Lawyer tries to discredit rape-murder confession

An attorney for a Burlington County man facing murder and rape charges sought to discredit his client's videotaped confession yesterday, telling a jury that Christopher Kornberger was an "emotionally unstable" person who told authorities what he thought they wanted to hear.

In his closing arguments in Mount Holly, defense lawyer Timothy Reilly said Kornberger's admissions were too close to news reports and included details investigators dropped into leading questions. He also raised questions about the measures authorities took in 2004 to solicit the confession from the then-19-year-old, saying they isolated him from his family members and a lawyer.

But First Assistant Prosecutor Jim Ronca argued that other evidence supported Kornberger's confession, in which Kornberger said he "went ballistic" as he stabbed one woman 16 times and raped her. His confession was too tearful and deeply emotional to coax or fake, Ronca said.

"Nobody planted those thoughts in his head," Ronca told the jury. "Nobody."

The jury will begin deliberations today on the charges against Kornberger in the May 2003 rape and killing of Krista DiFrancesco, a 24-year-old mother of an infant, and the assault and attempted sexual assault three months later of jogger Elisabeth Loetzner-Jung.

The three-week trial, held in the Burlington County

Superior Court before Judge Thomas Smith Jr., started with a twist.

Kornberger surprised prosecutors by pleading guilty last month to the attempted murder and sexual assault of a third woman, Nancy "Kim" Clark, 49, in November 2003, delaying the start of the trial.

Last week, renowned DNA analysis expert Robert Shaler testified for the prosecution that a DNA sample taken of semen found in DiFrancesco's body was definitively linked to Kornberger. He was brought in by the prosecution to vouch for the evidence after an employee at the New Orleans laboratory where it was sent had contaminated the sample with unsterilized surgical scissors.

The defense took aim during yesterday's closing arguments at problems with the sample, saying Shaler - who has identified DNA of World Trade Center victims in the 9/11 attacks - testified he differed with experts on standards for acceptability of DNA. Reilly, the defense attorney, said a limited sample was used in the test.

The accused man, who last May started an 18-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting a fourth woman, sat rapt throughout the 21/2 hours of arguments, his parents in the first bench behind him. Kornberger looks younger than he is: He is pale and has a boyish face; at 5 feet, 10 inches, he weighs just 145 pounds.

Authorities unearthed through a May 2004 search warrant rap lyrics he wrote about how raping and killing women "would give me pleasure," which Reilly yesterday used as an example of Kornberger's state as emotionally troubled - but not guilty.

Ronca compared a lyric

Kornberger wrote about wanting to slice someone "like a cantaloupe" to the manner in which DiFrancesco was slashed down her face and from ear to ear - as though it were in quarters, the assistant prosecutor told the jury.

"I deserve to die," he said in the videotaped confession that played at the trial. "I can't imagine me doing this."

When authorities asked if he would commit such a crime again, Kornberger said: "I'd like to believe I wouldn't, but the truth is, I don't know."

He told authorities he was high on drugs at the time of the attack.

Ronca questioned Reilly's claim that Kornberger was guided by news reports, saying the prosecutor's office controlled the information issued to the media.

DiFrancesco was killed in her front yard after she returned from a late night out with friends; a neighbor found her in the bushes the following morning.

Months later, Loetzner-Jung was jogging when Kornberger struck her with his car; the woman jumped over his hood and bounced off. A neighbor called police, and authorities first handled the episode as a traffic incident. Loetzner-Jung, who testified at the trial, said she suffered permanent injuries, though the defense yesterday questioned the seriousness of them.

Authorities found a cigarette butt with Kornberger's DNA deposited at the scene of Clark's stabbing, which led them to connect the DiFrancesco and Loetzner-Jung cases that had occurred months earlier.