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Witnesses testify about abduction and torture

Saturday, April 20, 2002

By Jonathan D. Silver, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Correction/Clarification: (Published April 22, 2002) The body of murder victim Andrew Jones was recovered from the Ohio River April 12. A story Saturday had an incorrect date.

There were three of them in the pickup as it cleaved through the darkness along Route 22 last month. Matt Henkel was behind the wheel, Craig Elias sat next to him. And in the truck's bed, stuffed into garbage bags, lay the corpse of Andrew Jones.

	Jared Lischner, left, and Craig Elias, right, smile with each other during a break early in yesterday's preliminary hearing in connection with the kidnapping and killing of Andrew Jones, 19, of Mount Washington. Lischner, Elias and Jared Henkel were ordered held for trial on numerous charges including homicide. (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette)

As they passed near Burgettstown, Henkel testified yesterday, he posed a question to his then-friend Elias.

"I said, 'Did Andy say anything when you were killing him?' " Henkel told the court during a preliminary hearing into Jones' slaying. "Craig said Andy said at that point, 'Craig, you're killing me' and [Elias] said 'I know.' "

Based in part on that testimony, Elias, Jared Lischner and Jared Henkel, a trio of accused co-conspirators in the March 22 kidnapping and death of Jones, were all held for trial on numerous charges including homicide after a hearing that saw brother testify against brother.

Matt Henkel, 23, the prosecution's star witness in the case against the three Mt. Lebanon natives, is Jared Henkel's older brother.

Police said Jones, 19, of Ridgemont, disappeared March 22 after he was summoned to an unfurnished rowhouse on Mount Washington to discuss $5,000 that had been stolen from wall safes in the rowhouse.

Anthony Brownlee, a friend who accompanied Jones to the home, testified that the two were bound, held and interrogated for hours about the theft. Brownlee said he was released and was the last person to testify to seeing Jones alive.

The nine-hour hearing moved along in fits and starts, owing mainly to legalistic fencing by the three defense attorneys with Assistant District Attorney Thomas Merrick.

Throughout the hearing, the 22-year-old Elias smiled and whispered to Lischner, 20, from their seats behind their attorneys. At one point, Lischner offered Elias and his lawyer, Patrick Thomassey, candy. Occasionally the two suspects joined in a laugh with Jared Henkel. Lischner snorted loudly when Matt Henkel said, "I care about my brother" in response to a question while on the witness stand.

In the back of the courtroom, the Henkels' father, Bruce, and Lischner's father, Charles, sat separately.

Also in attendance were Andrew Jones' mother, Paula Baumann, and her husband, Rick.

During a recess, Charles Lischner approached the Baumanns to offer his condolences on Jones' death. They accepted and Lischner and Paula Baumann shook hands.

Lischner said in an interview afterward that the situation was difficult for all the parents and that he felt badly about Jones' death.

"Their sons are still alive, but they're hurting, too," Paula Baumann said of the suspects' parents.

Things got off at a crawl when City Court Chief Magistrate William T. Simmons, who joined Deputy Coroner Timothy G. Uhrich in overseeing the proceedings, arrived an hour late. Even before he got to the courtroom, the defense attorneys were making objections.

One of the loudest outcries came from Elias' attorney, Duke George, concerning Matt Henkel's statement about his conversation with Elias while driving on Route 22.

Under questioning by the prosecutor, Matt Henkel told the court that he said, "I asked Craig if Andy had said anything ... "

But when George questioned him about that same conversation, Matt Henkel changed his testimony to: "I said, 'Did Andy say anything when you were killing him?' "

"Are you making it up?" George pointedly asked Matt Henkel.

Testifying under an immunity agreement as did two other prosecution witnesses, Matt Henkel told a packed courtroom in detail about his role in accompanying Elias to dump Jones' body off the Market Street Bridge on the Ohio-West Virginia line.

The body, which was weighted with chains and a 50-pound weight, was found by a diver and recovered April 12.

An autopsy showed that Jones died of asphyxiation before his body went in the water. His spleen was lacerated and evidence of bleeding was found in his neck.

However, forensic pathologist Dr. Leon Rozin of the Allegheny County coroner's office said yesterday that he could not determine the exact time or method of death.

Brownlee, 20, took the stand after Rozin. He detailed his day leading up to his and Jones' alleged kidnapping at 220 W. Sycamore St. He told the court that he was with Jones when Jones received a phone call from Jared Henkel saying that his safes had been stolen from the Mount Washington residence.

Brownlee testified about being sucker-punched by Elias at the house and how he and Jones had their arms and legs wrapped in duct tape. Brownlee also described how he was beaten and choked by Elias during hours of repetitive questioning about the safes and the money.

The only new nugget of information Brownlee offered was to testify that he was allowed to call a friend and ask him to retrieve a pair of shorts from his closet at his home on Clairhaven Street.

Stuffed into a pocket of those shorts was $4,000, he said. The friend retrieved the shorts and dropped them off in a sport-utility vehicle parked near the house where Brownlee and Jones were being held. The two had driven to the house in that vehicle, which was later found ablaze in a field in White Oak.

Brownlee said the $4,000 wasn't enough to buy his freedom, so he said he would retrieve another $3,000. He was released and told to go with Jared Henkel to get the money. But Brownlee never came back with the money.

Matt Henkel, who came forward to Pittsburgh homicide detectives about Jones several days after his disappearance, testified that he was asked by his brother to bring a roll of duct tape to him at a convenience store.

Later, he said, his brother asked him to borrow a truck. Matt Henkel said when he arrived at the Mount Washington house in the truck, Jones was still alive.

Then, he testified, Elias told him to retrieve a 50-pound weight.

"He said, 'Matt, come back. Don't make me come get you,' " Henkel said. "It was stern and it was frightening to me."

At this, Elias sat slack-jawed in the courtroom with a look of astonishment on his face.

Matt Henkel said he left with Brownlee and his brother. He returned alone and said he was told by Elias to come upstairs. In the front bedroom, he said, Jones lay on the floor.

"Andy was laying on his left side, facing the shared wall. His hands were bound and taped and so were his legs. He had a bag over his head," Matt Henkel said.

His face "seemed bluish in color and his lips were pulled back from his teeth."

"I asked Craig if he was dead. He said, 'What the [expletive] do you think?' so I didn't ask anymore questions."