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WILKES-BARRE — Homicide suspect Eleazar Yisrael allegedly tried to disguise his voice when he answered a few of the multiple phone calls made to Samuel John Vacante’s phone by Vacante’s girlfriend and son on Aug. 31, according to testimony Wednesday.
Jennifer Lyn Daley was frantically calling Samuel Vacante, 52, after their phone conversation abruptly ended that day, and Samuel’s son, Brandon, received a haunting text message from his father’s phone.
Their testimony during Yisrael’s preliminary hearing on an open count of criminal homicide before District Judge Daniel O’Donnell detailed their worst fears. The hearing was held at the Luzerne County Courthouse because of Yisrael’s stated belief that he is from a sovereign nation that does not recognize laws in the United States.
Before the hearing began, county sheriff’s deputies were forced to carry Yisrael, 29, of Hazleton, from the courtroom to a detention cage in the basement. Yisrael returned to the hearing about three hours after it began, with O’Donnell warning him he would be removed if he had an outburst.
Yisrael remained quiet for the remainder of the proceedings as O’Donnell forwarded the criminal homicide charge, as well as charges of robbery, burglary, tampering with evidence and abuse of corpse, to county court.
Butler Township police, state police at Hazleton and county detectives allege Yisrael snuck inside Samuel Vacante’s residence on Coventry Road, Butler Township, and shot him in the back. The shooting occurred as Samuel Vacante and Daley were having a phone conversation.
Daley testified she always talked with Samuel Vacante at the same time every day when she believed he dropped his cell phone.
“I was asking, ‘What was that? What was going on? Are you alright?’ I assumed he fell then the call ended,” Daley said.
Daley said she repeatedly called Samuel Vacante with no immediate answer. When someone did answer, Daley said she heard water running and a muffled voice saying he hurt his chin and could not talk, before the call ended.
Repeatedly calling Samuel Vacante’s cell phone, Daley said one of her calls was answered by the same muffled voice, saying, “Hospital, stitches,” before the call terminated.
Daley said she drove to Lehigh Valley Hospital – Hazleton, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township and to Commonwealth Health Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, only to find out Samuel Vacante never appeared in any of those facilities emergency rooms.
Brandon Vacante testified he was in Philadelphia with friends when he received a text message from his father’s phone. He said the text message read, “Fed up with everything, going away for awhile, power of attorney should go to (estranged wife) Lisa.”
Brandon Vacante said the text message was a group text to 20 people and that his father would not have known how to set up the group texting feature on a cell phone.
“The way the text was written, I knew it wasn’t from my father,” Brandon Vacante testified.
Brandon Vacante called his father multiple times. When his father’s cell phone was answered, Brandon Vacante said he heard a man’s muffled voice saying he hurt his chin and could not talk.
Authorities said Yisrael was in a relationship with Samuel Vacante’s estranged wife, Lisa, that began in 2013.
Township police officer Gerald Palermo, who responded to Samuel Vacante’s residence after Lisa Vacante reported her estranged husband missing, said he noticed a thin blood line smeared on the garage floor and a pile of bleach-soaked rags hidden behind a lawn tractor. Among the rags were a blue latex glove and a .22-caliber shell casing, Palermo said.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Gary Ross testified Samuel Vacante died from a .22-caliber gunshot wound, noting the autopsy showed the bullet had severed Samuel’s spinal cord and ruptured his aorta. Photos of the autopsy were shown on a display screen in the courtroom.
Vacante’s body was found Sept. 6, wrapped in a tent in a wooded area of Penn Forrest Township in Carbon County.
Wrapped with the body was a pillow that had hole similar in size to that made by a .22-caliber bullet. Investigators suspect Yisrael used the pillow to muffle the gunshot.
Samuel Vacante’s vehicle, a 2014 Kia Cadenza, was found parked on West Eighth Street in Hazleton, about a two-minute walk to Yisrael’s residence on West 10th Street, township police officer Jason Zoshak said.
The Kia’s license plate was found hidden in the trunk in the spare tire storage area.
Yisrael’s fingerprints allegedly were found on the license plate and around the driver’s side area of the Kia, according to state police.
Yisrael remains jailed at the country correctional facility without bail.
