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Jury views Las Vegas murder photos

Glenn Puit
| Friday, May 11, 2012 4:00 a.m.
Jurors in the murder trial of Kenneth Grant, of Greensburg, got their first glimpse Thursday at the bloody crime scene stemming from the slaying of an Easton man in a Las Vegas hotel room. In one photo shown to the jury by Nevada prosecutors, slaying victim David Sygnarski's body is pictured wrapped in garbage bags, stuffed underneath a bed in the Maxim hotel in Las Vegas. In another photo, large blood stains are pictured on the carpet. Several jurors winced when looking at the photos. "There was a human form covered in garbage bags ... that was the most eye-catching thing," Las Vegas police crime scene analyst David Horn said. The gruesome details surfaced in the first day of witness testimony in Grant's trial. According to authorities, Grant and his girlfriend, Paulette Perry, a native of Seward, killed Sygnarski in the hotel room in a robbery on April 25, 2001. Authorities said the couple lured Sygnarski, 44, to the hotel room with a promise of sex or drugs, but they then killed him to get money to buy crack cocaine. Perry was convicted of first-degree murder in February. She currently is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Grant has denied the killing through his attorney, Alzora Jackson. Jackson told the jury Wednesday that Grant wasn't in the room when Sygnarski was killed. She said instead, Perry was inside the room at the time of the murder and therefore was the one who killed Sygnarski. On the witness stand yesterday, hotel maid Letrecka Butler testified she cleaned the room on April 25, but she said she did not find the body. "There was a big lump at the top of the bed," Butler said. Butler told the jury that while cleaning the room, she also noticed blood. "A big puddle stain on the floor," she said. "It was like blood. It was dry, like someone tampered with it and cleaned it up." Despite these findings, Butler did not find the corpse. Another hotel guest then checked into the room on April 25 but soon asked for another room, Nevada prosecutor David Schwartz said. "He noticed the bloodstains too," Schwartz said. The body wasn't found until the next day by another maid. Also back on the witness stand yesterday was Greensburg resident Harvey Baughman. He recounted to the jury how he allegedly was beaten and robbed by Perry and Grant along Route 136 in Hempfield Township in 2000. Prosecutors say this testimony is significant because it shows Perry and Grant engaged in a pattern of robberies involving violence. Baughman said he saw Grant in a convenience store in Greensburg on the night of the beating. At the time, he was trying to negotiate a purchase of drugs from Perry. She had none, so he went on his way. Minutes later, Perry and Grant flagged him down along Route 136. Baughman said he got out of the vehicle and was promptly attacked by Grant and Perry. "She was pulling me, trying to get my eyes. ... He was trying to hit me," Baughman said. "He was hitting me; I could feel his fists," Baughman said. Perry stole several hundred dollars out of his pocket, Baughman said. But he never sought charges in the robbery out of fear of retaliation. Under cross-examination from Jackson, Baughman acknowledged, though, that he did not fear Grant. He said instead he feared Perry. "I trusted Kenny more than I trusted Paulette," he said. "Kenny never gave me no problems."


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