The trial of Jonathan Nyce is scheduled to begin in March. He has been indicted on charges of first-degree murder and fourth-degree evidence tampering.
By John Tredrea
State Superior Court Judge Bill Mathesius on Monday denied a defense motion to suppress evidence against accused wife-killer Jonathan Nyce.
Robin Lord, Mr. Nyce’s attorney, has claimed that evidence found by police in the Nyce home should be suppressed because the police did not have sufficient reason for forcing Mr. Nyce to leave his house before obtaining a warrant.
Ms. Lord has said that police knowledge that Ms. Nyce was having an affair with a landscaper who had worked at the Nyce home and the fact that her corpse was found in Jacobs Creek about a mile from the Nyce home were not justifiable reasons for making Mr. Nyce leave his residence before the warrant was obtained.
Mr. Nyce was forced out of his house at 9:06 p.m. Jan. 16, about 12 hours after Ms. Nyce’s body was found. The warrant to search the house was obtained at 10:29 a.m. Jan. 17, the next day. The defense attorney also said police stepped out of bounds in their use of a search warrant by temporarily calling off the search of the house Jan. 18 and returning two days later.
In a 17-page ruling, the judge differed with Ms. Lord on both aspects of her motion to suppress the evidence gathered during the search of the Nyce house on Keithwood Court in Hopewell Township.
Among the evidence found in the house, prosecutors say, were bloody towels, blood stains on the garage floor and chopped-up shoe soles that, when put back together, matched footprints in the snow near the SUV in which Ms. Nyce was found dead by PSE&G workers the morning of Jan. 16.
The judge said evidence found before the house was entered gave police sufficient probable cause to force Mr. Nyce to leave his house and search it before getting the warrant. The judge noted that police were confident that Ms. Nyce’s wounds had not been caused by an automobile accident, which the prosecution says Mr. Nyce faked in an effort to get away with murdering his cheating wife.
In addition, the judge said, scratches on Mr. Nyce’s hands and footprints in the snow near the SUV gave the police sufficient probable cause to force Mr. Nyce from his house and search it.
The search was led by state police Detective Sgt. Jeffrey Kronenfeld, who testified last month that, in his view, the suspicious nature of Ms. Nyce’s death, the footprints in the snow and the scratches on Mr. Nyce’s hands were more than enough evidence to justify police fears that Mr. Nyce would try to destroy evidence if allowed to remain in his home.
"The course of action taken by the police was reasonable and lawful," the judge wrote. "In view of the factors enunciated by Detective Sgt. Kronenfeld to support probable cause and viewing them under the totality of the circumstances, this court finds that authorities had the requisite probable cause to seize the house in anticipation of the search warrant. As such, the defendant’s assertions fail and the motion to suppress is denied on those grounds."
The judge also had no problem with the fact that after searching the Nyce home the night of Jan. 16 and all of the next day, the police suspended the search on Jan. 18 and did not return until Jan. 20. He said this course of action was reasonable because the police were searching the area outside the home. Among the items they were looking for was a knife Mr. Nyce said his wife had pulled on him during a struggle in the family garage. The knife was never found, the prosecution says, adding that when the outdoor search proved fruitless, the police decided to go back inside the Nyce home.
The judge wrote: "The large residence had not been completely searched prior" to the police re-entering it on Jan. 20. He said that, after re-entering the house on the 20th, the police focused their search on the basement and part of the first floor. It was during this phase of the investigation that they found the chopped-up shoe soles. "The continuation of the search on Jan. 20 was not an overly intrusive method of locating the undiscovered evidence, in this case pieces of the footwear concealed about the basement," Judge Mathesius wrote.
The trial of Mr. Nyce, 54, is scheduled to begin in March. He has been indicted on charges of first-degree murder and fourth-degree evidence tampering. The prosecution says he beat his 34-year-old wife to death in a jealous rage the night of Jan. 16, when she was returning home after a Route 1 motel room tryst with her lover of one year.
Ms. Lord says Ms. Nyce died as a result of a fall during the struggle. The prosecution, which says Mr. Nyce repeatedly slammed his wife’s head face-down onto the concrete garage floor, says her three massive head wounds are not consistent with an accidental fall.