Witness: Santiago confessed
to killing Officer Trench

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

A convicted killer took the stand Monday in Wilfredo Santiago’s murder trial, telling the jury that the defendant confessed to him that he killed police officer Thomas Trench.
Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega has asked the news media not to name certain civilian witnesses, including the ex-con who testified on Monday, to protect their safety.
Jury selection began on April 28, with testimony starting two days later. It’s possible the case will go to the six-man, six-woman jury by the end of the week.
Trench, who lived on the 3300 block of Ashville St. in Mayfair, was shot to death on May 28, 1985 as he sat in his 9th Police District car on 17th Street, between Brandywine and Spring Garden streets. He was 43 years old and an 11-year veteran of the department.
Santiago was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder in 1986 and sentenced to life in prison.
However, Pennsylvania Superior Court ordered a retrial in 1991 after finding that the trial judge had committed misconduct. The next year, Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that police questioned Santiago without a lawyer and the judge suppressed evidence. The inmate was freed on bail.
Later in 1992, a Common Pleas Court judge prohibited a retrial because of prosecutorial misconduct at trial. Superior Court, though, overturned that decision in 1994 and permitted a retrial.
After 14 years of legal maneuvers, the case is finally being heard in front of Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes in a ninth-floor courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center.
Vega is being assisted by colleague Bridget Kirn. Trench’s daughters, Annemarie and Carol, are among a half-dozen family members in court every day. John McNesby, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, made a courtroom appearance on Monday to show support. Santiago’s original lawyers, Bruce Franzel and Tom McGill, are still representing him, with assistance from David Rudovsky.
Santiago, 44, has been in custody since 2003, serving a 21-to-42-year sentence for an aggravated assault conviction related to a domestic disturbance on Souder Street in Castor Gardens. A short, balding man with glasses and a mustache, he wears a shirt and tie to court and takes notes at the defense table.
The prosecution theory is that Santiago was angry at the officer in car 912 for breaking up a Memorial Day neighborhood fight. The officer, Ismael Cruz, who testified earlier in the trial, later chased Santiago after noticing what he thought to be a gun hidden in his clothing.
Cruz did not catch Santiago, but he did get into a scuffle with his friends and a couple of family members. The officer, whose shift ended at midnight, recalled more than one person saying, "9-1-2, we’re going to get you."
Trench worked the overnight shift, using car 912. He was shot in the face and neck at about 2:30 a.m.
Defense attorneys note that there are no fingerprints, blood, DNA or eyewitnesses. They are arguing that prosecution witnesses have contradicted themselves and each other and that the jailhouse informants talked to authorities in hopes of getting a deal.
Monday’s witness received no such deal. He was convicted of third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime for a December 1982 murder of his ex-wife in the basement of her home on Hawthorne Street. The victim had been stabbed 40 times.
As he awaited post-verdict motions, the man spent time in Holmesburg Prison. He was attacked in a prison that he claimed was basically run by inmates. Thanks to the help of two police homicide detectives, he was eventually transferred to the Detention Center.
There, he served as a paralegal in the center’s law library and in June 1985 met a new inmate, Santiago.
The witness told Santiago that he belonged to an organization that could provide a strong, well-funded defense. He also showed off a wanted poster to make himself look like a "dangerous hombre."
But, in testimony, he said it was all "BS" to gain the inmate’s confidence. He crafted the wanted poster from a copying machine at the Police Administration Building, placing his mug shot on paperwork of another crime.
He acknowledged wanting a shorter prison term in exchange for any information he could give in the Trench murder.
According to the witness, Santiago was "PO’d" with Cruz for fighting with his relatives and saw car 912 while he was riding his bike. He carried a gun rolled up in a newspaper and came up behind the car and shot at close range.
"He thought it was Cruz in there killing time," he said.
Instead, it was Trench.
The witness gave a statement implicating Santiago to police on June 10, 1985, 13 days after the murder. He later suffered a broken jaw in an attack in jail, and believes it was related to his cooperation.
Assistant District Attorney Barbara Christie promised to help him get a bail hearing and to speak favorably on his behalf to the sentencing judge, he claimed at the time. In the end, he was sentenced to the maximum 12-1/2 to 25 years and served the full term. Now 62, he was released last December.
"She did nothing for me whatsoever," he said.
In an effort to "stick it" to Christie, the witness told the prosecutor he would deny his claims about Santiago’s involvement in the original 1986 trial.
"She put me on the stand anyway," he said.
On the stand, he renounced the statement he had given to police.
"I was getting even," he said of Christie, accusing her of "welshing" on their agreement.
McGill referred to the witness as a "jailhouse snitch" who provided information on confessions in four other cases in order to get a deal. He pointed out that the man has never been charged with perjury, even though he has admitted lying on multiple occasions.
The defense attorney suggested that the witness sought out Santiago when he learned he was in the Detention Center.
Referring to a written federal appeal of his conviction and sentence, McGill asked the witness if he was hoping to gain a retrial and earn the $25,000 reward put up by the FOP and the Philadelphia Daily News.
The man said, from the start, he wanted any reward money to go to Trench’s widow, Mary Anne, and the officer’s family. ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com