The Jeffrey Plishka murder trial is expected to wrap up by the middle of next week, according to presiding Judge Robert Conway.
Jurors in the case paid a visit to the murder scene Friday morning. Tanner’s Falls in Dyberry Township is where Laura Lynne Ronning’s body was found on July 28, 1991, a day after she went missing.
Pat Gicking, Laura’s mom, says she hasn’t been back to the scene this year.
“I don’t have to. I know what it looks like. For the first five years, I went to that spot,” she said. Gicking marked the first anniversary of her daughter’s death by erecting a cross at scene, crafted by her husband John.
The defense called four witnesses to the stand on Friday, including Forensic Firearms and Tool Marking Examiner Gerald Styers, Forensic Biologist Katherine Cross and two state troopers.
Trooper Patrick Zirpoli, Criminal Investigation Unit, Troop R, Honesdale, was recalled to the stand and questioned by the defense about Ronning’s two missing rings, one of them her high school graduation ring.
Trooper Zirpoli said two rings matching the description were recorded at the time of autopsy but were lost during the investigation.
Styers testified that the bullet removed from Ronning’s head was not fired from the .22 Magnum Ithica Firearm removed from Plishka’s house, and that a cartridge casing found at the scene seven inches from a blood stain “was not fired in that gun.”
Cross, who works for NMS Labs in Willow Grove, spoke about blood spatter and DNA, testifying that two to three different male DNA strands were found beneath Ronning’s nails.
Cross-examined by District Attorney Mike Lehutsky, Cross agreed that the defendant, Plishka, could not be excluded from that DNA sample.
Since Ronning was a Waterfront Director at Camp Cayuga, Lehutsky wondered if some of the DNA found beneath Ronning’s nails might have transferred from the children under her care at the camp.
“Just touching an object would not put DNA under your fingernails,” Cross said, cells would have to be pushed or scratched beneath them.
When Lehutsky wondered if unintentionally scratching a child would push cells under someone’s fingernails, Cross said, “I would not think picking up a child would push cells under the fingernails. On the hands, yes; under the fingernails, probably not.”
An expert in serology, which includes blood spatter analysis, Cross also discussed two different scenarios concerning Ronning’s death.
