A nurse testified Wednesday at Jeremy Witherell's homicide trial that she heard a woman shouting 'No! No!' minutes before the body of Witherell's wife was found on the ground beneath their Monroeville apartment in 1992. Colleen Jane Dunwoody, a nurse at UPMC Presbyterian, said she was awakened twice by loud voices late Dec. 19 or early Dec. 20 at the La Vale Apartments, and the second time she became 'increasingly aware that it wasn't a normal conversation.' Dunwoody, who lived on the seventh floor, said she heard a woman's voice scream 'No!,' then a man's voice say, 'Call 911. She's on the roof.' Dunwoody was one of several people who testified on the opening day of Jeremy Witherell's trial in the death of Michelle Witherell, 24. Prosecutors and defense attorneys said in the courtroom of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Gerard Bigley that they plan to use medical and other experts to back up their claims. The trial will resume today. Prosecutors say that Jeremy assaulted his wife with a blunt instrument, and later she plunged off the balcony of the couple's third-floor apartment. Defense attorneys are expected to argue that Michelle was drunk and that she fell off the balcony. Witherell, 30, of Cranberry Township, was charged in 1999, after the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office conducted a new investigation into the manner of Michelle's death. Witherell has since remarried and has an infant child. Michelle died Dec. 20, 1992, at Mercy Hospital, Uptown, about 13 hours after her body was found in a pool of blood beneath her balcony. Dunwoody said yesterday that she saw nothing on the garage roof after hearing the cries for 911, but then she saw Michelle and observed someone headed toward her. Later, Dunwoody said Jeremy was hysterical, cradling his wife and saying, 'Don't die, Michelle,' Dunwoody testified. As the trial got under way, Deputy District Attorney Edward Borkowski said he'll present medical testimony that fractures to Michelle's head were caused by a blow with a blunt instrument and not a fall from the balcony. Borkowski claimed it wasn't a case of a drunken woman falling off the balcony. 'There are too many injuries to have been a fall,' he said. Borkowski acknowledged that Michelle had a .195 blood-alcohol reading - nearly twice the limit at which a Pennsylvania motorist is declared intoxicated. But defense attorney George Bills, lead attorney for Witherell, said his client was charged after the victim's family conducted 'an intense, obsessive investigation,' and hired noted forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht to review the autopsy after an initial coroner's report listed the manner of death as undetermined. When Wecht was later elected coroner, a coroner's special hearing officer ruled that Michelle's death was a homicide. The Witherell case drew national news coverage when the victim's parents, Evert and Cathy Mellema of Arapahoe County, Colo., conducted their own investigation. Bills told jurors he'll present experts who concluded that Michelle's head injuries weren't caused by a blow with a blunt instrument. No blood was found in the Witherells' apartment when police allowed the distraught husband to change his clothes, apparently from cradling his wife's head, Bills said. 'They found no two-by-four, brick or cell phone that could have caused the damage to the left side of the victim's head,' he said. Witherell told police that he and his wife went to a Monroeville restaurant and drank two pitchers of beer before a woman walked by wearing a Hooters T-shirt and he made a remark that upset his wife. They argued and returned to their apartment. Witherell told detectives he ignored his wife and played solitaire while she went out on the balcony. A short time later, he noticed that she hadn't returned and went out on the balcony and saw her body on the ground, Witherell claimed. Borkowski painted a different picture of the events and called neighbors from the apartment building to testify about yelling, screaming and door-slamming coming from the apartment. He contended the Witherells had a tumultuous relationship, including on their wedding day three months earlier in Colorado, when Michelle was allegedly crying in the reception line. When asked by a friend what was wrong, Borkowski said Michelle reportedly said, 'I think I just made a mistake.' Robert Baird can be reached at (412) 391-8650.

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