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WILKES-BARRE — Within hours of Jason Canty’s death from a gunshot wound Monday morning, city police arrested Khalil Brathwaite and charged the 19-year-old with criminal homicide.
Meanwhile, investigations into the shooting deaths of two other city men shot to death in April and May still have not produced suspects, planting the names Peter Bielecki Jr. and Donald Bachman, both 49, on the city’s list of unsolved homicides at least for the time being.
But don’t label their cases cold.
“We don’t like to call them cold cases,” city police Chief Robert Hughes said Thursday. “It’s very hard to classify homicides. They all have a life of their own.”
When a case is solved, it’s because physical evidence and witness statements came together to incriminate a suspect. If that happens quickly, the case can be solved quickly, he said.
But when evidence is scarce and witnesses either won’t talk or don’t exist, an investigation takes more time.
“I think the biggest obstacle to these investigations is whether or not you’re getting cooperation,” Hughes said.
Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis agreed, and in an interview Wednesday lamented an unwillingness to testify or speak with police.
Neither she nor Hughes would comment on specific cases, but Salavantis recalled at least one instance in which groups of people had gathered to observe the spectacle of a homicide investigation in their neighborhood.
“Not one person saw a thing,” she said.
‘Hitting the streets’
Through Salavantis’s office, county detectives become involved with homicide investigations from their outset, building cases and assisting state and local police and detectives.
“In a case like that we’re just hitting the streets,” Hughes said.
Detectives confer with informants as patrol officers ask questions of their own, Hughes said.
Suspects in unrelated crimes might try to trade information for lesser charges, and some of that information is good while some information proves worthless.
Hughes said though he might wish police investigations were more like those seen on television — complete with suspect DNA and smoking guns at every crime scene — real life all too often is not that way.
Sometimes every lead goes nowhere. Sometimes investigators just have to wait.
“It comes down to catching a break sometimes,” said state Trooper Steve Polishan.
State police often assume leading roles in homicide investigations in municipalities without their own detectives.
Polishan, an investigator with the state police, investigates both new homicides and, as the Criminal Investigative Assessment trooper for the Wyoming barracks, cold cases.
Investigations continue past arrests
The trooper also declined comment on specific cases, but said he is constantly rereading case files and reviewing photographs and evidence from unsolved cases, combing them for leads previous investigators may have missed.
Everyone case is different, he said, but every one possesses two similarities: a body and an actor. A lack of one or the other can stonewall an investigation.
When ultimately an arrest is made in one of his cases, the trooper’s job is far from over.
If the suspect is willing to talk with investigators and does not invoke his or her right to legal representation first, Polishan conducts an interview, during which he says he tries to remain open minded.
“You can’t go in there yelling and screaming at someone. No one’s going to talk about anything,” he said.
If he comes away from an interview with a confession, prosecutors may then have enough to charge the suspect with homicide, but the weight of the suspect’s statement can vary at trial as it faces challenges and can be thrown out if a judge so decides.
Polishan later is tasked with testifying to the details of his investigations in hearings and at trial.
As new information can and does emerge as late even as the time of trial, he said investigations are ongoing until they go to court. After a trial concludes, he also shares responsibility for maintaining evidence as appeals work their way through the higher court systems.
But in some cases, Polishan said, investigators may know who perpetrated a killing, but don’t have the evidence to charge the crime.
“Knowing what happened and being able to meet the burden of a charge are two different things,” Polishan said.
To ensure investigators know when they’ve met that burden, one or more assistant district attorneys are assigned to homicide cases very early on, often visiting scenes in the very early stages of an investigation.
“When we charge, we charge knowing we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.
Building cases can take time
In some cases, like the January stabbing death of 53-year-old city man Bryan Hogan, several months can pass before charges are filed.
Police did not charge suspect Matthew Vantine, 28, in the killing for nearly four months.
And yet in other cases, such as the October 2013 fatal shooting of Michael “DJ Mo” Onley, charges can take even longer despite the best efforts of investigators.
No arrest has yet been made in Onley’s case, but Salavantis says detectives are working constantly to get to the bottom of the slaying, as well as other unsolved killings in the county.
She said not one unsolved murder from her time in office has been shelved or is considered cold.
