Missing evidence
prolongs hit-and-run trial

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

For 10 months, authorities had a heck of a time trying to find the driver who ran down and nearly killed a Northeast woman as she walked across a Port Richmond street.
Now, the evidence allegedly linking the suspect to the crime is nowhere to be found.
As a result, justice will have to wait a little longer for 26-year-old Normandy resident Lisa Foley, who spent six weeks in hospitals recovering from a fractured skull, brain injuries, a broken neck, facial fractures and a compound fracture of her leg following the Sept. 11, 2004, incident.
The scheduled trial for Edwin Otero, 34, of the 1800 block of Haworth St., in Frankford, did not go off as scheduled last Friday after a judge ruled in favor of a defense motion to suppress evidence.
Common Pleas Court Judge William J. Mazzola determined that a confession allegedly given by Otero to police following his July 2005 arrest was not admissible in the case. For the trial, authorities were unable to produce Otero’s handwritten statement, only a typed version.
The District Attorney’s Office is contemplating an appeal of Mazzola’s ruling and has 30 days to do so, according to spokeswoman Cathie Abookire. A status appearance has been scheduled for May 10. The DA’s Office was unwilling to comment on why the document is missing, citing the ongoing nature of the case.
Also on Friday, the court heard a defense motion regarding other physical evidence allegedly linking Otero’s vehicle to the crash.
In their initial investigation of the crime scene, police recovered a chrome-colored windshield wiper blade, smoke-tinted window trim and other evidence that they believe fell off of Otero’s car after it struck Foley and a parked car. According to a source familiar with the case, those items also are missing, too.
Defense attorney Peter C. Bowers moved last week to force the prosecution to make the physical evidence available for the defense’s inspection.
For Foley, who spent months in arduous therapy re-learning how to speak, walk and perform countless motor skills that most people take for granted, the latest developments in the case are another severe blow.
"I’ve never heard of evidence being lost in a criminal case," she said. "It makes me angry. I don’t understand how somebody could run someone down in a street and walk away."
Foley understands that something may have happened to the evidence while in police possession when an investigating officer originally assigned to the case retired and the case was reassigned.
That transition occurred prior to Otero’s arrest, although the missing evidence was not an issue at his August 2005 preliminary hearing. The prosecution’s burden of proof is much higher on the trial level than at the preliminary hearing level.
"Things just seem too strange for me," said Foley, an Archbishop Ryan High School and Albright College honors graduate, Girl Scout leader and human resources specialist.
The hit-and-run occurred outside of the Photo Club, an after-hours nightclub on the 3700 block of Frankford Ave. Foley, her younger brother John and other family and friends were on their way to the club shortly after 2 a.m.
Earlier, they had attended a birthday party for Foley’s mother Deborah at a Bridesburg catering hall. When the hall closed, the group decided to continue the festivities elsewhere. There were three designated drivers in the group, Foley said.
After arriving outside the club, they parked and began walking toward the door. Foley was first to cross the street. As she did, a northbound white sedan allegedly ran a red light and barreled into her, before sideswiping a parked car and speeding away from the scene, according to witnesses.
The impact launched Foley an estimated 20 feet into the air. She landed headfirst onto a parked car — which helped break her fall — then onto the street.
In the days after the crash, family and investigators conducted numerous interviews with the news media to publicize the case in a quest for information about the driver. Nothing surfaced.
Foley recalls seeing a tape of one television news broadcast in which police displayed the now-missing physical evidence.
The Northeast Times visited Foley again upon her return home in January 2005. That April, her case was featured in a Crime Stoppers segment on Channel 6’s Action News. Foley posted $2,500 toward a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit.
The case made local TV news again in July 2005, but by the time it aired, police were already on Otero’s trail. Recognizing the car described by witnesses, a tipster directed investigators toward Otero’s home. A relative of the defendant’s corroborated the link, a police source told the Times after the arrest.
While in custody, Otero allegedly admitted to being the driver that night, but claimed he didn’t know he had hit a pedestrian. He said he fled the scene out of fear for his own safety, the police source said.
Foley doesn’t think ignorance or panic can excuse the driver from coming forward after the fact.
"When you woke up the next morning and saw blood on your car, and then when you saw the news, you couldn’t figure it out?" she said following Otero’s arrest. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com