A ‘coward’ or legally insane? Trial begins in 2016 killing of Pine Grove Mills woman
A man accused of killing a Pine Grove Mills woman who lived alone and twice beat cancer did so intentionally because she was an “easy target,” a Pennsylvania prosecutor said Monday at a trial that will put the insanity defense to the test.
A lawyer for Christopher G. Kowalski, 35, countered by saying his client was so mentally ill he either didn’t know what he was doing or was incapable of obeying the law. Kowalski did not contest the killing.
“The evidence is going to show that not only is this man a cold-blooded killer, he is a coward,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Kelly Sekula said in her opening statement that lasted nearly 40 minutes. “The evidence is going to show you that he chose Jeannie Tuggy because she was an ‘easy target.’ Those are his words.”
Tuggy, 60, was fatally shot inside her home in January 2016. Her death went unsolved for years and became one of Centre County’s most high-profile cases of the past decade.
Tuggy, Sekula said, was an “unlikely murder victim.” She had a host of medical issues, including degenerative joint disease, asthma and diabetes. She also used a cane.
“Jean Tuggy didn’t really have any enemies that could be immediately identified,” Sekula said. “She loved living the type of lifestyle that one would think she (wouldn’t) be placed in danger.”
Kowalski, who relocated to South Carolina, was arrested in February 2021 after telling investigators he killed his former co-worker because he was “depressed, down and hopeless.” She was shot twice; once in the hip and once in the face.
More than a handful of bloody photographs were shown to the jury of eight women and four men. Prosecutors also plan to show the jury Kowalski’s hourslong interview with investigators.
Sekula, who said the interview is a “critical” piece of evidence, lauded the “excellent police work” that led to Kowalski’s arrest.
Karen Rhoads and Karen Witherite, two of Tuggy’s friends and the women who found her, were the first to testify Monday. Ferguson Township police officer Daniel Lewis and detective Jonathan Mayer also testified.
Mental health experts and the man who completed Tuggy’s autopsy are among the others scheduled to testify. It’s unclear if Kowalski plans to testify.
His lawyers plan to mount an insanity defense, a rarely used strategy that three legal experts said is difficult to use successfully. Kowalski has autism, chronic depression and grandiose delusional disorder, lawyer Thomas Egan III wrote in a notice to prosecutors.
“In a nutshell, our contention will be that Christopher Kowalski on Jan. 20, 2016, was sick. He wasn’t bad,” defense lawyer Christopher Mohney said during his opening statement. “It’s not sick and bad. He was sick, not bad.”
He later added: “Autism is like colorblindness. People that have autism see the world differently, like people that are colorblind. They see the world differently.”
Kowalski’s lawyers will have to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he was legally insane. A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would not mean Kowalski is freed; he would likely be sent to a state hospital for treatment until he was deemed safe.
Kowalski is charged with one felony count of criminal homicide. Prosecutors are seeking a conviction of first-degree murder.
The trial is scheduled to continue through Nov. 10.
This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 3:43 PM.