Cop: Accused killer claimed he was molested
A 26-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing a fellow resident in a group home and later strangling a cell mate, came into court yesterday, shackled at his hands and feet, dressed in a bright-orange jumpsuit.
A 26-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing a fellow resident in a group home and later strangling a cell mate, came into court yesterday, shackled at his hands and feet, dressed in a bright-orange jumpsuit.
Joshua Herder, formerly of Bucks County, is accused of murdering Robert Kitchen, 68, at the Glenwood Home, a halfway house for people with mental illnesses, on Waln Street near Unity, East Frankford, on Oct. 17, 2007.
Two months later, he allegedly strangled Charles Kirkland, 47, who was his cell mate at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center on State Road.
Yesterday, police witnesses testified about the first slaying at Herder's nonjury murder trial before Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart.
Police Officer Kirk Dodd testified that he when he arrived at the halfway house in response to a radio call of a stabbing, he saw the victim on a living-room couch, and Herder in a hallway.
Herder told him "he stabbed [Kitchen] because [Kitchen] molested him," Dodd testified.
In a statement that night, Herder also allegedly admitted to homicide detectives that he had stabbed Kitchen.
Kitchen began rubbing against Herder and putting his fingers in Herder's mouth, Herder said in the statement, read yesterday by Detective Stephen Buckley.
The two then began "tussling," said Herder, who claimed that Kitchen then took out a knife, which Herder said he grabbed and used to stab Kitchen.
Public defender Marissa Bluestine suggested through her cross-examination of Buckley that Herder was mentally ill.
"He would check out and check back in" during the taking of the statement, Bluestine contended.
Buckley said that wasn't right.
When Bluestine asked Dodd whether Herder appeared to have a blank look and behaved strangely after the stabbing, Dodd said he had.
However, when asked if Dodd could tell if Herder was mentally ill, Dodd testified: "That's tough for me to answer."
The trial continues Thursday. *
