Groves Murder Trial: Accused Will Not Testify
By Scott Johnson
LOCK HAVEN – Accused murderer Loyd Groves will not take the stand in his own defense as his trial continues in Clinton County Court. At the conclusion of the trial’s Wednesday afternoon session, and after the jury left the courtroom, Groves went before visiting/presiding Senior Judge Kenneth Brown and said he had decided of his own volition and on the advice of counsel, not to testify.
Defense-called witnesses were heard Wednesday in the Groves trial. The 69-year-old former Lock Haven area resident is charged with first and third degree murder in the 1991 killing of Katherine “Kathy” Dolan Heckel. The Clinton County Court trial is now in its second week. Groves has sat stoically and quietly throughout the proceeding until he told Judge Brown of his decision not to testify.
Wednesday afternoon’s court session began with an over a one-hour delay after lead prosecutor Daniel Dye asked to speak privately with Judge Brown and the defense team out of the courtroom without a court reporter and media present.
Afternoon defense witnesses included Det. Kyle Moore of the Pennsylvania State Police. Moore acknowledged evidence led him to believe Heckel was in Groves’ van nearly every weekday in June and early July of 1991 for sexual relations, normally behind the former Kmart store in the Clinton Plaza, Lock Haven.
Defense attorney David Lindsay then asked Moore to read from a report provided from International Paper to the prosecution regarding the personnel and medical files for Groves and Heckel. On page 10,012, a medical report showed that Heckel had cut her left index finger with a butter knife while cutting a bagel at 10 a.m. on the sixth day of an unidentifiable month in 1991. The report showed the finger was bandaged, but continued to bleed so much that it had to be re-
bandaged at 1 p.m. the same day. The report showed that the next day Heckel’s injured finger was still sore.
Lindsay then showed Moore a clarified copy of the same report the defense secured that showed the injury occurred on June 6. Lindsay noted that previous testimony indicated that an area of
blood inside Groves’ van was found just below the left arm rest to the rear driver’s side of the van, “yet you never sought a good copy of this (medical) record?” “No,” Moore replied as Lindsay wrapped up his direct questioning.
Before Moore, Chad Wolf of Grove City testified for the defense. He said that in August of 1991, when he was 12 and living in Lockport, he and his friends would go “Dumpster diving” at the Lockport Armory after the National Guard troops would return from maneuvers to see if they had thrown out anything useful.
This time, on Aug. 5, 1991, he and his friends had found a woman’s purse with a wallet inside that contained what appeared to be an identification card for Katherine Heckel, along with bills with her name on it and women’s personal items. They retrieved the items and took it back to the Kaluzny residence across the street from the Woodward Township Municipal Building and called police. The police then took the items.
“It was in the news and everyone was talking about it,” Wolf said of Heckel’s disappearance. Under cross-examination from Dye, Wolf testified he wasn’t sure if it was a current ID card.
Both sides then agreed to stipulate testimony from Gigi Kaluzny and her mother, Sandra, that they also saw these materials before turning them over to police.
Before recessing for the day, Judge Brown told the jury the last of the evidence should be presented Thursday with closing arguments to follow. Court will resume at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
Witnesses Wednesday morning included Edward Brown who worked at International Paper in Lock Haven with both Groves and Heckel. He said he found out about a week after Heckel was last seen on July 15, 1991 that she was missing.
The prosecution claims Groves killed Heckel between noon and 3 p.m. that day. Brown said he remembered talking to Groves between 1:15 and 1:45 p.m. that day because he told Groves a shipment of chemicals coming into the plant the next day had been cleared by the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets).
“I wrote a note to myself after I heard what was going on,” Brown said. According to the note that was drafted on Aug. 23, 1991 from notes on his day planner from July 15, 1991 that he gave a copy of the MSDS to Groves between 1:15 and 1:45 p.m. that day.
The original day planner, Brown said, was destroyed in a flood several years later, but the note from August remains. Brown said there was nothing in his notes that Groves was acting unusual during his visit. “If I would have seen something unusual, I probably would have (contacted police),” he said.
However, under re-direct from prosecutor Dye, Dye read a report from police that Brown told them the date could have been a mistake. Brown said that statement was taken out of context. “I wouldn’t have wrote it if I didn’t know the date,” Brown said. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have remembered the date (now) if I didn’t write it down… and that’s why I wrote it down.”
Earlier in the morning testimony, Dennis Smith, who was working at IP with Groves and Heckel in 1991, said he was going to Lock Haven University for five weeks for work-related credits and on July 15, 1991, he thought he saw Heckel going to an afternoon class at LHU on the day she went missing.
“I waved and she did not wave back,” (Editor’s note: an earlier story said she did wave back) Smith said, noting Heckel was driving a small-sized car instead of the Ford Bronco he normally sees her drive. Further, Smith testified that he was interested in buying a Colt .45 automatic handgun from Groves after Heckel became missing.
However, under cross-examination, Dye read from a police report that Smith said, “The more I think about seeing Kathy Heckel, the less sure I thought it was her,” and testified Wednesday he was not certain it was Heckel he saw that day.
Michael Ryan, another co-worker of Heckel and Groves, then testified he had seen Groves giving students tours of the plant two or three times. Ryan said the tours would often last about two hours and he never brought a pager or a radio on any of the tours. Further, he testified, he is certain he spoke to Groves over the telephone between 2 and 2:10 p.m. on July 15, 1991 about an exhaust fan in the plant that did not pass OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) standards.
Ryan said knew he spoke to Groves at that time because he looked at the clock while leaving his office to hang schedules for a paper machine plant that was to be shut down the next day. Upon cross-examination, Ryan said he never gave this information to state police until last night. “I provided the information to Agent Kyle Moon last night and that my recollection is 180 degrees from what other people think,” he said.
The final witness to take the stand Wednesday morning was retired state police detective Miles Housknecht, who testified Corey Motter, who lived across the street from the Groves’ family in 1991 told him he saw a dark stain in the van on the floor between the first and second row of seats on July 12, 1991, three days before Heckel’s disappearance. Further he testified to a police report on Aug. 5, 1991 that he looked at photographs of items John Heckel threw away, but that material was never collected as evidence. He also testified the state police took possession of Groves’ van on July 18, 1991 and did not return it until Feb. 18, 1993.
