovered near the body.
The defense argued it "was irrelevant because the shoe prints found at the scene could not be authoritatively determined to be any particular brand, style or size of shoe."
Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek presented trial evidence linking the prints to a specific Asics brand running shoe favored by Foley.
Evidence showed the shoe size was between size 10 and 12, and Foley wore a size 10. Terry Schalow, a product manager for Asics in California, testified the print matched a specific Asics Gel Creed shoe or a knock-off.
Troopers at the Indiana station testified Foley switched to Nike shoes after the murder, noted the panel, which included Judge Jacqueline Shogun and Senior Judge Robert E. Colville.
"While the shoe-print evidence tended to support an inference that Foley committed the crime, there is no reason to believe that it improperly inflamed the jury. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the shoe-print evidence," it said.
"Dr. Yelenic was slashed by a sharp instrument, and Foley was known by his colleagues to be a 'knife guy' who habitually flicked open and shut a knife that he carried with him. When informed of Dr. Yelenic's death shortly after the discovery of the murder, Foley was unemotional, expressed no curiosity about the nature or cause of death, and only asked which law enforcement agency was in charge of the investigation.
"After the murder, Foley stopped playing with his knife," the opinion said.
Other evidence linked the trooper to the killing.
"Foley's DNA profile is consistent with DNA found under Dr. Yelenic's fingernail, and the most conservative estimate of the likelihood that someone else would possess a consistent profile was one in 13,000. On the night before the murder, Foley had no abrasion on his forehead, but on the morning following the murder he had an injury on his forehead described by three eyewitnesses as a fingernail scratch and by others as a cut that appeared to be fresh," the appellate judges wrote.
Michele Yelenic was not charged. She denied being involved or having any knowledge of the slaying, according to filings in a civil damage suit filed by Yelenic's heirs. They unsuccessfully tried to obtain his divorce after he was killed.
