PHILADELHIA (PA)
Big Trial
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
By Ralph Cipriano
for bigtrial.net
The jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case today made the mistake of asking for too much.
First, the jury asked to see defendant Bernard Shero’s suicide note. No objections were voiced to that request by either the prosecution or the defense.
Shero tried to commit suicide in 2011 by taking sleeping pills when detectives from the district attorney’s office came to arrest him. When Shero didn’t answer the door, the cops summoned firefighters to break in, and detectives placed the groggy Catholic school teacher under arrest.
The jury also asked to see Detective Andrew Snyder’s notes. Snyder was the detective from the district attorney’s office who arrested Shero. He was also the detective in 2010 who first interviewed “Billy Doe,” the former 10-year-old altar boy who claimed he was raped by both Shero and Father Charles Engelhardt, the other defendant in the case.
Defense lawyer Burton A. Rose, representing Shero, objected, saying that Snyder’s notes focus on “one aspect of evidence,” presumably the attempted suicide.
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